>> pelley: good evening. he is u.s. army staff sergeant robert bails and at this moment he is in the air enroute to force force leavenworth, kansas, where he will be held in connection with the massacre of 16 afghan civilians. bales' name had not been known until tonight, but several sources familiar with the investigation have confirmed his identity to cbs identity to cbs news. we found pictures of a man described as staff sergeant robert robert bales in an article about the second battalion third infantry regiment third striker brigade brigade combat team of the second infantry division. the home the home base of that unit is joint base lewis-mcchord in washington state, and that is also the suspect's home base. last last sunday before dawn, a lone american soldier walked into two afghan villages and shot the civilians civilians in their homes-- nine of them were children. the killings have created a crisis in the ten-year-old war, and this week president obama called the atrocity heartbreaking and outrageous. david martin is at the pentagon breaking this story tonight. david? >> reporter: scott, as you just said, we have identified the alleg aalleged shooter as sf sergeant robert bales. he is 38 years old from ohio but was stationed at joint base lewis-mcchord in the state of washington. his name has still not been officially released, in part because of fear for his family's safety. but his wife and two daughters have already moved out of their home and on to the base at lewis-mcchord. investigators have established that on the night of the murders, sergeant bales had been drinking with two other soldiers. how much we don't know. but his subsequent actions seem methodical and deliberate. he armed himself and put on his night vision goggles. he walked off the base in full view of afghan guards, hiked a mile to mile to the first village where he killed 11, then back to a second village where he killed five five more. returning to the base, he crawled through an orchard as if he were trying to evade detection but was spotted by a search search party. only then did he surrender, invoking his right to remain silent and demanding a lawyer. to the families of the victims, it seems like too much murder and mayhem for one american soldier soldier to commit. they met with afghan president karzai today and afterwards he unleashed a verbal tpaous lad against the american military. >> this has been going on for too long. it is by all means the end of the rope here. the end of the rope. this form of activity, this behavior cannot behavior cannot be tolerated. it's past, past, past the time. >> reporter: karzai also accused the u.s. of withholding information from afghan investigators. when cbs news caught up with general john allen, the top commander in afghanistan who was back in washington to testify before congress, he said it's just a simple misunderstanding. >> we're cooperating, we just need to make sure we understand what their sense of cooperation is and we'll be fully cooperative. >> reporter: bales, who is describe described by his attorney as a decorated soldier and family man, is expected to arrive at the military prison at fort leavenworth tonight. >> pelley: david, thank you very much. it turns out that osama bin laden gave orders to assassinate president obama and u.s. general david petraeus. that was revealed today in documents that were seized at the compound in pakistan the night u.s. special operations forces killed bin laden. at at first, it was first reported in the "washington post" today the papers say bin laden wanted the president dead so that vice president president joe biden could take over. in bin laden's mind biden was "unprepared for the job." the white house said today the plot was never a serious threat. in new jersey today, the defense portrayed it as a college prank by an immature kid. but a jury today decided that it was much more than that. it was a hate crime when rutgers university student dharun ravi used a web cam to watch a sexual encounter by his gay roommate who later committed suicide. va valvravi was convicted on the 15 counts against counts against him including bias intimidation and invasion of privacy. erin moriarty has been following this case from the beginning. >> guilty. >> reporter: the guilty verdict was a first. never before has someone been convicted of a hate crime based on invasion of privacy. jurors decided that when 20-year-old dharun ravi spied on his his freshman roommate, tyler clemente, he did it to intimidate clemente, who was gay. two days after clemente realized what ravi had done he committed suicide, suicide, jumping off the george washington bridge. many of the facts of the case were no in dispute. ravi set up this web cam when he learned clemente was meeting a man in his rutgers university dorm room and watched the two embrace from another room. days later, there was a second encounter that ravi tweeted others to watch as well. ravi himself admitted to invasion of privacy during a police police interview. >> did you violate his privacy? >> yes, i did. >> reporter: but the jury had to decide to decide on why ravi did it and what clemente was thinking as well. middlesex county prosecutor bruce kaplan. >> >> i think they empathized and accept accepted the evidence that tyler believed that he was being targeted and that he was doing everything he possibly could in order to deal with the situati situation. >> reporter: what was also unusual was the large number of e-mails, e-mails, tweets, and texts that prosecutors used as evidence that ravi was trying to humiliate his gay roommate. messages like this: i set my computer computer to alert me. keep the gays away. but the defense argued ravi was immature and there was no bias. clemente clemente's father joe says there is no excuse for this kind of behavior. >> when you see somebody doing something wrong, tell them "that's not right. stop it." you can make the world a better place. >> reporter: ravi faces up to ten ten years in prison and, scott, he's not an american citizen. he is here legally but he could be deported and i think they'll decide that in about six weeks. >> pelley: erin, it seems to me hate crimes usually involve threats or violence and neither seem to be the case here. >> reporter: scott, you're exactly right. i think that's what concern some people people who monitor hate crime legislation. they're concerned this opens the door to door to all kinds of prosecution for acts we don't think of as actually hate. >> pelley: erin, thank you very much. the cleanup continues in michigan a day after tornadoes swept through. three possible twisters hit the state with the town of dexter getting the worse of it. jim axelrod gives us a look at the damage and tells us about a system that scientists are fareloping to predict tornadoes far in advance. >> reporter: it could have been a lot worse in dexter, michigan. a tornado cut a ten-mile-path of destruction. but no one was hurt. >> it's just a miracle everybody's okay. i mean, it's just unbelievable. >> reporter: many in dexter credit the alert issued 33 minutes before the tornado struck. so imagine what months of warning warning might do. that's exactly what columbia university scientist adam zobel is working on. do you think at some point in the tpaoufp err forecast will be issued issued for a tornado season like one is issued for a hurricane season? >> yes, i think that will happen. probably within a few years from now,. >> reporter: >> reporter: sobel and his team looked at 30 years of climate data. they found two conditions linked to active to active tornado seasons. one was wind shear, wind blowing at different directions from tpr *efl levels. the other was atmospheric instability that produces thunderstorms. so what you're doing is refining your sense of predicting wind shear and instability? >> yes. using the numerical climate models thamodels that have beend by forecasting centers to predict climate up to several months in advance. >> reporter: the new models developed by the columbia team provide forecasters with a higher degree of precision in predicting wind shear and thunderstorm activity than ever before. that allows for seasonal predictions up to a year ahead of time. scientists still have work to do figuring out why the spring is so much busier than the fall when it comes to tornadoes even though conditions for producing them are similar in both se seasons. scott, the hope is an accurate forecast for an intense tornado season will assist with preparation and awareness. >> pelley: jim, thank you. it has now been a year sincere i can'sincerians rose up against e assad dictatorship. the streets were filled with protesters demanding bashar al-assad go. the u.n. says 8,000 civilians have been killed in assad's brutal crackdown on dissent. the freedom movement in syria started last year as revolutions swept through egypt, tunisia, and libya. clarissa ward tells us the syrian uprising began with a few teenag teenagers and she caught up with one of them in jordan. >> reporter: when 16-year-old mohammed and a group of young boys spray painted "down with the regime" on a school wall one year ago, they had no idea their actions would spark a revolution. "we saw it during the other arab revolutions" he said. "we just wrote the same. " two days after painting the gragraffiti, mohammed said he ad other boys "the youngest of whom wa was ten years old" were arrested by security forces. he says they were tortured. four hung me by the door from my hands for four hours. they stripped me naked and began to beat me." the boys were released two weeks later. but their detention and torture ignited large protests in their hometown of deraa-- a protest the regime tried to stop with brutal brutal tactics. mohammed and his family fled to jordan in fe jordan in fear for their lives. one year later, the regime continues its violent crackdown on the opposition. the number of people fleeing the country continues to rise. that is syria behind me. we're so close we can see the syrian network on our cell phones. since the uprising began a year ago, more than 7,000 people have made the dangerous journey from inside syria to the safety of jordan. most stay in small private homes provided by by charities like this one. almost all have horrifying stories from inside syria and don't want their faces to be shown. this man claims pro-government thugs known as shabitha attacked him at a protest. he says they tide an explosionive to his hand and blew it up. despite the deaths and suffering of the past year, mohammed says he would do the same again. "a lot of youths have died for the revolution the revolution in syria" he said. said. "they were kids just like me. they went to take part in those d.e.m. m d.e.m. most and they never came back." clarissa ward, cbs news, amman. >> pelley: north korea said today that it plans to send a satellite into space next month. the u.s. said that would violate a a moratorium on long-range launches a launches and the state department threatened to cut off food aid to food aid to the north. all of this happened as the north koreans conducted military drills. drills. their new leader, kim jong-un, watched through binoculars. how one manager prevented a bigger disaster bigger disaster at fukushima by disobeying orders. getting in line to get apple's new new ipad. and "on the road" with steve hartman on this court she rules. when the "cbs evening news" continues. captioning sponsored by cbs cheesy chicken & rice, and other chicken dishes that are oh...so...whoa. campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. is non-stop to seattle? just carry preparation h totables. discreet, little tubes packed with big relief. from the brand doctors recommend most by name. preparation h totables. the anywhere preparation h. preparation h totables. do you often experience the feeling of a dry mouth? it can be the side effect of many medications. dry mouth can be frustrating... and ignoring it can lead to... sipping water can help, but dentists recommend biotene. biotene moisturizes and helps supplement some of saliva's enzymes, providing soothing relief when you need it most. don't ignore dry mouth... look for biotene in your oral care section today. this has been medifacts for biotene. i'm here to unleash my inner cowboy. instead i got heartburn. 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[ sigh of relief ] [ short breath ] [ longer breath ] [ short breath ] [ male announcer ] new bengay zero degrees. freeze and move on. >> pelley: one year ago tonight, rising radiation forced the evacuation of most emergency workers from the fukushima nuclear power plant. the tsunami that struck japan five days earlier set off an emergency of a meltdown of three reactors. a former new jersey leer plant operator working for the u.s. nuclear regulatory commission was sent in. he was america's top expert at the scene and an eyewitness to history. >> it was like having this great san francisco earthquake. (screaming) (screaming) hurricane katrina and more than three, three mile islands all at the same time. >> pelley: fukushima had six reactors, each powered by uranium submerged in water to keep the uranium cool. it was built to take a tsunami with a sea wall 19 feet high, but the twha *ef struck that day was was 46 feet. cooling systems failed, nuclear cores melted, buildings began to explode. what was the state of information that they were working with? >> essentially they were blind. there was very little instrumentation that survived the tsunami and the accident so you have to use secondary information. >> pelley: what was it that you wanted to know? >> well, we wanted to know everything. (laughs) >> pelley: charles ka casto's team reported back to washington in this conversation call one year ago today. >> pelley: that worst case was happening. a team led by plant manager masao yoshida was hold up in a radiation-proof command center and as the crisis brewed, yoshida wanted to flood the reactors with sea water. the plant owner rejected that idea. what in your estimation looking back knowing what you know now was was the key moment that prevented this from becoming a much greater tragedy than it w was. >> when yoshida-san put ocean water into the reactors. that was a key moment. >> pelley: did everyone agree it was the right thing to do? >> not everyone agreed. >> pelley: but the plant manager decided to do that on his own. >> tha >> that's right. >> pelley: not very japanese. >> very reactor operator. >> pelley: the plant operator ordered yoshida to stop. he said that he would but he lied. he continued to flood the reactors. had he not, we now know that the cores may have burned all the way into the earth, releasing untold amounts of radiation. >> you really won't know until you get in there and can get a video camera or some device in there to know what really happened. >> pelley: how long would that be? >> it could take years to understand exactly what happened. >> pelley: today fukushima is in a in a safe condition called "cold shutdown." in fact, japan has shut down more than 50 of its reactors while it decides what to do about the future of nuclear power in that country. charles casto spent almost a year year working in fukushima. the lessons he and the nuclear regulatory commission learned are being applied to u.s. plants today. george clooney taken away in sandcuffs. his dad, too. what they did to get arrested when we come back. ♪ oh. let's go. from the crack, off the backboard. 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