 Welcome to the New America Foundation. My name is Peter Bergen. I run the National Security Program here. It's a lot of, with a lot of pleasure that I get to welcome Bob Nicholsburg, who is a great friend of the New America Foundation. In fact, some of his photographs were hanging in the New York office when it opened. And as you, as you all know, one of the world's greatest war photographers. Bob was with time for a quarter of a century, covered pretty much every war that happened during that time period. It's been a lot of time in Iraq and in Afghanistan, which is the subject of his new, incredibly brilliant new book. And Bob is going to narrate some of the pictures for about 15 minutes. Then I'm going to engage him in Q&A and then throw it open to you. So thank you for doing this. Thank you, Peter. Thank you all for coming. The book is broken into four chapters. It's a chronological overview, which I think is probably the easiest way of approaching a complicated topic. And I'd like to run through the images first and then with a small amount of narration, at least the dates. So you can get an idea of Mujahideen, Civil War, Taliban, and present day post 9-11. It's been my feeling that pre-9-11 is perhaps more important than what's happened afterwards from September 12th onwards. And a good grip of what happened prior to that is essential. I was based in India from 1988 for Time Magazine and covered South Asia. All of the countries are related in their political points of view, and our perception has obviously moved forward quickly because of 9-11. But as a photographer, I was very often privy to working in off-the-record situations that the writers would have to then homogenize, so to speak, and put out as a story. And Time gave South Asia a strong commitment in manpower and funding, which is now, unfortunately, not quite the case. So this is the cover of the book, which will come up in the next series of pictures. But early on, from 1990, refugees became the problem and the issue for United Nations and humanitarian organizations. These are Pashtuns that were pushed towards the Pakistan border. And keep in context here that back in the analog days, I was taking film cameras around and had a nice old roll of flex with me. There's nothing that Afghans like more than to actually stand and pose for a photograph. But in context, really keep in mind that the Soviet Army had already killed a million people in this country. So when I'm coming in, I'm coming in late into the story. But these old rifles remain with Afghans wherever they go. And they may be a Kalashnikov now. But this is in host. It's a province that borders on the Pakistan side of the NWFP. And this is most likely Pakistan here. So the Mujahideen had established a base training camp of Jalaluddin Hakkani. And these are his men, Mujahideen, that they captured the host airport. And it gave them a foothold inside the country in 1991, which then really, it shook Kabul government, which was still communist at the time, to the point where they knew things were over for them. This is the Soviet Army withdrawing formally from Kabul, 1988. This kind of friendship, you know, is obviously a mixed blessing to the Afghans. And it's not going to occur with our military or NATO taking place next year in 2014. It took them a year to withdraw in 1989 with the final soldier left. So in order to establish some kind of beachhead or provincial government, this is the battle for Jalalabad, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI attempted to take over the city, the provincial capital of Nangarhar province, Jalalabad. And a battle went on for months and months and months. These are, sorry, refugees fleeing Afghan Air Force planes, essentially carpet bombing, this being the main road here. And I was at the time, keeping my feet cool inside this mountain stream when the Air Force decided to disrupt us. So what the Soviets had done in process of controlling the country for over 10 years was instill strict discipline in the military academy. This is one of the last years of that you could see cadets marching in sync. You won't find that today, even after our training. It's very difficult, although it does happen. But this military academy, the institutional foundation of the country, eventually cracked and crumbled. And a lot of these fellows would not have served out their term in the military, 1989. And this is the fellow that Bin Laden and all of the Arab Afghans who came into the country flocked towards Jalaladi and Haqqani. In 1990, being based in New Delhi, we started to get the overflow of the effects of the Afghan war in Kashmir. Kashmiris were grumbling and eventually wanted secession from India. And they were being lured across by Pakistan and being trained by Jalaladi in his camps around host. So Anthony Davis and I, reporter who spoke fluent, Dari and had been in the area for 10 years, went over to look for Kashmiris being trained by Haqqani, who said, Yes, we do have Kashmiris. Can we talk to them? No, you cannot. But we saw a group of them walking right by us. And the Kashmiri contingent would then be smuggled back into Pakistan and then across the border into India again. So all of these countries are integrated in the sense that nobody really recognizes their borders, particularly when it comes to foreign policy. And he's still around. His sons are running the place. I believe the drones have taken out quite a few members of his family. Bin Laden was a big friend of his. And I believe that Haqqani is no longer running his son Shirazideen. And somebody mentioned that he might be in a nursing home in Karachi. I don't know, but whether ISI has a health plan that takes care of bearded fellows. But he is the Don Corleone of the region and always someone you had to contend with. This is the backside of an Al Qaeda Haqqani camp that was subsequently bombed in 1998, I believe, when Clinton sent in the missiles after the embassy attacks. We did have quite a lot of freedom to come and go in that period of time. There's no way other than being a drone, would you get anywhere near this today? But this is a perfect example of the terrain and how they're tucked in. Bin Laden's construction equipment helped probably back hose here, pull everything down. This is the cook's tent. And the backside here, we eventually got in a little bit closer. These are Al Qaeda and Afghan training in the border of host Pakistan area. Haqqani is known as a land pirate, at least in my book. He all smuggling that occurred here. He gets a cut of he still controls a lot of real estate in the region. And ISI will never give him up. But these pictures were not permitted as such. I kind of took it underneath my arm. And luckily it was in focus. But these fellows, no idea where they are today. These are Chinese Uighurs. This photograph is very valuable in the scheme of things. And in New America, we do get into the weeds. I think of policy and what goes into it. But these had never been seen before. Tony Davis and I, in looking for the Kashmiris came across very odd looking Central Asians, we thought. And sure enough, Tony, who grew up in Singapore, spoke fluent Mandarin and went right up to them and barked at them. And they just their jaws dropped that somebody spoke Mandarin. And they claimed their parents owned a Chinese restaurant in Lahore. Might be a 711 on the guard state Parkway today. But we couldn't go through the whole United Nations list of Arabs that were there at the time. But everyone was there. Syrians, Jordanians, Libyans, Tunisians, Egyptians, Yemenis, everybody. And it was quite a different atmosphere for us to work in. So back to Kabul. This is daily life on a Friday in the mogul gardens that prior to civil war. This is, I believe, early 1992. Or 91. I'm not quite sure. Picnics would would just spring up in downtown Kabul. This is a traditional aton. There's a harmonium off to the right here. And there's a tabla player. That's really the essence of Afghan life. Fruit trees. March of 1992. Rockets are coming in from Gulbenin Hekhmatyar, a Pakistan supported militant leader, who's still alive today, a hawker of the Communist Party newspaper. Most likely cannot read or write. And this appears to be a fellow who's reading out the paper to the bystanders. So in early April, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the other guerrilla leader fighting for control of overall jihad. He's a tajik, was able to get the Ismailis and a newly defector from the Afghan regime, Abdul Dostam, wearing the military. I'm about to lose the pointer here. That was a big feather in their cap, because it's very rare to see all the ethnic groups together. And the only group really missing here are the Pashtuns. Pakistan would not allow this really to happen since they controlled most of those groups at that time. So here what what ends up happening on April 10th is that they're figuring out which intersections and which ministries to take control of once they get to Kabul. We didn't know it at the time, but it came together within days. These are pancheries, ethnic tajiks, Ismailis, loyal to the Aga Khan, and Uzbeks. Again, it's very unusual to see various ethnic groups together in one situation. So this image represents the takeover of Kabul. These are Uzbek fighters for Dostam, and they're keeping out off the screen about 500 yards down the road, the Pashtun groups from Gulbideen, Hekmatyar. You'll notice he's not wearing any shoes. They were mad Uzbek fighters and traditional enemies of Pashtuns is still going on to this day. This is the one part of victory in April 28, I believe. There wasn't much of a victory. A period of time, no honeymoon, it immediately slipped right into a civil war. So this is chapter two. The civil war hits Kabul, downtown. Somebody going out for groceries is caught in a crossfire, and that went on for years until Atal eban come in in 96. But also rocketing by Gulbideen, Hekmatyar killed about 30,000 Kabul residents. This is a government tank, Soviet APC. This is downtown Kabul, Ministry of Defense is over here. Kabul River is right here. But in the course of editing this down, I had hundreds of slides from this period. You really have to be very selective in getting it down to 15 or 20. Even though they appear to be in control, this is guys going joyriding in their tank. This is an image from a neighborhood in Kabul caught in the crossfire in artillery barrage around the time of Afshar when Sunnis were killing Shia, and in particular Hazaras, a big ethnic group. These are not Hazaras, but these are people fleeing artillery. They literally grabbed whatever they could get, a bicycle, a teacup, a chicken, and are fleeing. You would come across these people walking up the hill to their neighborhood, and you knew they had no time to talk to you whatsoever. They just would probably doing this once a week. Later on they would go back to their house. Fuel shortages accounted about 23 people. I'm imagining the same, this here on the other side going to work because there's no fuel. This is a Russian Volga. It's barely on the ground. They're just missing here. But there was no gas at that point. Cut off by Golbideen-Hakhmatiar soldiers from the Khyber Pass. This is fighting for UN food rations. Trucks had come in carrying flour, cooking oil, and salt and sugar. This is a fight going on downtown Kabul, Jadimaiwan, the main business district. It was interesting back then how the different ethnic groups were used on the front line. These are actual Pashtuns, although they're part of Jamiat group. There was a fight between this group of fellows and another group claiming that this group had stolen their television, which had been looted. We had been talking to this group, a journalist and I, and a driver when the rifles were lowered and this poor fellow was taken out. They wanted to use our car here, and smartly the driver had a cutoff switch underneath the dashboard. Amir Shah is his name, and I know some of you in the room know this amazing fellow who works for AP, but he was able to feign ignorance why his car wouldn't turn over. But I took, I ran inside and went up to the first floor to be away from this battle. They ended up taking him away in a wheelbarrow. In early 96s, the widows became an issue that they couldn't be supported any longer by the government. This is one family probably squatting in an apartment in downtown Kabul. They were getting about $15 a month, but if they were able to even collect it. This is Jadi Maywan, the main battle area of downtown Kabul. And the Arabs and Pakistanis and other Pashtun groups were down here. There was peace at the moment and water boys picking up for their soldiers. I stumbled across behind a clinic. Bodies just dumped. I have no idea to this day, although they were part of the Hazara militia, most likely killed in this area over here in Kabul. This is in western Kabul. Executed and taken here and dumped. I haven't been able to figure out today where this is from because it's all entirely built up now in Kabul, but it was part of that battle between Sunni and Shia groups for control of the capital. The Taliban come in. This is chapter three. The Tajik groups under the influence of President Rabani and Amritsha Masud are fleeing and these are Taliban soldiers firing rockets at their retreat outside of Kabul as Masud people retreated into the panch here. Interesting story. After this I came across a mullah who didn't like our presence there and it turned out to be this guy who I couldn't believe I was seeing him here. Screaming at us for taking these photographs after these guys allowed us to take the pictures and he picked up a rock the size of a watermelon and aimed for my head and at the last second turned and missed, but he did have my head as a target and this is the same fellow that I had seen a few days before talking to the Kabul crowd who are not yet full of beards, but he's telling them to pray five times a day on Friday, shops will close, you must go to the mosque, schools are closed, turn in your weapons. Basically this is the arrival of the Kandahari crowd. This is what Taliban did to a school outside of Kandahar in which they proceeded to do throughout the country that they eventually nearly controlled. 1997 in Mazar-e-Sharif this Taliban minister of the interior showed up to cut a deal with Abdul Malik, a former Air Force pilot and rival of Rashid Dostam. Again these are traditional enemies, these are Uzbeks on this side, beardless and these are the Taliban who now with this part of the country in Balfi province control about 80 some odd percent of the country. They agreed to come, he allowed the Taliban to come in, they came up from Herat and took over the city. This is the famous Blue Mosque and the deal fell apart in 36 hours. The Taliban lost about eight to nine hundred people slaughtered and this day later on that evening chaos started and this is the beginning of it. This is the main road to the Mazar-e-Sharif airport. They lured a bunch of Taliban into this area. Little did we know that the entire rooftop perimeter here was crawling with local militia and eventually the firefight broke out. This fella here you'll see in the next slide that's him chasing somebody who had just gone into this building to fire at him. He crawls across or walks across, opens fire and this is him being hit. There's a shell from one of his. So that guy then moves back about six feet, goes down and then he's hauled out and then that was the signal for everybody to open up. This entire group was killed. In 2001 the Taliban had cut off the UN from supplying a lot of the refugee camps with blankets, shelter material, tarps, wood for their roofs and people were sleeping outside in the cold and a baby died from exposure. And this is the family taking the child to the grave. Traditional for men, this is the father to each man, friend or unknown volunteers to carry the baby 200 yards and they hand it off and eventually they get, you can see here, it's very rudimentary UN facilities. So in May of 2001, again Anthony Davis and I for time decided to go up and see how Ahmad Shah Massoud is supporting himself. He controls 10% of the country. The Taliban at this point had 90%. He was holding up in Badakshan near the Tajikistan border. Davis knew Massoud from very long ago so they were old friends and immediately drifted into the last battle that they had both been in. And he over the course of two days with us told us that something was going on in Kandahar, something with bin Laden, something that he was getting from his sources in May of 2001, something was up. And yes, the CIA had contacted him but rather than get into those details, he just said, I don't know what's going to happen but once our part of the country goes, they'll have 100% of it. And he was killed on September 9th. Many of you may know, two days later 9-11 happened. And if 9-11 had not succeeded the Taliban and al-Qaeda would have had all of Afghanistan and Lord knows when something would have been done about it under George Bush. Oops, sorry. This is Kandahar in November of 2001, about 20 journalists were given visas. These are all Taliban of sorts, not really soldiers but part and parcel of the institution. They're looking at us as though we're Martians. There are a number of foreigners there and Pakistani journalists but we also had a big contingent of security with us taking us around to show the damage of U.S. airplanes. And that's why we were given visas. They wanted to show us towns like this that had just been bombed. As you can see this tree here had just taken a hit that night. 17 civilians were killed. At least those were the gravestones that we saw. And this is the shepherd calling his children who have his sheep and goats out in the pasture. This is a wall that was most likely destroyed in the bomb attack. They've seen lights out in the desert at night from the air and figured they had to be al-Qaeda or Taliban. I'm not sure they had any ground reconnaissance. These are four Pakistani jihadis from Jaish Mohamed, one of the more militant anti-shia groups promoted by Pakistan, captured outside of Kabul and held in a jail and we were allowed to interview them. I was with a New York Times reporter, trained and educated in Punjab outside of Faisalabad. They certainly look remorseful and they will probably turn back to Pakistan. This is the late in December, Tora Bora. About 12 to 15 Arabs were left behind as bin Laden had escaped. This is either a Yemeni or a Saudi. There's another prisoner being brought out most likely against the Geneva Conventions to bring out prisoners for the media, but we didn't have any control over that. They were most likely sold back to the Americans by these Nangaharis. Taliban inside Pakistan, in Quetta, in Pashtunabad, they know that I know who they are. If you can't see that in the picture then, I didn't succeed, but they always denied being there, but this was their refuge during winter months. This begins the fourth chapter of US Presence in March 2002. This is a soldier from 10th Mountain in operation, I believe, Anaconda, which was initiated to push out and capture Taliban fleeing towards the south and Pakistan border. This is a dead Taliban from what I could tell, not an Arab, but I noticed later on in editing that these two, there are two sets of rubber gloves here. I first noticed these two and then upon looking more closely, there's another set and this fellow was fingerprinted. There was blue ink on all of his digits. Interesting because the flies had already gotten to the head, but and the watch was still ticking somewhere in there. This is in part of Nuristan, why the Americans ever put a base at the bottom of this treacherous ravine. They did. It was given up in 2009. It was overrun. These two fellows had gone up a hill and were ambushed on a resupply mission. They weren't seriously wounded, but they're being medivacked out just the tail end of a helicopter here, the futility of trying to work in that terrain. Our man in Kandahar, Zalmay Halilzad, surrounded by Dyncor and Kandahar Airport built by the Americans and now taken over. This was in 2005, I believe, when he was in US Ambassador in Kabul. He was there for a ribbon cutting road project. This is the type of terrain seen from a helicopter near the Pakistan border, Akhani territory. Voting came in 2004 in the first presidential elections, of which they'll have another one in 2014. I think everyone knows who this is and if Pam Constable is in the audience, he may have been addressing Pam's question. This is in Kunar province, gives you an idea of what it looks like to climb a hill. This is the Kunar River. This is the Hindu Kush. Again, an example of the kind of terrain foreigners think they can come in and control. This is outside of Assadabad, so there's most likely still a base there. But the smaller bases where the movie Restrepo came from up in here are no longer being occupied. Afghan National Police, inviting us in for breakfast. But this is their post at a gate in a provincial capital, district capital. There's a brand new Ford pickup truck. They're clean socks, sand barriers, flag, Russian or Chinese rooftop, a broken chair, and something also brought in and not readily used. Cones. This is the weakest link as far as the security apparatus goes, and the country is the police. Training for police, interesting headgear. Anybody that's spent time in South Asia knows that you could have a very fascinating book on just headgear alone. A Taliban cemetery. Bodies from all around. Mazar-e-Sharif, those massacres were brought back here. They claim to have built separate graves for everybody. This is 2009 in Wardak province. I can't imagine what's going on in his mind looking at the soldier, but this is an old trench dug by Mujahideen from the 80s fighting for control of the main road down here. This is an orchard in a small village, and Wardak, many of you may know, is very, very difficult. More propo would be gnarly province near Kabul. Marines down in Helmand at the end of a patrol, 125 degree heat, a farmer, and most likely part of the opium network inside a prison. Give you an idea, beds for 12 in one room, and in this light we really can't see it very well, but mold and poor ventilation, essentially for people who can't afford to bribe their way out. And a picture of the Hindu Kush from a helicopter, 16th century fort. This is an EOD team looking for the precursors for bomb making, fertilizer in a farmer's warehouse or store room, looking to see if there's diesel fuel, fertilizer, and any other ignition devices that might be used by farmers to then go out and plant IEDs of fertilizers and diesel. It was determined that this was not one. This year they gave me permission to photograph the launch of a drone from this ramp. This is a reconnaissance drone. Very unusual, I'd never thought that permission would come through. They stay up for six hours. It has a 14 foot wingspan and can see just about everything from 6,000 feet, and these are the army operators. None of the armed drones are accessible to the media. There are a few bases inside Afghanistan, but generally these are used for road clearing and reconnaissance. This is a collection point at Bagram Airport for vehicles that will come back to the States. The woman here is going through all the nooks and crannies looking for loose ammunition. These are MRAPs, mine resistant ambush protected. They weigh over 10 tons and cost about three quarters of a million dollars each. This is the new cobble from May of this year, out in Western Cobble. This man is in heaven, has a job, has a cell phone, and he's watering the grass. It's an ideal job in his mind. This is the way cobble is going. Wedding hall, similar to Dubai architecture. I had three weeks to go back and update the book. This was part of the pictures that came out of it. This is cobble today from Noonday Hill, Noonday Gun Hill actually. This is the cobble river. This is cobble university out here. The picture of the bodies that I showed you, scattered on the ground, was somewhere in this area. Very difficult to find. This is a brand new building. This was the front line back during the Civil War period. This is traditionally the Hazara neighborhood and downtown cobble is off to the right, but eventually this farmland will disappear. On the last day that I was in cobble May 16th, two suburban trucks were carrying U.S. trainers and a suicide bomber in another car, got alongside and exploded the car. This was a suburban, so six Americans were killed. That's what remains of a suburban, not much. It was significant for me, in any case, the last day in cobble, six Americans are killed. On the first day that I went into Afghanistan, 17 people died in 1988. It just never stops. These are soldiers finally leaving with no weapons. They're actually exiting the country and these are soldiers in on rotation. U.S. Army at Bagram Air Base coming in for the last set of their tour. Here you have outgoing and incoming and this is what cobble wants to be and what Afghans want, growth, access, security. And that's it for the slideshow. That's a brilliant history of Afghanistan. And I guess the big question is, I think you paint a picture of hope in a sense. Because the kind of conventional wisdom in the United States is Afghanistan is a hopeless case and is kind of bracketed with Iraq in a sense as being somewhere that is just embroiled in violence and age old rivalries and tribal hatreds and ethnic tensions. What do you think? What's the prognosis? Well, it's not one person, one vote, obviously, in Afghanistan. So groups of people certainly want peace and if they're organized in a good way, they can swing their neighborhood or swing parts of parliament. But the threat of violence, I'm not sure you can put a price on that, what it takes to eliminate it. And that's key. But also, Pakistan is key to this discussion, too. And in any kind of solution-oriented approach to this region, unless you understand Pakistan, you won't fully understand Afghanistan. So what do the Pakistanis want out of this? What do the Indians want, the bitter rivals, the long-term rivals of Pakistan? They're participating in this discussion. What about the Iranians who have a big card to play there, 18 percent Shia population, still close to a million refugees in Iran, Afghan refugees? And Uzbekistan, Russia is now jockeying for position. But overall, the Afghans are tired of it. For the 25 years I've been there, everyone has known nothing but war. It's just a matter of degrees of how much violence or they can they tolerate and still move forward. It's inherent in the system. And it's very often not to their making or liking, certainly. Pakistan has a lot of influence in that country and can flip a switch. April 2014, you could kind of sketch out both a fairly positive outcome and a potentially fairly negative outcome when the election happens. And the positive outcome would look like this, that a consensus candidate emerges, say Dr. Abdullah, and he gets over 50 percent of the vote in the first round of the elections, or it may go to a runoff where he still wins. And the security situation is sort of, to some degree, driven by the political situation. So the political situation, the real reconciliation, is a successful election, not a deal with the Taliban, in my view. The unsuccessful kind of scenario would be, they go to round one, there's really no obvious winner. Then they go to round two, for which there's been very little planning, if any. And it's contested and regarded as unfair, and it's sort of as a trigger for a new renewed violence. But even in the negative kind of scenario, it seems to me that the Afghan Civil War in the 90s, which you documented so well, was so intense, and is so fresh in living memory that very few people want to open that particular, or do you think that that's a possibility? Certainly Dexter Filkins has written saying there could be, it's kind of the view that the Civil War could come back. A lot of things can collapse if desires and expectations are not met. And these are primarily hinged on the ethnic makeup of that vote bank. They will align themselves with an enemy right now if they need something desperately enough. It's impossible to say which way it's going. And I think we can sit here as armchair experts at the moment, but you really need to be in Islamabad and in Kabul simultaneously. I think there's some people in the audience that understand that kind of mobility is needed to have that level of intelligence to be able to predict. But they've almost given up on the opium trying to suppress that. That's 200 and somewhat million dollars a year that goes into pockets. I mean, these are a lot of compromises that are being made at the moment in order to keep moving forward. But the stuff that really, well, the answer to your question is going on in the shadows and off the record discussions on what to do, what not to do. If you do this, I'll do that. But certainly you have to keep in mind that they know how to load a rifle there. And it's not just kites that they can fly. They can shoot kites down. They can't fly their own planes right now. That's a big issue of their level of training that we're offering them and our expectations for them to work and operate on their own. But what does Pakistan expect? They are really in control here of the destiny, I feel, of a big part of that country. And when you're reporting on Afghanistan, did you spend a lot of time in Pakistan or what did you tend to? I did at the time. When I moved there, I spent very little time in India throughout the 90s and almost all of it in Pakistan. And every trip into Kabul, you would sort of, you go in there and you embrace ambiguity. You go in there as an empty vessel and fill it up with Pakistani news and their point of view, their perspective. And again, a lot of this is perception, but the Pakistanis had a pretty good idea of how to control the groups that they wanted to control. They had direct access to them and all the goods would flow to them. The money would flow to them through Pakistan. India was just a backwater at the time. Clearly, it's sort of a Frankenstein that is somewhat spun out of control for the Pakistanis. The Pakistani Taliban is a very large force that is actually killing tens of thousands of Pakistanis. Are you going to go back for the election, by the way? As a photographer, I try to steer clear of elections from a very cynical way that in the film days, most of the film from the election will go straight into the trash bin. And it's a lot of work. But I'd certainly consider it. Going back to just in time a little bit, tell us about how you were able to function shooting pictures of the Taliban, a group that banned photography and certainly had a very hostile view of Westerners in general. To start off, they would give you a minder through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You'd have to register with them. They knew you were coming. They granted visas very stingily. I mean, they were not generous that you'd wait around for weeks, get a visa, go in. You could go in through Kandahar or Kabul. It depended upon the person's attitude towards the West. If they had been educated in Pakistan, they tended to be a little bit more open-minded. They would let you work a little bit. You'd have to use a wide-angle lens rather than a telephoto lens, because then they could figure out what you were doing with the camera. With a long lens, they could see you were photographing something in particular. But with a wide angle, you could get it all and you'd have to crop it out later on. If it was something strategic or women, for instance, it did not like the burqa wearing women to be photographed. You had to get that. That represented not just tradition, but also discipline and rule and power of the Taliban is to restrict and regulate dress. Were there any good things about the Taliban when you were documenting them at the beginning? Theft. You didn't really have to worry much about theft, for instance. But that's about it. Where were you living during the civil war? And how did you mean civil war was sort of Mogadishu-like in its violence? How would you sort of live? How would you live under the Taliban? Where would you locate yourself? During the civil war, the downtown area became increasingly dangerous. The Kabul Hotel was the main point for us to stay. You could pay in dollars, but you had communications. And then once that became the front line, we moved to an outer area and stayed with whoever had rooms to rent for $25 a night. They generally had power. The money you paid supplied them with diesel and food, sort of a bed and breakfast kind of thing, AP. Associated Press had a house that if all bedrooms were full, then you could stay in the basement. Red Cross would often offer rooms if they had extra cottage space, for instance. And there was a main hotel way up high, the Intercon. But for $100 a night, you didn't get much. And stale bread and cold water pretty much. So it depended upon the ongoing situation, really. You mentioned Amr Shah. Who is he and why was he so valuable? Amr Shah was one of the Afghan taxi drivers that eventually learned that foreigners were fun to work with and paid very well on a regular basis, cash. And his English was good and he was a jolly fellow that would be there promptly at 7.30 or 6.30 or 5.30 in the morning, if you asked for it. And he understood the hunt for photographers and you understand the Q&A for writers. And eventually he became an Associated Press stringer. And I think he is a full-time staff person now. But I don't believe he has a high school education and had been shot and wounded and crossfire. So he walks with a limp. So there's a bullet wound. He's happy to show you. But it also gives you an idea of the standard of what, when you employ somebody there, what you expect. And yes, he is constantly thinking about what's this foreigner up to, he or she is going to get me killed. But then again, I have about five kids to feed. And you would take that kind of model and if you worked in Africa or Bosnia, you would have that, where is that Amr Shah in Sarajevo or in Croatia or in another part of, in another conflict zone, you're always looking for that Amr Shah. Is the Afghan civil war the sort of most dangerous conflict and the most violent that you've covered? I think Bosnia was definitely more violent. And Iraq, certainly with American firepower exponentially more treacherous. I don't know about more violent. You gear up to these situations differently. Your heart moves at one level in one place and another level in the other. Your brain still has to function. American firepower when it's at its fullest is incredible. But you know, there's a saying when the Afghans are aiming at you, you're okay. So it's somewhere in between. But it was very unclear in Kabul during the civil war who, I mean, there was multiple factions in each block. Could it be a different ethnic religion? Urban violence is the most difficult that I can, whether they're using slingshots or artillery. You don't know where anything is coming from. You don't know what's around that corner. And you can't pinpoint sound properly. And you constantly think about moving forward. But you also must remember where your exits are. And in a maze of alleys and buildings, you're a stranger, even though you remember where you came up. But can you remember if you all of a sudden have to go in reverse? And I think that's where someone like Amir Shah can walk behind you and you get into sync with the people you work with. And Amir Shah is what ethnic group? He's Hazara. Which means? He's Shia and he's physically different from Pashtuns and Tajiks. And sort of at the bottom of the social ladder. Yes. And he's humble enough, yet smart enough to apologize profusely, yet still make sure we move forward. That's a unique trait. Yeah. Talk a little bit about how the business has changed. I mean, for a Bob Nicholsburg aged 22, starting his or her career in this field, what advice would you give or and how what are the big changes that you've seen in the business since you started? It's far more costly today, given the amount of return or compensation. And many years ago, you could say, All right, I'll have I've got $3,000 for four weeks. I know I'll get back five. Three will go for expenses. I'll be 2000 plus. And that will cover my rent while I'm away or if you didn't sub lease or something like that. But today, you can count on 75 cents coming from this kind of an effort or $1.23 or some odd amount that just is prorated down to almost zero. And it's hard to figure out why when you're in the difficulty has remained the same, the challenges and the survivability chances remain the same, yet the return on your effort and investment is just gone. I'm not quite sure there's a new business model out there you need to do videos, audio, text, you have to think about a travel piece, you have to think about not just the core news item that you're after, but think laterally, have great transmission equipment or access to cheap transmission equipment and expect to lose, perhaps monetarily, not with substance, but at least monetarily, there's the risk now that and you must have expensive equipment. I'm not really sure, but it's not my responsibility since to come up with the new business model for everyone out there. I still have to think about my own trips and how to put those together properly. But there is a new business model somewhere. You know, Bill Keller had a piece in the Times three days ago, I think, and basically saying there are 17 freelancers who are now in captivity by one of some of the jowdy organizations. People are going there, they have no institutional backup, they're kind of going there. There's no, I mean, you were a time star photographer, which that maybe, but maybe, I mean, the whole model doesn't exist anymore. It's true. So what is the, what are the consequences of that? Well, we had high expectations of being able to stay on long and longer and beyond what the deadline was for a particular story. I could go there for a week's assignment and stay on for three more. That would be a month. And that's pretty much in a strange environment like this, where the subtleties and everything is in the shadows and you have to figure that out each time you go there, reacquaint yourself with a very complicated situation. You need that length of time. You can't be a fireman all the time. He's going in for two days, three days, four days, five days. You can, I remember being asked to go across the border from Pakistan to Afghanistan and find out public support for the jihad. It's like, what? It's Wednesday. I've got to be back by Saturday? Ow. In any way, that's what was expected. And you have time literally to be in a place for two hours, just run around like a crazy person and then come out, send your film. And it would take a day and a half for the film to get back to New York. Today, you can transmit from wherever you are. You can actually say, yes, I'll do that. I'll find you what public, my version of public support is. And you can do that. But the magazine may not want to know anything about your trip to Syria. They certainly don't want to get involved with ransom discussions, similar to what Richard Engel had to do for NBC. Or if they do take that risk, it's unusual from what I can see now. Insurance costs are very high. And the whole playing field is different. And you get a lot of people with inexperience that are now part of this 17 unfortunate group. Have you been to Syria? I haven't. How would you assess the coverage that's coming out on the photographic front? Unpredictable. And there's a certain amount of information you want to get from each image that you see for each report. And it tends to be very repetitive right now. And you certainly have to go around for your own safety, the very extreme militant groups that are there. You can't have any access to that. And they are really in control of the battle, the theater. So what kind of report are you getting? And that's one of the big changes, right? Because you were hanging out with the Hakanis. That would be a life-threatening assignment right now for a Western parent. Right. And even if you were a local journalist, they would come to your house if they didn't like the report. Also, that followed. What was their attitude to you? At that time, they were quite arrogant and in control. They also liked the people that I came there with, the BBC Pashto service, for instance, was always welcome. Was that Rahim Ile Yusuf Sahib? Yes, it was. And they liked being part of his show. They would huddle around the radio at night, hoping to hear their interview from that day or the previous day. It was kind of like their Walter Cronkite or Diane Sawyer showing up that gave them sort of credibility and established their presence. That's no longer the case. Even with Al Jazeera, which is from the Arab world, has obviously issues with legitimacy or credibility in Egypt, for instance, but would still speak the same language in Syria. But I don't think they're welcome. And that is because what? They may feel that there's political support is in the wrong place. They can get equal headlines now by doing damage or violence to journalists. They can also control their media. Correct. They have their own way of projecting their idea of which way the war should be going. But everyone's playing a double game over there. It's not any different than Afghanistan, although it's much more intense in Syria. And the people that I've spoken to who have experience in Afghanistan say Syria is out of control as far as seeing any kind of solution. No force will leave. As though the Soviets left, it created a different opportunity at one point for perhaps a treaty or a truce, but that vacuum was filled by jihadis who never left. In this case, you have Sunni Shia, Arab, Persian anger, and it goes back centuries. And no one can really referee that. No Cold War or a thaw or change of empire is going to change that right now. And I think that at least needs to be out there, I think in Washington, people understand that. And around the United Nations, people understand that. But in the rest of the world, they're not quite clear on the challenge that Syria presents. We'll throw it open to questions. If you have a question, can you identify yourself, wait for the microphone? Microlance? Hi, I'm fascinated by where you were able to go and what you were able to do. And my question, dovetails with one of Peters, in that scene where the individual approached the window and then your first frame catches him getting shot and then he's down and carried away, how close were you? And do you have a sense that you are immune or in every situation like that could somebody just as easily turn on you for whatever their reasons? The danger factors where I'm going with this, I find it fascinating that you're sort of in the middle of something that could end for you quite badly and quite quickly. You've almost answered it. I mean, you don't know. In that particular case, there was a truce going on. The firing downtown had stopped and that was an opportunity for us to go down, park, get out and talk to some of the people that an hour later would be just mortars aimed like this, straight up. You can't get anywhere near that area. But in this case, it was a non-enemy situation. They were fighting amongst themselves about loot, a television. Where's the electricity? But there was pointless, but the rifle became deciding factor. And not only that, they had been collaborating, probably two hours before. That I think can happen here in the southeast or New York or whatever, you get in the middle of one of these things. But in that case, we did have time to walk away as the, in push to, the volume goes up to a certain point. These were push to speakers that you know this is not going to end well. Whether fists are thrown, that's one thing, but they don't throw fists in Afghanistan. They wrestle, but they don't box. So it's either they're going to drop a Colossian coffin and wrestle this one. No, they're not. And back in that image, you'll notice that there's a bayonet on one rifle. That's also very unusual. Whether that person uses it or uses it to open doors. This is odd. And they were stoned out of their minds. Because this group are paid in food and hash and what they could steal. We knew that. And that's one of the attractions to the place actually when there's nothing going on is to go down and see what's what these what colors are blood, you know, what person would want to be in that position. That went on for months, day in and day out. But as it got louder and louder, I drifted up to the first floor and shot it through plastic. That's why there's a little bit of fuzz on the side. And who knows what happened to them. How many kandaharis in Kabul? That's why you put them on the front line. Because they hate the place. They make better soldiers in the sense of an outsider. But there's more and more you can read into that photograph if you know what you're looking for. How many Western journalists were regularly going into Afghanistan during the Civil War that do you estimate? Less than 20. Yeah, you can name them right. I could probably name 10. Yeah. And Sarajevo, but you mentioned Bosnia, how did that compare in terms of? I didn't work in Sarajevo itself. There are regular people that came in and out primarily from London and France. More so than for Afghanistan. And communications was better. Why do you keep going back to Afghanistan? I haven't figured it out yet. I enjoy the people. Yeah, what are the, I mean, you cover war and death often. What are the good sides of Afghanistan? They're friendships. I mean, still I seek out the people that relatives of ones that I've worked with or their survivability, their tenaciousness. They can still laugh. They have a very simple yet honest sense of humor. It's real. You could take away all their electronic goods and amenities and they'd still be more or less the same. That's not what makes them. Their acquisitiveness. But the way they negotiate and the way they deal in everyday life is fascinating. What are the grounds for optimism, if any? I think a lot of them have started their own businesses by now and they're not just dealing with media, the ones that I'm immediately exposed to. They have shops and they want to continue on with schooling and they see the benefits of a university that's open full time. They have an idea that they can improve their life if the warlords would go away, if Pakistan would chill out, if India would stop this or if Iran would stop that. A lot of ifs. I haven't been to Afghanistan since 08, but I was at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan as a mentor and some questions I have. What kind of shape is Kabul University in now? It was pretty bombed out when I was there. That's one question. Two, if you have been to the academy and seen what progress they're making, I saw your one picture where they were marching Russian style it looked like, which they were still doing when I was there. One of the things that we talked about a lot when I was there is a lot of the intellectuals had left for their own safety, Afghanistan, and that was one of the problems with the country is that intellectuals had left and we needed them back there to help out. Third, fourth, maybe fifth, is the corruption is a big problem in Afghanistan and I understand that that really hasn't improved much. I think that's one of the biggest problems with Afghanistan is the corruption in government and just with people in general and the lie to your face to save face actually. Kabul University is open, thriving, the grounds look normal as though nothing had happened. A lot, I didn't go the full perimeter but it's pretty amazing actually and buses stop there regularly, people have cars, they're being picked up, dropped off, there's food shops around, there's a campus feel to it. Well, that's the case. The academy, it's what they make of it themselves. The ethnic divide permeates the military institution and you can just scan around and see who's who by eventually an informed point of view that you have of what the ethnic makeup of yes but attrition is insane there in 30% a year at least gone just a wall so who fills the gap and you have Pashto speakers but they're Kabul Pashto speakers down in Kandahar. That's like somebody from D-Part, Alabama coming up here to talk to somebody in Maine. I mean they're not going to be able to communicate. There's a natural dislike also and corruption look you know when I moved to India you learn about corruption from day one. It's not just Afghanistan. They've been stealing thieving, leveraging, pickpocketing just like anybody else and I learned to have five rupee notes here, 10 rupee notes here, 20 rupee notes here, 100 rupee notes here. Bob, that raises a very interesting question. I mean there is no body in the world with a higher proportion of criminals in the Indian parliament. That's just a fact. In fact, you want that on your resume. It's hard to get elected if you haven't sort of caught some criminal charge in a sense and yet you know the coverage is you I mean we focus very much on Afghan corruption a lot of and it's a very legitimate thing to focus on. There's also you know very lot a lot of you know Pakistan you know Zidari was known as Mr. 10%. So you know why the American media is only seeming to be just beginning to get up up to speed on the fact that India has this really big problem with corruption. Has India sort of got a free pass compared to Afghanistan or Pakistan? Yes they have. Why? Why? Well you can also profit greatly there from if you're an industrialist you can go in there and make legitimate amounts of wads of money and there are ways through your accountant or through the local officialdom how best to avoid paying taxes. That's what you learn. I mean my landlady in 1988 I went down once asked her why I wanted to pay my utility bill. I was never there. I figure I was late on something. I wasn't getting an electricity bill and she goes here's a bill it was for like five dollars for two or three months. This is not possible. She said yes it is. We pay the meter man to give us a lower number and okay and it's the same thing the police are the last people you call in a country like that. They might have a robbery. You just beat the daylights out of the staff and you eventually find out who stole it. But everything has to shift there for you as an outsider and you learn that in Pakistan that this is going to cost you or a gift a bottle of whiskey is equal to fifty dollars so you just leave the whiskey here done. Corruption it's hard to eliminate but it's certainly for the first time post 9 11 for Americans that have been exposed to this area it is amazing but expect that and gasoline for instance for soldiers two hour drive away would never arrive or only half the tank the tanker truck would arrive it would be sold off along the way and who's gonna you're gonna ride on top of that truck to make sure they don't steal it there's a bullet with your name on that because there's too much money to be made but they're opportunists and they jump at the chance. Any other questions in the back? Brian Mangan, Bob you talked to in one of the earlier pictures that you showed about the Russians as they were leaving Afghanistan and you said a comment that I'd like you to expound on something that the Russians or the Americans won't get the same treatment when they depart as the Russians did can you go into that a little more detail on the differences between the perspectives of the Russian occupation and the perspectives of the international NATO and largely US led forces that have been there for over a decade. I think there's too much up for grab right now compared to back then the Soviet we'll call them Soviets for to keep it in context had installed a leader Najibullah prior to them leaving they kept many advisors behind and they kept a certain number of mechanics and engineers behind as well there was some hope that they could pull out with respect because clearly it was a retreat a withdrawal and not to their on their terms at that point the Stinger missile had come in and they were losing a lot of their airplanes and of highly trained pilots and nobody in the Soviet military wanted to stay any longer it was clear Gorbachev had an opportunity and I think he had the support of the Russian Soviet military to exit right now there's a lot more at stake and there are other fires going on in the region and particularly the Middle East and the way Iraq has been almost given to the Iranians the Iranians are very happy we're leaving and that they've kicked sort of or we're no longer there in Iran because in Iraq because they were surrounded by Americans in Afghanistan and in Iraq the situation has the whole environment has changed and the Afghans themselves realize changes in the air it's time for them now to which horse are they going to bet on and that's typical Afghan behavior or reaction they look for the strong person or the strong leader who they think in six months might be in power and right now they don't trust the Americans nor it's probably not the individual American it's this it's our uncertainty here about what our policy is remember the Soviet Union hadn't broken up yet in 1988 it was still held together with glue not rubber bands and right now everything is held together with rubber bands it seems the Saudis are playing both sides of the street the Indians are now a definite player before they weren't or they were more aligned with a lot of different elements I think you need to consider and we also I've noticed the public affairs people in Afghanistan US military don't want that image of the last person out of Saigon leaving from the roof they don't want that in other words there are no chances for us as embedded journalists to be at a base that is handed over to the Afghans where they take the key from the Colonel and the Afghan Brigadier walks in impossible they will not let you see that and there's a concerted effort so there's so much uncertainty on every side that back then the Soviets had to put the tail between their legs and say we're out of here if you're advising President Obama about what to do post December 2014 what would you say keep people there how many that's above my pay grade but eight to ten thousand it's a somewhat substantial yes yes to do what to mentor to oversee to be the soothsayer to be the prognosticator to be the big daddy to do something to to provide a symbol of commitment one of the worst days my entire 25 years there was in January 1989 when we're got a call that they were going to lower the flag at the US embassy we're out of there and I just I couldn't believe it anyway anyway it was dark gray awful snow we go down to this massive building huge courtyard and no security at the time and they were leaving we knew that but while the flag is coming down I said I can't believe I'm seeing this I can't believe it can you put the flag back up there so I can photograph it again I'm not quite sure I get what is the right frame and I nearly put my cameras down and cried I mean not that I'm so patriotic that in that sense but I can't believe you you're doing this do you know what's going to happen tomorrow ten or tonight a big mistake enormous the Arabs were just yeah I'll let us at him you know and why is it can't be and I had to I don't know where those pictures are nor do I think they're of great impact I mean it's a better movie actually but or video but moments like this you know you do have to pick your time to go into a country as also pick your time to exit and Afghans think the worst full exit don't fall for that and also the region shouldn't all of a sudden smell withdrawal or white towel coming up and that's I think what a lot of people in the area see so Mike Spandler I once asked this of an inspector general about corruption and I said the dictionary says corruption is stealing money from the government well basically they're stealing money from us because there isn't any money what happens after I understand India corruption or the thieves are fine but it it's an indigenous they're they're taking money from Indians in Pakistan even though we give a lot most of the money comes from Pakistan's in the rotation how does corruption continue on in the sense of all of that money if our money doesn't flow number one and the second thing is two hundred million dollars for opium or poppies what if the American government bought all of that every year theoretically that would dry it up would they sell it to us as opposed to we're not we might not be around 10 years from now to buy from them looking at the second question first there's no Chicago mercantile exchange for opium that's a tough one to approach policy wise we have problems with Colombian Mexican opium coming here it's basically not our problem in the higher spheres but corruption is endemic yes they are taking our money but they take they steal from themselves forever you have to initiate some kind of justice system of justice there where people will be not just hand slap but locked up and right now money gets you out of that situation so there are many number of levels that you can address the fact that there isn't justice for that for this and the Supreme Court is bought off or manipulated or influenced certainly and at least in this country we think they're not in India and probably correct in India the Supreme Court has been tarnished a little bit in Pakistan certainly another environment entirely so if they can do it we can do it and that that's something that's very difficult to to go around and they fight for scraps you know the youngest gets the last piece of bread at the table and the oldest the strongest gets the most amount and that goes on forever who's stronger who has sharper elbows bigger weight and who's their relative is higher up in some department they still use that as leverage for themselves it's not just based on merit thank you Bob Bob is got his book outside and is willing to sign them I believe I am indeed and we want to thank you for a really brilliant presentation thank you Peter