Iraq & Afganistan Wars

Franks, formerly the commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command, led the American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. He says the United States did not anticipate the insurgency that followed the invasion of Iraq, and he warns against underestimating Osama bin Laden. He's written a new memoir, American Soldier.

The Democratic senator from West Virginia has served in Congress for 51 years, 45 of them as a senator. Byrd is ranking minority member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and has twice been president pro tempore of the Senate. He is also a former majority leader. Byrd is author of a new book called Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency. Byrd is a vocal opponent of the Iraq war and has criticized the most of the Bush Administration's post-Sept. 11 policies. He is also author of a four-volume history of the Senate.

Diamond is a professor of political science and sociology at Stanford University and an expert on democratic development and regime change. He is the coordinator of the Democracy Program of the new Center for Democracy, Development and Rule of Law at Stanford's Institute for International Studies. Diamond spent three months earlier this year advising the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

Bamford is the former investigative producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings. He's the author of the bestsellers Body of Secrets and The Puzzle Palace. He's also written investigative cover stories for The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine. His new book is A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies.

New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist Thomas Friedman is the reporter/narrator of the Discovery Channel documentary, The Other Side of Outsourcing — about jobs going to India. (Thursday, June 3 at 10 p.m. EST). Friedman has written about outsourcing and globalization in his columns. He is the author of the best-selling book Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his coverage of the Middle East.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg considers the language of the Vietnam War and how it's being used today.

She co-directed the new film, Control Room, a behind-the-scenes look at Al Jezeera, the popular and controversial Arab news channel. The footage was shot before and during the Iraq war last year. The critically acclaimed film has been making the film festival circuit. It opens at the film forum in New York City on Friday, May 21. Also, hear Al Jazeera producer Samir Khader.

In addition to editing The Weekly Standard, Kristol chairs the neo-conservative group called Project for the New American Century. Kristol is also one of the architects of the blueprint for regime change found in the document Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces and Resources For A New Century. He advocated regime change in Iraq before Sept. 11.

Wilson is a former career diplomat, serving from 1976 to 1998. He had diplomatic posts throughout Africa and was ambassador to Gabon. Wilson was the acting ambassador to Baghdad when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. President George W. Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union address, stated that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." But in February 2002 Wilson investigated reports of Iraq's attempt to buy uranium from Niger, and found no evidence of such an attempt.

Singer, an analyst at The Brookings Institution, is the author of the book Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. He'll discuss the use of private military contractors in Iraq, especially in light of the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison where civilian military contractors were involved in interrogations. Singer is an Olin Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and coordinator of the Brookings Project on U.S. Policy Towards the Islamic World.

Shadid is Islamic affairs correspondent for The Washington Post. For more than a year now he has reported from Baghdad and has just returned to the United States. He just received the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Before working for the Post, Shadid was a correspondent at The Boston Globe's Washington bureau. He spent nine years with The Associated Press, five of them in Cairo. He is the author of Legacy of the Prophet: Despots, Democrats, and the New Politics of Islam.

Woodward's new book Plan of Attack is a behind-the-scenes look at how and why the Bush administration decided to wage war in Iraq. Woodward interviewed more than 70 government officials for the book, including President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell. Woodward is the author of a number of best-selling books, including Bush at War and his first, All the President's Men, written in 1974 with Carl Bernstein about Watergate.

Cole is an authority on modern Islamic movements. He is professor of modern Middle East and South Asia history at the University of Michigan. His most recent book is Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi`ite Islam. The book collects some of his work on the history of the Shiite branch of Islam in modern Iraq, Iran and the Persian Gulf region.

Clarke is the former national coordinator for security, infrastructure protection and counterterrorism. He held the position in President Clinton's administration and continued for President Bush. He resigned in March 2003. His new book is Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. In the book he criticizes the Bush administration for failing to heed warnings about al Qaeda before Sept. 11, and for invading Iraq without evidence of a connection to al Qaeda. Clarke also worked for the Reagan Administration and the first Bush administration.

In his new book, Disarming Iraq, Blix writes about what happened in the months leading up to the war in Iraq last year. Blix, formerly the head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, has been named chairman of the newly formed International Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction, which began its work in January 2004.

He's now the area security manager for KBR, a division of Halliburton, a private military firm. Vargas has been stationed in Tikrit, Iraq, for the past year. He talks about the capture of Saddam Hussein, which took place in Tikrit. Vargas is a retired Command Sergeant Major of the U.S. Special Forces. He's written the foreword to the new book Hunting Down Saddam: the Inside Story of the Search and Capture, by Robin Moore.

Engel was the only American television correspondent who was in Baghdad before, during and after the war. On the next Fresh Air, Engel talks about how he bribed officials, woke to gunfire and witnessed atrocities of battle. His new book is A Fist in the Hornet's Nest.

Mayer is a staff writer for The New Yorker. She talks about Vice President Dick Cheney and Halliburton, the company where Cheney served as chief executive for five years. Halliburton is the world's largest oil-and-gas-services company, and is now the biggest private contractor for American forces in Iraq. Mayer's article "Contract Sport: What Did the Vice-President do for Halliburton?" is in the current issue of the magazine (Feb. 16 and Feb. 23 issues).

The group was founded by Boyd and Joan Blades, two Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, in the late '90s as a liberal political force. MoveOn.org recently sponsored the "Bush in 30 Seconds" ad contest. Some 1,500 contestants submitted ads and more than 100,000 people voted for them online. Moveon.org is now raising money to air the winning ad on TV this week and is even trying to get the ad aired during the Super Bowl.

In December he was part of a USO tour performing for troops in Iraq, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kuwait. The tour lasted eight days, and he returned Christmas Day. He'll talk about the tour and do some of his routine from it. Franken's books include Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right and Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Franken is an alumnus of Saturday Night Live, where his most memorable character was the simpering self-help sap Stuart Smalley.