The Political and Military Situation in Post-Soviet Afghanistan

Charlie Wilson is a retired congressman and the subject of the book Charlie Wilson's War. It's about the secret CIA operation arming the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union. Wilson left office in 1996 after 24 years in office. He is now a lobbyist and one of his main clients is Pakistan.

George Crile is a veteran producer for CBS's 60 Minutes and 60 Minutes II. He's the author of the new book, Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. It's about the CIA's secret war in Afghanistan in the 1970s and 1980s, and its support of the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviet Union. Ammunitions and weapons were smuggled across the border and at one point over 300,000 fundamentalist Afghan warriors carried weapons provided by the CIA.

Coll is managing editor of The Washington Post. His new book is Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Coll previously covered Afghanistan for the Post and was the paper's South Asia bureau chief between 1989 and 1992. He won the Pulitzer in 1990 for explanatory journalism.