CBS News’ Logan talks Middle East

Lara Logan, chief foreign correspondent for CBS News, spent her first few weekends as a young reporter for Reuters digging through videos of her native South Africa.

Logan, who spoke Tuesday at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater as part of the IU School of Journalism’s fall Speaker Series, said she became a journalist because of a passion — and a dislike — for injustice.

After looking through the tapes, she learned about a country she “never knew existed.” She said she wondered why all her black co-workers had been to prison.

She said she had grown up in South Africa and was sheltered from that world until that moment.

The reporter, who has worked for CBS News since 2002, said journalism is special because it’s something that lets you see different places and cultures.

“I think it gives you an understanding you’d otherwise never have,” she said.

The journalist lived for years in Iraq, covering the wars there and in Afghanistan. During her talk, she also shared stories of following insurgent fighters and American troops.

The journalist also showed a “60 Minutes” news clip when herself, a camera man and American troops were caught in a fire fight.

After her return from Iraq to Washington D.C., Logan said it was hard to hear people debating and talking about the wars when they don’t understand the people or the situations there.

Logan wasn’t shy about saying what she thought went wrong with the wars in Afghanistan. She said explosively formed projectiles — or EFPs — are killing soldiers in Afghanistan and are supplied by Iran.

She said the military is hesitant to talk about it, since once it’s publicly reported, something would have to be done about it.

The U.S. should take a hard line on Pakistan, she said, by giving them demands — such as asking them to turn over Osama bin Laden — and refusal to accept visas — if they fail to meet a time table.

“I think our biggest mistake was to stay,” she said about Afghanistan.

She added that the U.S. should have left after the Taliban fell and focused on Pakistan.

She said the U.S. should have supported Afghanistan, but let them rebuild themselves.

“You can’t rebuild a country. You just can’t do it,” she said.

IU School of Journalism’s fall Speaker Series will present Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman on Nov. 7 at the IU Auditorium.

— Nick Cusack