is >> pelley: tonight for the first time you'll meet one of the navy seals who killed osama bin laden. he tells us about the channels they faced. "can you guys pull this off?" i'm sure to a man we all said yes, absolutely. >> pelley: dramatic rescues as isaac brings major flooding to the gulf coast. reports from byron pitts and mark strassmann in the hurricane zone. bob schieffer and norah o'donnell on paul ryan's night at the republican convention. and we'll talk to mitt romney about connecting with the voters. you're worth something north of $200 million. what do you say to a single mother who thinks "he doesn't know me." captioning sponsored by cbs this is the "cbs evening news"

with scott pelley. >> pelley: good evening, tonight you are going to hear from one of the navy seals who killed osama bin laden. in may of last year, 24 men from seal team 6 raided bin laden's home in abbottabad, pakistan. none of those men has publicly spoken about the mission until now. the seal you're about to meet has written a book and he has done his only interview for "60 minutes." then you walk into a secure room... he calls himself mark owen, that's not his real name. we've disguised him and will keep his name confidential for his own safety. owen was on the helicopter that crashed in bin laden's compound. he was the second man in the room when bin laden was shot. he took the photographs of the body that have never been released. but owen told us that the story is not about him. he says it's the story of hundreds of americans who spent

years gathering intelligence, planning and training. of the seals, owen says, "we just took care of the last 40 minute." we built what we believe is the most accurate model of bin laden's compound ever constructed. owen told us that before the mission a full-sized replica of the compound was built many the united states for training. and there was a dress rehearsal for the top brass, including the chairman of the joint chiefs admiral mike mullen and admiral eric olson, head of special operations command. how did that rehearsal go? >> it was fine. i mean, this is nothing new to us. the part that was new was all the v.i.p.s sitting there watching. one of the things i liked after the fact was i remember admiral mullen coming by and talking to each one of us and admiral olson as well. that was cool. they walk by, shook each of our hands and said "are you ready? can you guys pull this off?" and i'm pretty sure to a man we

all said yes, absolutely. >> pelley: how long was it before you got the call to go? >> we had a week off in virginia beach. when i say "off" it wasn't completely but we had a week off at home, conducted one more rehearsal day training on the life-sized mock-up and then we got the word that we were going. >> reporter: owen's book was to be released on the anniversary of 9/11 but the release date has been moved up to next week. there has been criticism that the book is timed to influence the election. >> my worry from the beginning is, you know, it's a political season. this book is not political whatsoever. it doesn't... it doesn't bad-mouth either party. and we specifically chose september 11 to keep it out of the politics. you know, if these crazies on either side of the aisle want to make it political, shame on them. this is the book about september 11 and it needs to rest on september 11.

not be brought into the political arena, because this has nothing to do with politics. >> pelley: when word of the book was announced last week, a few news organizations discovered mark owen's real name and published it. we will not reveal his true name. we will be carrying more of the interview on the "cbs evening news" next week. the first, first-person account of the killing of osama bin laden will be on "60 minutes" one week from this sunday on september 9. now, to hurricane isaac. it was downgraded today from a hurricane to a tropical storm, but it's still doing a good deal of damage. 70 mile an hour winds dumping as much as 20 inches of rain, isaac is moving inland at just six miles an hour. one man has died and roads were crowded with many of the more than 100,000 people who were told to evacuate. at least 690,000 homes and

businesses are without power tonight. damage could top $1.5 billion. byron pitts is in plaquemines pair reurbg, louisiana, tonight. byron? >> reporter: scott, rescue teams has been in these floodwaters all day looking for people who ignored a mandatory evacuation order and paid for it. as rescue workers cut through his roof and the floodwaters rose inside his home, 70-year-old fred leslie knew he was running out of time but he sent his dogs out first anyway. exhausted, wet, bruised, he survived. >> this is home. where you gonna go? this is home. >> reporter: it's the same reason karen sylvia game for ignoring the mandatory evacuation order. >> first we were gonna try to leave and then we didn't because we had nowhere to go. >> reporter: the timing was lost on no one here. exactly seven years to the day that hurricane katrina devastated the gulf coast, once

again people, their pets, and whatever worldly possessions they could carry were picked off roof tops and ferried to safety. carol hicks couldn't stop trying. >> it's horrible! everybody's house is gone! nobody's got a house. >> reporter: today, an earthen levee failed. in some parts of plaquemines parish the floodwater is now ten to 14 feet deep. more than 100 people are homeless. it's left louisiana governor bobby jindal and the army corps of engineers with a grim choice-- expose a few homes to floodwaters in order to save many more. >> they are considering actually doing a breach intentionally to release water, but not... they've not made that decision. >> reporter: it's a choice the city of new orleans does not have to face. its new $14.6 billion levee system has thus far worked to specifications. flooding was minor. 65 president clinton of the city is without power. more a consequence of the

hurricane force winds than the rain. authorities in plaquemines parish will now renew their request for improved levees. it's a call that comes too late for families like hugh and ann french. they were rescued by boat through their second floor bedroom window. >> he's what we're left with. >> reporter: you seem okay with that. >> i'm fine with it, yes. that's what we got insurance f for. >> reporter: tonight, new orleans is under a dawn-to-dusk curfew and, scott, the governor's office just announced authorities will punch a hole in that levee here in plaquemines parish as early as tomorrow. >> pelley: byron, thank you. what isaac lacks in strength it makes up for in size. the storm stretches more than 400 miles across the gulf coast. mark strassmann is in gulfport, mississippi, tonight. mark, what do you see there? >> reporter: what we see, scott, and feel are these lashing rains that feel like

hail. they've been coming down all day fueled by 80 mile per hour gusts. but, like katrina, the real worry with isaac is tomorrow surge. a seven-foot storm surge has flooded parts of u.s. 90, the state's intercoastal highway. one section closed for 30 miles, possibly until friday. where we are in gulfport, mississippi, we're marooned. in whatever direction we drive eventually we hit impassable water and unless you're in a humvee like 1500 national guardsmen on patrol here you really are not going to get anywhere so any hurricane holdouts are stuck. they've extended the curfew that began last night until tomorrow morning. 24,000 mississippians are without power. they're going to stay in the dark for some time because these conditions are too bad even for emergency crews. and, scott, more trouble is coming. close to two feet of rain could fall on mississippi by friday. >> pelley: mark strassmann in the storm. thank you, mark. all that rain that isaac is

bringing will be welcome farther north. have a look at this. parts of arkansas, missouri, illinois, and indiana are dealing with an extreme drought and that's exactly where the remnants of isaac are expected to be in the next few days. isaac is driving up the price of gasoline. the storm has all but shut down production in the gulf. gas was up five cents today to a nationwide average of $3.80 a gallon. here at the republican national convention it is paul ryan's big night as he accepts the nomination for vice president. the last republican member of the house to do that was william e. miller, barry goldwater's running mate in 1964. they lost. so norah o'donnell, ryan's speech tonight could help determine whether he becomes vice president or the answer to a trivia question. >> reporter: that's right, scott. a senior romney advisor tells me this speech tonight is going to

be a hard-hitting critique of obama's record. it is tough. it is substantive. but it is not personal. paul ryan will specifically invoke the name barack obama, something that actually was not done from this convention hall last night and left a lot of republicans that i talked to scratching their heads. now, congressman ryan is the chairman of the house budget committee. he is the author of a controversial budget plan that would cut spending and touch the third rail of politics-- entitlement spending, specifically medicare. he talk about medicare tonight. we actually saw congressman ryan in this hall earlier today. he was getting a feel for the podium. he even asked aides to point him out where the debt clock is located inside this hall. now, the republican campaign see this is as an opportunity to introduce paul ryan to millions of viewers tonight. so there will be a lot of references in his speech to his hometown of jaynesville, wisconsin, where he grew up and

still lives today on the same block. also, he will say tonight: "after four years of getting the run around, america needs a turnaround and the man for the job is governor romney." so the goal tonight for paul ryan is to deliver this deconstruction of obama's record and also make the case for the man mitt romney who chose paul ryan to be his vice presidential pick. paul ryan, of course, just 42 years old. >> pelley: thank you, norah. mitt romney's speech tomorrow night is a chance to reintroduce himself and with that speech he will accomplish what his father did not. george romney, who ran american motors, also ran for the republican nomination in 1968. before this convention, we asked mitt romney about his plan to cut the federal budget and how a wealthy man relates to the middle-class. you were born into a family that was well off and now you're

worth something north of $200 million. what do you say tow a single mother who thinks "he doesn't know me"? or to a guy who's 50 years old and hasn't had a job and thinks "he can't relate to me"? >> you know, i grew up in a home where a mom and a dad taught us some extraordinary lessons. i got a perspective on how my dad was able to handle tough situations and then i, through my life, was able to have the experience of working in settings that required a real turnaround, an uphill battle. and i've learned some of the things that i believe can help get america strong again and help the people of america. >> pelley: you talk about cutting taxes and balancing the budget. well, to do that you must be anticipating hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cuts in the federal budget and i wonder what would you cut? >> well, actually, the right way to balance a budget really has two prongs: one is to do those

things that encourage the growth of the economy. so you do things to get small businesses growing and adding jobs but you go through and say which of those things that you should take out of the budget that no longer are essential. the easiest for me to knock out is obamacare. it's about $100 billion a year. we simply can't afford it. but there are other subsidies i think you'll find that we take out. >> pelley: give me one. >> well, the subsidy for pbs. the subsidy for amtrak, the subsidy for the national endowment for the arts. the subsidy for the national endowment for the humanities. >> pelley: that are small bore, governor. we're talking hundreds of billions of dollars that you would need. we're talking department. >> i'll keep going then. let's keep going. another hundred billion dollars a year comes by taking medicaid which is the health care program for the poor as well as food stamps and housing vouchers and sending those back to the states and growing them at the rate of inflation or inflation plus 1% in the case of medicaid and i think states can do a better job

managing the effort than can the federal government. >> pelley: our cbs news live prime time coverage of the republican national convention continues tonight at 10:00 eastern time. that's 7:00 in the west. it's one of the hottest issues of the campaign. we will look at the competing plans for medicare. we're seeing a remarkable increase in cases of west nile virus. and there was an echo from world war ii in the skies over germany. war ii in the skies over germany. when the "cbs evening news" continues. made a commitment to the gulf. and every day since, we've worked hard to keep it. bp has paid over twenty-three billion dollars to help people and businesses who were affected, and to cover cleanup costs. today, the beaches and gulf are open for everyone to enjoy -- and many areas are reporting their best tourism seasons in years. we've shared what we've learned with governments and across the industry so we can all produce energy more safely. i want you to know, there's another commitment bp takes just as seriously: our commitment to america.

bp supports nearly two-hundred-fifty thousand jobs in communities across the country. we hired three thousand people just last year. bp invests more in america than in any other country. in fact, over the last five years, no other energy company has invested more in the us than bp. we're working to fuel america for generations to come. today, our commitment to the gulf, and to america, has never been stronger. there's the sign to the bullpen. here he comes. you wouldn't want your doctor doing your job, the pitch! whoa! so why are you doing his? only your doctor can determine if your persistent heartburn is actually something more serious like acid reflux disease. over time, stomach acid can damage the lining of your esophagus. for many, prescription nexium not only provides 24-hour heartburn relief, but can also help heal acid-related erosions in the lining of your esophagus. talk to your doctor about the risk for osteoporosis-related bone fractures and low magnesium levels with long-term use of nexium.

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differences between obama and romney campaigns is medicare. we asked dean reynolds to take a closer look at the two plans and he joins us from just outside the convention. dean? >> reporter: scott, the latest figures we have show 18% of floridians receive medicare benefits, making it the third-highest total in the nation of maine and west virginia. so medicare's a big issue here, as it is in other battleground states. >> this is where you had your biopsy site last time. it was fine. >> reporter: linda schulte is a 45-year-old cancer survivor making a living in the volatile real estate market around orlando. >> and walk in closet. >> reporter: the market has been improving, but she's worried nonetheless. health insurance is an issue for you. >> it's a major issue. i went from being perfectly healthy person in great shape and everything to... i was dealing with breast cancer.

>> reporter: today she exercises regularly because she knows the cancer could return and even though she's 20 years shy of eligibility for medicare she is anxious about the debate over its future. >> 20 years is going to fly by. i understand that. >> we are done. >> reporter: in the affordable care act, the president offers little change in traditional medicare for patients. and while republicans say he is cutting $700 billion from the program that's really the estimated savings over ten years from lower payments to hospitals and doctors. >> my plan's already extended the life of medicare by nearly a decade. >> reporter: mitt romney says the system is going bankrupt and to prevent that he would offer those now under 55 a choice: keep medicare or buy private insurance with help from an annual lump sum payment from the government. that, he says, will drive down costs. >> there will be greater competition between the government and the private plans. >> reporter: but he doesn't say how generous the government payment would be.

and acknowledges that patients would be on the hook for medical bills exceeding whatever the amount is. >> if you can afford to do it, it's great. but i don't know how many people over the age of 65 if they haven't saved up a lot of money are going to be able to afford to do that voucher program. >> reporter: would you prefer that the current system just be left alone or that we make big changes in the existing system for people like you? >> if they don't make some type of changes i'm not sure it's going to be there, though. a lovely view back here. with the current administration, i'm not sure our economy is going to flourish as it would if we had romney in there. but i'm not really certain what kind of a health plan we'll have with romney. so it's a huge tug-of-wariments it's a huge tug-of-war. >> reporter: that tug-of-war, scott, between her health care needs of the future and the economic conditions she finds herself in right now. >> pelley: dean, thanks very much.

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it's a type of galaxy they've never seen before. they call it a hot dog. it pumps out as much light as 100 trillion suns and there are thousands of these galaxies. they're very far away, about ten billion light years, which means they formed when the universe was in its infancy. what on earth is going on in the presidential race? bob schieffer has some thoughts when we continue from the republican national convention. [ female announcer ] did you know the average person smiles more than 50 times a day? so brighten your smile a healthy way with listerine® whitening plus restoring rinse. it's the only rinse that makes your teeth two shades whiter and two times stronger. ♪ listerine® whitening... power to your mouth.

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coming up our live conversation with ann romney. >> plus we're live in new orleans with the latest from isaac. bob schieffer is us now covering his 22nd national party convention. bob, the president and mitt romney in our latest poll are virtually tied in this race. what's going on? >> it's so interesting, scott. if you look at the indicators, mitt romney ought to be running away with this race. most americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, the economy is sluggish, unemployment's high. but he's not. it's a dead heat, a nasty republican primary, a barrage of negative ads and, i must say, a gaffe or two along the way have taken their toll. fairly or unfairly the polls suggest that people just like the president more than they like mitt romney. republican senator lindsey graham told a breakfast here

"we're getting killed on the personality race." that's why i think ann romney's speech here last night was so important. she wowed this convention with a speech aimed directly at women voters. it gave a whole new human side to romney. it's too soon to know the impact beyond this convention hall and romney still has to close the deal when he speaks to the convention tomorrow night. now, i've never been one to offered a vice, but thinking back on the response ann romney got last night, romney might just want to think about going with what works. when he goes out on that that stage to accept the nomination, he might bring her out there with him, maybe ask her to say a few words. couldn't hurt. >> pelley: bob, thank you very much. that's the "cbs evening news" for tonight. bob and i will be back at 10:00 eastern time with our live coverage of the republican national convention. for now, for all of us at cbs news all around the world, i'm scott pelley in tampa, see you again soon.

captioning sponsored by cb this is 9 news now. it has been a day of dramatic rescues as tropical storm isaac crushes southern la la, lot of wind and rain -- southern louisiana, lots of wind and rain. it's pretty much staying and spinning and spitting all over the place. >> we've got it about 50 miles now west of new orleans, winds still 70 miles per hour, movement northwest at 6, they're looking at another 4 to 8 inches of rain. >> karen brown is live with the latest from mourns. >> reporter: so far in new orleans the 200-mile storm protection perimeter is still holding but right now there is flooding in one community. they say the current of the storm surge is so strong they can't even get in to help people. further south things are even worse.