War on terrorism

Writers Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon are the co-authors of The Next Attack: The Failure Of The War On Terror and a Strategy For Getting it Right. The book criticizes the Bush administration's responses to the terror attacks of Sept 11, 2001.

Helen Thomas has been covering the White House for 62 years. She gives us an inside look at the White House Press Room and comments on the recent scandals surrounding the Valerie Plame name leak and the possible involvement of White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove.

Cass Sunstein, the Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School, comments on Tuesday night's Supreme Court nomination of John G. Roberts. Early in his career, Sunstein clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

Former Army sergeant Erik Saar and journalist Viveca Novak, a correspondent for Time magazine have collaborated on the new book, Inside the Wire. Saar spent six months at the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from December 2002 to June 2003. He was a military intelligence linguist, translating Arabic for guards and interrogators. During that time, he saw female guards use sexual interrogation tactics on detainees as well as other disturbing practices.

Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch. He says the Justice Department's decision not to have the Geneva Conventions apply to Taliban and al Qaeda detainees has opened the door to the abuse of prisoners elsewhere.

John Yoo is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel of the Dept. of Justice. He wrote some of the memos in the new book The Torture Papers, including some pertaining to the Geneva Conventions and the definition of torture. He signed off on the memo denying prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Yoo is currently a professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley.

Chicago is considered to be a Democratic city, yet The Chicago Tribune is endorsing President Bush. The paper received thousands of letters and e-mails in response. From the Tribune we speak with editorial page editor Bruce Dold, and letters editor Dodie Hofstetter.

Christopher Dickey is Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for Newsweek.. His new novel, The Sleeper, is a thriller about a former terrorist living the United States who hunts down his former al Qaeda comrades after Sept. 11.

Exum's new memoir, Man's Army: A Soldier's Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism, recounts his experiences fighting in Afghanistan. In 2002, Exum fought with the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan, where soldiers were often fighting a brutal guerilla war against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

O'Rourke started out writing comedy in the 1970s for The National Lampoon. Later he was a commentator-reporter for Rolling Stone. Now he is a correspondent for Atlantic Monthly. His new book is Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism. O'Rourke is also the author of Eat the Rich, Parliament of Whores and All the Trouble in the World.