Lynsey Addario Quotes

My life isn't always at risk, even if I'm in a war zone. A lot of these places have areas of calm, so covering war doesn't necessarily mean being shot at all the time.

We didn't see what happened after mortars landed, only the puff of smoke. There were horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism? Or was this coverage?

I was kidnapped by Sunni insurgents near Fallujah, in Iraq, ambushed by the Taliban in the Korengal Valley in Afghanistan, and injured in a car accident that killed my driver while covering the Taliban occupation of the Swat Valley in Pakistan.

The problem is that the Iraqi people are facing atrocities from both sides - Zarqawi and also the American troops at times. The Zarqawi groups uses car bombs, the Americans use other bombs. You also know what they do in the prisons.

I try to get over to Iraq and Afghanistan as much as I can.

Journalists dedicate their lives to covering war - they make many personal sacrifices, and it's not something that's gender-based. In a place like Libya where there's heavy fighting, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman.

In modern warfare, journalists are among the first responders, seeking out truth in the turmoil and wreckage, wherever it takes them.

When you are covering a life-or-death struggle, as British reporters were in 1940, it is legitimate and right to go along with military censorship, and in fact in situations like that there wouldn't be any press without the censorship.

The senior officer who met with reporters in Baghdad said there had been 21 car bombings in the capital in May, and 126 in the past 80 days. All last year, he said, there were only about 25 car bombings in Baghdad.

I don't go to war for the adrenaline rush. I cover wars because that's what I've ended up doing.

Iraq is in a civil war. There is no road in that country that is safe.

Unquestionably, the mission in Iraq has become more dangerous and difficult.

Nevertheless, I do know that we are part of a danger zone, we have military operations in Afghanistan and we're training the Iraqi police force. The terrorists also have us in their sights.

Geraldo has been in Lebanon. He has done some excellent reporting out of there, and of course, we now know by virtue of the president's speech on Tuesday night that the terrorist organizations that operate in that area are now on the list.

In Iraq, embedding allows us to put reporters in situations that would otherwise be too dangerous for them.

Let me be clear, Mr. President, mistakes have been made in Iraq. And this operation has been far from perfect as evidenced by the fact that Zarqawi and other terrorists continue to wreak havoc throughout Iraq.

I think it's very important to have a sense of balance in covering the war, but you don't have to be morally neutral about terrorism.

Nor should the U.S. military be forced to remain in Iraq essentially as an army for one side of a civil war.

In late 2009, I returned to Baghdad after a lengthy absence. I was living alone, in the Hamra Hotel, the twice bombed-out de facto international news bureau.

The First Battle of Fallujah was called off in part because of the intensity of non-U.S. media coverage of civilian casualties from outlets like Al Jazeera.

Our embedded reporters during the war agreed to guidelines established by the military.

The initial [Iraq] war was won in about 6 weeks, but the peace was lost soon thereafter.

Radical Islamist extremists surely hope that an attack on Iraq will kill many people and destroy much of the country, providing recruits for terrorist actions.

ISIS already has strongholds in Syria, while the Free Syrian Army desperately needs more U.S. assistance.

I think that my darkest moment was the Iraq war and the fact that we could not stop it.