What are the Lessons from 25 Years of Reporting on the Post-9/11 Wars? (Future Security Forum 2026)

Our next panel is uh what are the lessons from 25 years of reporting um in the post 911 wars and our moderator is uh Kimberly Dozier and you will introduce our panel. Thanks so much for all your patience today. >> Thank you so much and um thank you to Peter New America and ASU for holding this conversation. and it's been really thoughtful listening back from the green room. Um, we're going to dig into how 911 affected us in reporting 9/11 and everything that happened afterwards. Um, we have at the far end Elliot Arian, journalist and author, also Marine Corps and CIA special operations veteran. Dad was a Marine. Got to mention Marines. Um, Steve Cole, Pulitzer Prizewinning author and journalist. uh former dean of the Columbia Journalism School and the former president and CEO of New America and author of more books than I have time to list here. Um Azade Moveni, associate professor of journalism at NYU, um ASU's future of war fellow in 2018 and author of guest house for young widows. And also she just got back from u her frequent trips to Iran. So, we will be drilling into that. Um, and Joby Warick, Pulitzer Prizewinning author and national security reporter for the Washington Post. And the new book that is for sale just outside is The Jackal, The Rise and Fall of Carlos, the World's First Super Terrorist. And I'm Kim Doer, CNN global affairs analyst. And uh I have uh run into some of you all in the field, at least Joby um back here also. And I warned them I would give them a lightning round question to begin. How did 911 and what followed change your reporting >> Joby? Oh, >> okay. Well, didn't start in alphabetical order, but thank you for doing this. >> Yeah. Uh so profoundly I must say so I was in 2001 despite my youthful looks I was a mid-career uh national security I'm sorry investigative reporter at the Washington Post working on public health issues uh meat safety you know environmental issues 911 happens and my career turns on a dime because for at least a brief period of time everybody in the newsroom is doing something related to to counterterrorism terrorism in um Steve Co being one of our our editors at the time and I was suddenly immersed in in questions about whether al-Qaeda could create a dirty bomb or make a biological weapon and and it was some the most fascinating work I've done in my life. I've never looked back. have been working in the national security space ever since and witnessed pretty dramatic changes in how we do our job, what we write about. Um, the environment that we're working in, it's certainly become much more challenging for many reasons now. But it's it's it's a incredibly stimulating challenging field and and uh myself has experienced it it it yields a lot of good stories and books. So happy to be part of that. >> Does it do? >> Uh, thank you Kim and thank you to New America. Thank you to Peter. Um it's so good to be back and to always have had such wonderful support. Um 911 and and how it changed um our reporting. Uh I was in Tehran actually um for Time magazine and um two things I remember. I remember um there was some clips of it on um social media recently. Uh there was uh a vigil in Tehran two nights afterwards for the victims and it was really quite incredible because spontaneously all of these families uh young people poured into uh the squares of of the downtown all holding candles. Um, and it was extraordinary to see this moment where this, you know, I guess we saw the the dawn of the idea of the clash of our civilizations and why do they hate us? But in the heartland of where um there was supposed to be or perceived to be hatred for the United States, there was actually um there was actually an outpouring of of sympathy and solidarity which really made the Iranian government very nervous. Um so to answer your question um I was I was a correspondent in the region but based in based in Iran and you know as it became apparent that the US was going to uh was going to invade um I think for many years um sort of militarily Iran had not imagined that the US would show up on any of its borders and suddenly uh that was unfolding very quickly. Um there was the bond conference and there was um of course the we spoke this morning about the spillover of some of the alada operatives into Iran. Uh so for me it was a moment where you know suddenly there was uh a military um sort of implication for the United States and Iran in a way that had never been before. And so as a reporter it became very sensitive to work uh for an American publication. um the the stakes for Iran visav what the United States was going to do in the region um were suddenly um you know enormous Steve >> uh well I mean it changed my life and hasn't quite let go of me because I by accident I was at the Washington Post I was uh managing editor on 911 itself but earlier I had been a correspondent assigned to South Asia randomly and Afghanistan was one of the countries that I covered and Pakistan and I spent a lot of time covering the antecedants of the rise of al-Qaeda and then in the '9s did some reporting about the first World Trade Center bombing and with a group of people tracked down Osama bin Laden and Sudan and so when 9/11 happened out it still felt like shock out of the blue but very quickly I thought that there was um that I should go back and write about the origins of the attack through Afghanistan's experience and the CIA covert action in the 80s all the way through the rise of the Taliban and the chase for Bin Laden before 911. So I did that. That book came out and it found an audience and so I have written two other books, one of which I just finished that I wouldn't have otherwise. So I've spent essentially 25 years in and out of covering the wars that followed 911, particularly in Afghanistan. Thank you, Elliot. Were you at one of your other jobs when 911? >> I would say I mean, yeah, 911 didn't change my reporting because I wasn't a reporter. I was a senior in college and um although I'd written some really compelling papers. Um but uh yeah, some people ask me like, yeah, how how did it change? I don't think it changed. I actually think it made me like I can't imagine I can't unbraid who I am today from who I would have been if 911 hadn't happened and I'd gone to war. And then I think you know the my career writing that followed my wartime experience has been very much sort of defined by trying to understand um war which I think kind of throws open the aperture of human experience. I mean you see the absolute worst that people are capable of you know the highest levels of depravity but you also in in war can see the absolute best. um and as a participant in war I saw you know heroism you know and and valor that stays with me still and so now when as a as a writer whether I'm you know any war that I'm covering I just got back from Ukraine yesterday uh it's often whether I like it or not filtered through that lens of having been a participant in war >> I just will chime in with my own experience I had been um a foreign policy reporter based in London and watched 9/11 on a view screen from the radio CB BS radio studios um was on the phone with my mother waking her up and telling her to turn on the TV when the second plane hit the second tower and that's when we all really knew it was terrorism. But um trying to get into Afghanistan while it was um in full invasion mode and parsing trying to parse whether it was safe enough to get smuggled into Paktika province by people I didn't know and then deciding hm might I be more valuable to them as a symbol than for my reporting and I decided not to go in that way. Um, turned out to be a a good call from some of the stuff that happened to reporters afterwards. Um, and then ultimately ending up covering the Iraq war uh for three years until in 2006 uh me and my team were uh embedded with an army um unit and the al-Qaeda of Iraq cell in the city knew we were coming to that neighborhood and so they left um a car bomb in place uh and they waited until we drove past it. They knew we were getting out of our vehicles. So they waited until we were out of our vehicles near the car bomb and they command detonated it through us through the whole foot patrol. So um that uh you know all the physiootherapy I still go through to keep my legs working. Um, and I keep in touch with um the families of my camera crew because they were lost. And the the people the the woman who did the most healing between me and the families of the crew because um you know there's tough time there survivors go in a lot of anger. I was still there. My friends were gone. Um it was the widow of the army captain who was killed who brought us all back together. Um so lessons like that. Yes. absolutely life-changing and it'll never quite let go. But I want to get into also the changes in getting to the story. It used to be whether it was trying to get to Kosovo before the Serbs started bombing and the worst thing you faced was um a bunch of Serb paramilitaries um at the checkpoint trying to get over the border or um it was really driving driving and car accidents. That was the the crazy crazy drivers in many parts of the world. Uh we had one driver um in Belgrade who used to take uh blind curves at very fast speed and we asked him, you know, there might be someone coming. Why do you do that? He's like, it's in God's hands. Anyway, uh we soon switched out that driver. Anyway, um, how did your safety calculations of getting to the story change in the years following 9/11? I mean, the decades. Well, I think Danny Pearl's abduction and murder was a big wakeup call for a lot of correspondents who had kind of had an easy 1990s and gotten used to being um treated with, if not respect, at least kept safe by the people you uh uh encountered in a conflict zone because they needed you to get their message out. And as communications technology changed and uh insurgents and other combatants could get their own messages out then you became useful in the way that you sort of speculated about when you were thinking about going into Baktika. And um I think I felt having worked in Pakistan a lot that I could very easily have made the mistake that Danny made in going to that meeting. And I think it was humbling and just also a recognition. There had been abductions in Kashmir of journalists before in the 90s. But by and large my experience of those conflicts that I covered was that you could go anywhere with anyone as long as you were smart you know vetted the people you were going to travel with and people would be remarkably courageous in protecting you if they made a commitment to you as a personal matter. So um that that stopped. So then your methodology like when I was supporting colleagues in Iraq as the managing editor um the amount of uh resource that we had to invest in protection equipment in deciding whether the home the base we had had to be moved the you know we were barely qualified for some of these judgments had to hire consultants. None of that had been part of the first half of my career in the field. I I remember at CBS in Baghdad, we the budget including all because of all the security was something like a million dollars a month because we had to it started as a because insurance required it. You had to get flat jackets etc and armored vehicles and then it became like the only way to do business and I know that we were the smallest of the three bureaus in terms of our staffing etc. So everybody was pouring much more money into that. And I remember the first time I went in years before um 911. Uh I had some XSAS guy trying to talk me into um hostile environment training and medical training and I tried to get the London bureau chief interested and he was like, "Yeah, nah." Well, after 9/11 it became required for everybody partly because of the break in insurance that you got. Um, but just as a quick followup, how about as a managing editor sending a a freelancer in? How did that change? >> Well, mercifully, we had the resources that we wouldn't have to do that if it was a conflict zombie, very rare, but we had lots of people who were not employees in a W2 sense who we were responsible for, translators, drivers, the whole Baghdad operation. And you know there was a time when we had a kidnap consultant. I had to go to dayong trainings because I was the person in management who was going to fly to Baghdad if somebody got kidnapped and I was going to set up an operation center there. And you know the advice we got was all very [clears throat] chilling. Um um but we were we were lucky but just lucky. And we had very um experienced sensible correspondents. We trusted the correspondents on the ground to make uh the calls. We communicated um you know very uh actively, but we didn't try to run every intersection with a 5,000 mi screwdriver because we know that's how you make mistakes. And so we empowered the correspondents, supported them with the security that they felt they needed, inspected it very actively, and and we had some good luck. But um I wouldn't want to do that again. And after four or five years of doing it, it was um you know, you you really felt like my colleague Phil Bennett, who really did most of this as the foreign editor, he said to me one time, you know, every night I leave this office, I light a candle. And that's what it felt like. >> Azade, what kind of calculations did you go through, especially as a as a woman moving in what became a conflict zone? Well, back then we didn't really have any um you know, even when they started making us go to hostile environment training, there really wasn't any kind of gender specific uh advice for that. Um I think it's you know, for many years we just, you know, didn't, you know, factor in what a what a woman could potentially experience into the kind of emerging security trainings that we were that we were undergoing. And honestly, to this day, I still don't know if there's very much of that. Um, but we're in a whole different world where there's, you know, almost um, you know, if if you're a freelancer, you maybe don't go anymore. And if you, um, are supported by an organization, then you have, you know, sometimes you might even have like a whole kind of paramilitary [clears throat] crew traveling with you right behind you. Um what what I really recall um as a stark difference that did feel like it had sort of implications for our personal safety was feeling as though I or as working for an American publication uh magazine as an American reporter we and I think western at this point it it began to change. We were not viewed as neutral. Um, you know, I remember in the early days of Iraq, um, the Iraq war, you know, I was on like checkpoint widow duty, as I, you know, came to think of it. Um, you know, these people, these young men, these fathers would be killed at checkpoints by the army, not intentionally, often because they were getting things wrong. Um, and so you would go to the the homes of of the widows and talk to them and say, "Is this much compensation enough for you? How do you feel?" And you know the first American that had that the family had ever seen had killed the family member and then the next Americans that they had seen were coming to like ask them how they felt about that. Um so you know from Iraq and and places that were starting to experience a lot of violence because of an American military presence in in Afghanistan. this was the same um you know this this creeping sense that um you [clears throat] know your your your symbolic presence was for the people that you were trying to talk to whose trust you were trying to gain um was mediated for them by this inability or I I don't mean to speak for others but you know there was a sense that uh we were implicated that we were part of uh a force or a power in the world that was doing this to their country or to their community and sometimes, you know, people just wouldn't speak to you or they would be very rude to you. Um, and [snorts] then I think as as the wars evolved and as we got to the period where the Iraq insurgency turned into the Arab Spring and then turned into ISIS, um, then it got to the point where as a reporter, you could, you know, there were certain stories where you could scarcely get anyone to speak to you at all. So bringing it to now, um I hear from various folks in the CT world, they're seeing some of the similar resentments build up first after the violent aftermath um post um the horrible attacks of October 7th. Um but then the combined USIsrael attacks on Iran and the continuing Iran war. um a lot of resentment building up. A lot of what's filling Arab and Gulf TV screens are scenes from what's happening on the ground that Americans aren't seeing. So Elliot, are you seeing any parallels to the the the time before 9/11 and now? >> I mean, I think antipathy to the United States has existed in that part of the world for a very long time. So I don't feel like this is a distinct ratcheting up uh you know necessarily. Um so uh I think that the you know the US and one of the things that I think has been lost in these 25 years you maybe you've seen a little bit of this conversation now vis 911 is um you know is I think we take for granted the fact that nothing has happened in 25 years. If you had told any American on like September 12th or September 13th that we would go 25 years without any terrorist attack close to the scope of what happened on 911, I don't think most people would have believed you. And we seem to have just sort of forgotten that. Um and so I think that there is you know an importance to remain vigilant and not to and not to believe that um that another similar attack couldn't occur and completely reset the table of what the US looks like in the world and you know and then how all of us would be having to uh tell stories from that part of the world. But I've, you know, I've never, you know, I, one of the significant differences for me, like covering the war in Ukraine versus covering these Middle Eastern wars is, you know, you you go around Ukraine, you know, I was there about, I've gone there for 10 years, but I was there right after the invasion. People were happy to see you and they're glad to see you. Yes. Like, let me show you, let me talk to you. You know, we are sort of aligned in telling this story. Um, I've never felt that way in the Middle East. And I don't think that's because of, you know, October 7th or recent events. Um, I think, you know, the the most vulnerable I ever felt, uh, was certainly, you know, not as a Marine or a special operator, you know, on patrol in Iraq in, you know, 2004 and 2005. It's been as as a journalist. I say, you know, being in a war zone as a service member is kind of like, you know, driving through, you know, the worst neighborhood in South Central. Um, but you're like a member of the Bloods or the Crips, you know, so if something happens, you're okay. driving through as a as a journalist is like, you know, you're you're some guy in like a Mercedes-Benz saying, "Excuse me, do you know which way to the freeway?" Um, it's like a significantly different different level of risk. And I've always been um, you know, been very aware of that. >> Joby, are you seeing any parallels? >> Um, I actually I think I think Elliot's right. I think if anything, it's things have gotten much worse. I mean, we would typically parachute into places and you could count on the fact that people would still speak to you that your security concerns were things that you could manage maybe without without an entourage. It's kind of safer to be below the radar screen and you got your your fixer and your translator and you kind of control the places where you're going to meet your sources. you don't to go to places where it's it's it's probably going to be a little more dangerous and and more challenging since Daniel for um Daniel Pearl, but also since you know we've had Andrew Ty uh was a was a freelancer working for us who got kidnapped in in Syria and later we discovered he was killed uh and and James Foley and and so many others. So, so we're so much more mindful and even with those preparations, it almost seems daunting in a way that it had not before that if you go to one of those places, you try to go into Syria or or into Gaza that will people speak to you at all and will you have permission to go to places uh because of of security controls. So it just the challenge of trying to get to that other side to understand what the other side is thinking and feeling and what those grievances are is a far greater challenge than I think it was 25 years ago in my impression. >> Can I add one quick thing I think is materials. I think one of the big challenges too because I'm a little bit of a different generation is that as these news rooms had all receded in the teens and were not sending people it created this gap like a Ty like a Steven Sult like I knew all like I was around with all those guys and for them it was this you know the prospect was particularly in Syria is if you can get to the story you as a freelancer could be writing for the New Yorker or the most esteemed organizations if you can get there because they're not sending anybody or the New York Times and so a lot of these fols folks would pick up and go and go get the story. And uh and I think that created a lot of these situations 10 years on where when newsrooms had the resources, you know, if you were a freelancer and you showed up with a story, no one cared because they already had their well-resourced people getting the story. And that caused people to run a lot of risks. That that is how I started my career. The first 10 years I was a freelancer who would write for anybody and I was on the front page of the Washington Post, etc., etc., um because I was there. But when I look back and realize I didn't have health insurance, I shudder. Um, and I have lectured uh freelancers now, including when I managed some of them at Military Times who didn't have health insurance, and I'm like, "Dude, I need all of your contact details for your parents if you're on assignment for us because I'm worried about you." And um, I will let you go for, you know, another month without healthcare. But here are the links to the places that provide journalists in war zones some semblance of um emergency care. Anyone listening, get journalist insurance um for going overseas. Uh, I want to ask about the new layer and I know that um Elliot you've written about this um in some of your novels how disinformation and the rise of deep fake videos also complicates our job um together with this growing or return to a lack of trust of anyone who's a quote unquote American or Western journalist. I say it's the it's generally the media landscape and that um you know information no longer has the exact same premium that it once had. So you know getting when there is no single story having the story doesn't have the value that it once did and everyone's having to figure out how to navigate that. >> So I wanted to ask if anyone had any questions in the audience. Um Ambassador Yasine uh do we have a microphone to go to him or do I just give him mine? >> Oh you got it. Okay, ambassador right there. >> Thank you all for your service. I mean it. >> Thank you. >> Um, so Iraq is a country that had no journalism when you guys came in 2003 and uh things turned sour and so many newspapers, New York Times, Washington Post started to keeping their journalists in their fortresses. I'm not using this v this word unadvisedly and sending Iraqis to do the reporting and you'd see a notice of that. So at the end of the article it see Iraqi employees of the New York Times or the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal contributed to this and were keeping their names secret for their surfy whatever whatever wording they used. Eventually, as things settled down, their names got mentioned at the end, and for certain of them, they'd moved to the by line. And I know that some of them actually ended up in Neiman fellowships. Is this exceptional? Has this been widespread? Because something like that in a country like Iraq that was devoid of a journalistic tradition is really transformative. Well, >> and I think it should be emphasized. >> Um, I know in Afghanistan working with US organizations launched so many journalism careers and now I I I worry about all of those journalists who didn't get out. Um, Steve, what was the practice for local stringers? Because local stringers were often my passport to get to the story or understand the story. Well, I mentioned before, I mean, we had Anthony Shadid, who was the leading, you know, native Arabic speaker um in our field, and he didn't he he didn't live in a fortress. He traveled on his own um a lot of the time. But um the larger point is I I think is correct. It's a big subject in journalism as to how to incorporate national journalists into the the kind of supply chain of journalism. um that's located in headquarters in the west and I think a lot of uh younger journalists have spoken up about changing the kind of hierarchy of uh that was my generation's inheritance. Um and uh journalism has become globalized that there's so much more connectivity. There's so many more reasons and ways that national journalists can take the by line, take the lead. No one needs to protect them. they are leaders in their own spaces. So, um I you know I see it all the time uh as a practicing journalist still and I presided over a lot of discussions at Colombia that I thought were inspiring. You know, people are adapting and changing. >> So, um can we have one more question? This gentleman right here and if you could introduce Oh. Oh, sorry. And Peter has a question. >> A quick one. >> Just a second. Uh, yours first. >> Thank you. >> Um, as you were just in Tehran and you're um Iranianame um the Iranians often see the Iranian side, not the American side. So, how did you you when did you get back and what did you see and and how did you deal with your security issues? >> Um, thank you. I got back perhaps two weeks ago. Um, two and a half weeks ago. I was there for about a month, but I go regularly. Um although I hadn't been since last summer, so I missed I think a war and a massacre. A war and a half and a massacre. Um I mean I go as a private citizen. I'm aware we had discussions earlier about hostage taking. Um you know I I try and go as a private citizen and I write kind of essaistic dispatches and that has been tolerated from me. um for some years. Uh and I and I realize it may not always be. Um you know, I think that going into Iran is is very hard right now. I think some papers like the Financial Times do a valiant job and they have people on the ground and are now indispensable to our understanding of what's going on inside. Um it's it's harder for the American press. Um what I saw was a a society that's being economically pulverized. you know, the the extent to which people are um just being crushed economically, pulverized is the only word that I can really use because the food inflation, the electricity shut offs. I mean, it felt like Lebanon for moments, it felt like Syria for moments uh when I was there. Um you know, there's massive shortages of medications. I mean, I think it's a country that is like on the brink really. um you know, everyone in their own way um really really suffering, traumatized from the war. Some people, you know, have had um you know, families who were who've had a young person killed in the massacre, the war. So, we've had two successive big traumas and and an economy that is really just at the brink of collapse. Um >> how do they feel towards Americans since this is allegedly being done to free them? [clears throat] Uh well, I think initially there was um like [clears throat] a a profound um shock perhaps uh that the war was expansive as it was and that it was hitting because initially many people um were very excited and happy. It must be said that [clears throat] the regime was decapitated. uh and there were the people who had poured into the streets and the people who were uh hoping that this would shift something. Uh but then they saw quickly that it was a war that was uh [clears throat] that was targeting Iran as a country, its infrastructure, civilian targets. Uh and so I think that turned and then there was a real sort of wave of of nationalist fear that our sovereignty, our borders, our whole existence as a country might be jeopardized. So, last two minute lightning round. What advice would you give a reporter who wants to go out and cover one of these wars or say a war in the Pacific today? >> Uh, go live there. Take your time. Uh, don't don't try to parachute in. Um, build a network of places to publish and then of places and and people to keep you safe as you go about your business. >> Anyone else? Health insurance. Health [laughter] insurance. Yes, Elliot. >> Yeah. I mean, I would I agree with Steve and I'd also tell him just go, you know, you just you just got to go and, you know, and figure and don't be afraid to figure it out as you're going and stay safe. >> Absolutely. [snorts] Uh I'm with Steve. Go and stay a long time. Learn the language. Learn some language. um you know be able to interact with the people that you're writing about so that your perspective is is a deeper one [clears throat] >> 100%. I studied Arabic for two months and then the Gamaya started blowing things up in Cairo and Yaser Arafat started coming to town for peace talks and there went my Arabic lessons. So on that note um thank you very much and we go to the next panel. [applause]