(CBS) When 60 Minutes asked Mahmud's teen-aged daughter Rheem what the hardest thing is about her life, she said it is seeing things she can't forget.

All of his children, Rafif, 11, and 13-year-old Mustafa, have seen things no parent wants their child to see. "One day, we see there's two fighter, they killed two boys in front of us," Mahmud explains.

Mahmud says the two fighters just shot the two people in the street and left their bodies on the road. "And they see the blood of them," he explains.

His children remember the incident, and his daughter wept when asked about it.

It’s a story heard over and over in Iraq. And no one has been spared, not even the most privileged.

Dr. Quoresh al-Kasir is one of Iraq's most prominent surgeons, and was a guest of President Bush at the White House in 2004. He and his family lived on Haifa Street, an upscale Sunni area, where fighting broke out in January between the mostly-Shiite Iraqi army and Sunni gunmen.

"The Iraqi Army tried to kill my family and my kids," Dr. Quoresh explains.

That was when CBS News first spoke to Quoresh. He and his family were trapped by the fighting, and CBS broadcast his desperate cry for help on the Evening News.

"The snipers were on the other building," Quoresh explains. "When the shots started to come through the windows my sons and my daughter, you know, they were in front of my eyes, expecting at any moment the Iraqi army comes and shoots my children."

His wife Nala, sons Zaid and Taif, and his daughter Dina still can’t believe they survived.

"What was it like for you that time, when you were stuck in the apartment, trapped there during the fighting?" Logan asks Dina.

"I feel I will be dying," she recalls.

Her brothers nod in agreement. "'Cause this is the end," Zaid adds.

"You thought it was the end?" Logan asks.

"We are all are crying, me and husband, and my son, and my daughter all are crying that time," Quoresh's wife Nala remembers.

As the fighting raged for 10 days, they all hid in the bathroom of their dark apartment, without heat, electricity, and running short of food.

"We were so hungry at that time," Quoresh remembers. "So my wife said, 'Quoresh, we had to had, I don't know, the kids are hungry.'"

"I go to the kitchen and prepare something to eat," Nala explains. But out of fear of the snipers, Quoresh's wife couldn't walk upright past the windows.

"So she crawled and went to the kitchen. And then we sat in the bathroom near the restroom. We ate," he remembers.

The day after the CBS News report about the doctor and his family’s plight was broadcast, the U.S. decided to launch a rare rescue mission, sending in soldiers from the 4/9 Cavalry to save them.

With U.S. helicopters hovering over Haifa Street, a convoy of Bradley fighting vehicles drove down the dangerous road to Quoresh's house. When soldiers yelled to locate them, the family came out, luggage in hand, and was hurried into the Bradley vehicles and taken to safety. No shots were fired and the rescue mission was very quick and precise.

"We heard the helicopters starting to come to the area," Quoresh recalls. "My sons and daughter said, 'Oh, Baba, the American started to reach the area.'"

"I remember that. It was a moment really, it was a start of a new life," Quoresh says, describing his feelings of the rescue.

Quoresh's daughter Dina says the rescue was "like a dream."

His life was saved, but Quoresh lost his home and almost everything he owned. He says he was targeted because he’s a doctor.

Nearly 200 physicians, including 15 of Quoresh's closest friends, have been murdered by those intent on destroying Iraqi society, which is one reason why 18,000 Iraqi doctors – half the physicians in the country – have fled for fear of ending up like many of the people who pass through their hospital doors.

Asked why he remains in Iraq, Quoresh tells Logan, "This is the big question that I have been asked from so many people."

"And what's the answer?" Logan asks.

"And the answer is that I love Iraq," he replies. "Yeah. This is my country."

Produced By Peter Klein and Jeff Newton
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