The New Beirut

It's hard work establishing democracy in a place where leaders live in fear of assassination. But that's what it's like in Iraq and in the fledgling democracy of Lebanon, where a dozen car bombings have killed nearly 40 people in the last year alone. The latest was just two weeks ago.

It came at a time when a new, freely-elected government is struggling to establish itself against all odds and against old adversaries like Syria.

60 Minutes is calling this story the "New Beirut" because the Lebanese capital, now a prosperous and sophisticated city on the Mediterranean, has become the symbol of the difficult transition from the old ways of violence and civil war to democracy and independence.

Correspondent Dan Rather reports.

Everything is up-to-date in new Beirut but there's more to the city than cafes and shops. There's construction everywhere, and business is humming. There's a free press and a vibrant culture.

It is all the vision of one man: Rafik Hariri. Born poor in southern Lebanon, Hariri made billions in construction in Saudi Arabia and first became prime minister of Lebanon in 1992.

"I used to see in my father's eyes what he wanted Lebanon to look like. And I used to see what he wanted it to be," remembers Saad Hariri, Rafik Hariri's 35-year-old son.

Saad Hariri used to run the family's multi-billion-dollar business in Saudi Arabia. 60 Minutes met him in Beirut, the city his father invested billions in rebuilding.

Hariri acknowledges there is clearly some nervousness and anxiety beneath the surface of this bustling, cosmopolitan city and says he doesn't know if the bad old days are over for good. "Because, in our region in the Middle East, there are still a lot of bad intentions," he says.

Those bad intentions became evident last Valentine's Day, when Rafik Hariri's six-car, heavily-armored motorcade was intercepted in downtown Beirut by a pick-up truck carrying a ton of high explosives.

The ultra-wealthy Hariri had the best security money could buy but it wasn't enough. He and 19 others were killed; dozens were injured.

The explosion shook the Middle East and left the Hariri family despondent and angry.

"There's a lot of hatred in me for those who committed this crime. But I believe justice has to come out,"

Does he feel the need for revenge in his heart?

"Justice is revenge," he says.

But justice isn't Saad Hariri's top priority: survival is. During the time 60 Minutes spent with him in Beirut, Hariri was constantly surrounded by a cocoon of security, because following in his father's political footsteps can be dangerous.

"It's his legacy that killed him. And I'm following his legacy. So there's a risk, and I'm willing to take it," he says.

Saad Hariri's father was killed while he was leading the call for an end to Syria's occupation of Lebanon. But Syria had no intention of leaving the country it had dominated for 29 years.

Most people believed that the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was behind the killing. And a U.N. investigator has linked top Syrian officials – and their Lebanese allies – to the assassination.

But instead of being intimidated, the Lebanese were outraged. As Saad Hariri helped carry his father's casket thru the streets of Beirut, angry mourners chanted anti-Syrian slogans.

Who killed Saad's father?

"I don't know," he says. "But no matter who it is, they have to pay the price. And not only because he's my father. He is the father of democracy in this country."

The wave of huge demonstrations that followed, demanding Syria's withdrawal, were unheard of in the Middle East. What became known as Lebanon's "Cedar Revolution" forced Syria into a humiliating withdrawal of its troops from Lebanon.

And Saad Hariri – in the name of his father – led the anti-Syrian opposition to victory in May elections.

"It's true that people, you know, voted for me. But they voted really for my father. I need to prove myself now," Hariri says.

Saad Hariri says the new Lebanon is independent and unified but "it's a fragile unification."

Lebanon has always been a fragile, and fractured, country. Loyalties here are to family, tribe and religion. Eighteen Moslem and Christian sects – to say nothing of the Druze, who are neither – compete for influence and power.

In 1975, those tensions exploded into a civil war that raged for 15 years. Thousands were killed and Beirut was devastated.

Beirut used to have an area called the "green line," the border between Muslims and Christians. During Lebanon's long bloody civil war, it was dangerous, perhaps fatal, to stand near the line. But Beirut today is a different place entirely. Most of the signs of war, like bullet-holes in walls and damaged buildings, have been replaced by a modern, gleaming skyline.

Monot Street is where the young and the hip meet in Beirut. On a visit one evening, 60 Minutes came across a bar with an unusual theme: sandbags, artillery shells and bullet-holes. It's called "1975," the year the civil war broke out. That's before most of the patrons in the bar were born.

The Beirut we saw is trying to replace war with wealth. It's a place to flaunt your assets, on the ground and in the air. More than 100 new high-rises dot Beirut's skyline. Apartments in one new tower start at $2 million..

It all happened because Hariri turned downtown Beirut into a private development project and lured wealthy Arabs from the Persian Gulf to invest and do business in Lebanon.

Jamil Mroue is the publisher of Beirut's English-language newspaper, "The Daily Star." He told 60 Minutes many Lebanese were skeptical at first.

"Rafik Hariri was not a charismatic leader. He was a man with a lot of presence, but not charismatic and not very well-liked either, for a long time," says Mroue.

The elder Hariri was disliked because people wondered whether he was rebuilding Beirut to help Lebanon or to line his own pockets. After all, Hariri's company did most of the reconstruction. But success made believers out of most Lebanese.

Where does Mroue think Lebanon is today? "It's like a person out of prison. Lots of confusion. Lots of energy. Lots of hope. Lots of insecurity," he says.

But many public figures in Lebanon are genuinely fearful for their lives, and Mroue thinks they should be.

"We live in a fault line diplomatically and in terms of changes that are taking place. We are smack in the center of a fault line. And, yes, they should fear for their lives, yes," he says.

Walid Jumblatt, leader of Lebanon's Druze community, is one of those public figures who live in fear. He is Hariri's main anti-Syrian ally, and he has been living dangerously for decades.

He says he escaped assassination attempts three times. "I had the experience of the car bomb and I managed to escape alive. My bodyguard was killed just next to me. And I had with me my wife, my ex-wife, the mother of my children. And she managed to escape alive, thanks God," Jumblatt recalls.

60 Minutes met Jumblatt at his castle high in the Shouf mountains above Beirut. As he showed us around his luxurious and well-protected compound, he told us how his father had been murdered 30 years ago by the Syrians.

Jumblatt fears he is now a target. "I'm going to accept the risks of my job, okay? What will happen will happen. This is destiny. My father used to say that," he says.

And Jumblatt says Rafik Hariri was also worried about being killed. "Two weeks before his killing, he told me that, 'Well, they might kill you or they might kill me to create havoc in Lebanon,'" he says with a shrug. "They killed him."

To avoid his father's fate, Saad Hariri knows he has to take every precaution.

From the moment he steps off his private Boeing 737 jet, his security team is on high alert. As Hariri travels through Beirut, his motorcade weaves at high speeds through the streets, antennas jamming cell phones that might detonate a bomb.

Hariri's security men get really nervous when he makes an impromptu stop in a public place, like the memorial where his father, and the bodyguards who died with him, are buried.

Even in government buildings, Hariri's security men don't take any chances.

What does he think his chances are of staying alive?

"With this security, I hope big," he says laughing. "I know there is a risk. I know the guys on my security team, they're working day and night. But one day, each one of us, or all of us, will end up dead."

Because of the risks, Hariri rarely leaves his family's headquarters and does most of his official business there.

It is Hariri's security that keeps him safe at home but it also makes him a prisoner. Political power can come at a high price in Lebanon.

Does Walid Jumblatt think Hariri can stay alive?

"Well, that's another issue," he says. "Who can guess when it's your turn to be eliminated?"

By Michael Rosenbaum