Mike Shuster
Mike Shuster is an award-winning diplomatic correspondent and roving foreign correspondent for NPR News. He is based at NPR West, in Culver City, CA. When not traveling outside the U.S., Shuster covers issues of nuclear non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and the Pacific Rim.
In recent years, Shuster has helped shape NPRs extensive coverage of the Middle East as one of the leading reporters to cover this region – traveling in the spring of 2007 to Iraq to cover the increased deployment of American forces in Baghdad. He has traveled frequently to Iran – seven times since 2004 – to report on Iran's nuclear program and political changes there. He has also reported frequently from Israel, covering the 2006 war with Hezbollah, the pullout from Gaza in 2005 and the second intifada that erupted in 2000. His 2007 week-long series "The Partisans of Ali" explored the history of Shi'ite faith and politics, providing a rare, comprehensive look at the complexities of the Islamic religion and its impact on the Western world.
Shuster has won numerous awards for his reporting. He was part of the NPR News team to be recognized with a Peabody Award for coverage of September 11th and its aftermath. He was also part of the NPR News teams to receive Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards for coverage of the Iraq War (2007 and 2004); September 11th and the war in Afghanistan (2003); and the Gulf War (1992). In 2003, Shuster was honored for his series "The Middle East: A Century of Conflict" with an Overseas Press Club Lowell Thomas Award and First in Documentary Reporting from the National Headliner Awards. He also received an honorable mention from the Overseas Press Club in 1999, and the SAJA Journalism Award in 1998.
Through his reporting for NPR, Shuster has also taken listeners to India and Pakistan, the Central Asian nations of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan, and the Congo. He was NPR's senior Moscow correspondent in the early 1990s, when he covered the collapse of the Soviet Union and a wide range of political, economic, and social issues in Russia and the other independent states of the former Soviet Union.
From September 1989 to June 1991, Shuster was stationed in England as senior editor of NPR's London Bureau. For two months in early 1991, he was assigned to Saudi Arabia to cover the Gulf War. While at the London Bureau, Shuster also covered the unification of Germany, from the announcement of the opening of the Berlin Wall to the establishment of a single currency for that country. He traveled to Germany monthly during this time to trace the revolution there, from euphoria over the freedom to travel, to the decline of the Communist Party, to the newly independent country's first free elections.
Before moving to London, Shuster worked as a reporter and bureau chief at NPR New York, and an editor of Weekend All Things Considered. He joined NPR in 1980 as a freelance reporter covering business and the economy.
Prior to coming to NPR, Shuster was a United Nations correspondent for Pacifica News Service, during which he covered the 1980 election of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. He traveled throughout Africa as a freelance foreign affairs reporter in 1970 and again in 1976; on this latter trip, Shuster spent five months covering Angolan civil war and its aftermath.
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Reformists and hardline clerics are arguing about how many Iranians actually turned out to vote in Friday's parliamentary elections in Iran. Reformers had called for a boycott, after the Muslim clerics who rule Iran disqualified 2,500 reformist candidates. Hear NPR's Steve Inskeep and NPR's Mike Shuster.
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President Bush reasserts claims that Saddam Hussein posed a grave and imminent threat to the United States and other nations. Bush's remarks follow recent statements from the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, David Kay, that no weapons stockpiles have been found or are likely to be found in the country. Kay's comments have renewed scrutiny of pre-war intelligence. Hear NPR's Mike Shuster.
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A Defense Intelligence Agency assessment suggests pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs from defectors and Iraqis in exile may have been useless, according to The New York Times. Meanwhile, two members of the House Intelligence Committee send a letter to CIA Director George Tenet charging failures of intelligence on Iraq. Hear NPR's Mike Shuster.
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Two years after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, experts and officials question the war on terrorism, saying it is still unclear whether al Qaeda is gaining or losing influence and strength. Meanwhile, a new videotape attributed to Osama bin Laden and broadcast on the Arab TV network Al-Jazeera praises the Sept. 11 attacks. Hear NPR's Mike Shuster.
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Britain's experience in Iraq after World War I offers a cautionary tale for the United States and its forces in the country. Like the United States, Britain promised to "liberate" Iraq, not to "occupy" it. As with U.S. forces, British troops were attacked by Iraqis not long after the occupation began. And British forces in Iraq were stretched too thin. NPR's Mike Shuster reports on these and other parallels between then and now.
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Efforts to gather a new goverment are under way in Iraq, but the process is slowed by the diversity of competing interests. Shia leaders were absent from a meeting in Nasiriyah this week, saying they wouldn't take part in talks led by the U.S. military. Hear NPR's Linda Wertheimer and NPR's Mike Shuster.
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Iraq's Shia Muslims have made it clear they intend to play a major role in any new government. But rivalries among Shia leaders have already led to two murders, and the possibility of further violence looms. Najaf -- one of Shia Islam's holiest cities -- has become the focus of intense political maneuvering. NPR's Mike Shuster reports.
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U.S. military officials hold the first discussion about creating a new Iraqi government. Eighty representatives of Iraqi society participate -- half from within, half from opposition groups abroad. Meanwhile, in Kut, an anti-American tribal leader occupies city hall in defiance of U.S. Marines. Hear from NPR's Mike Shuster and NPR's Steve Inskeep.
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NPR's Mike Shuster in Nasiriyah reports on today's talks between U.S. officials and Iraqi political figures on the prospects of establishing an interim authority now that Saddam Hussein's regime has been ousted. No firm decisions were expected from this opening round of talks. The participants will gather again in about 10 days.
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Initial efforts at forming a post-Saddam Hussein government in Iraq end with an agreement to meet again in 10 days. About 100 representatives of Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities met with retired U.S. Army Gen. Jay Garner, who has been selected by the Bush administration to oversee the re-establishment of an Iraqi state. Hear NPR's Mike Shuster and NPR's Tom Gjelten.