trust this bird's words. tripadvisor. the latest reviews. the lowest prices. ♪ announcer: from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." charlie: tensions between the united states and north korea escalated dramatically yesterday following president trump's warning that the country's nuclear threats would be met with fire and fury. president trump: north korea best not make any more threats to the united states. they will be met with fire and fury, like the world has never seen. he has been very threatening, beyond a normal statement. and as i said, they will be met with fire, fury, and, frankly,

power, the likes of which this world has never seen before. charlie: the president's remarks came soon after reports emerged that north korea had developed a miniaturized nuclear warhead. the secretary of state rex tillerson attempted to calm fears of military confrontation with north korea following president trump's comments. >> what the president is doing is sending a strong message to north korea in language that kim jong un will understand because he doesn't seem to understand diplomatic language. i think the president just wanted to be clear to the north korean regime that the u.s. has an unquestionable develop -- unquestionable ability to defend itself and will defend itself and its allies. i think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part. charlie: north korea said it is carefully examining a plan to strike the u.s. territory of guam. in a written statement defense secretary jim mattis said kim jong-un should cease any

consideration of actions that will lead to the end of the regime and destruction of its people. joining me from washington is david ignatius, a columnist for "the new york post." first to washington and david. david, how close are we to some dramatic miscalculation? david: the chance of miscalculation is real and constant. i think we are in the early stages of what i have to call nuclear brinksmanship. the president is directly threatening military action. h.r. mcmaster, national security adviser, has said the president regards the north korean nuclear missile threat on the united states as intolerable. i take him at his word. that means that he and secretary mattis and others are preparing military options. at the same time, in this period of brinksmanship, there is a very active diplomatic effort underway in which the united states is trying to convince

china the danger of american action is so great that china should in effect mediate negotiations. thenvening, if you will, six-party talks that took place a decade ago to try to negotiate denuclearization of the korean peninsula. it is a finesse game. to have the president use such red hot rhetoric in such a delicate moment, i think, astonished many observers, certainly me, and drew today comments much more measured from the secretary mattis and secretary tillerson trying to emotionally walk it back. i just don't think that's possible. the president uses language like that, people remember it. charlie: and you cannot walk it back. it's out there. it matches the language of kim jong-un when he uses the same words, fire and walls and balls of fire raining down on you.

david: they're almost cartoon counterimages. i think president trump must believe that this is his secret weapon, if you will, being seen as a risk taker, willing to do anything, that that is going to convince china to get involved. i think he -- this is the greatest test of his career, his presidency, i think may hinge on how he behaves. he seems to think that he's got it calibrated right and almost everybody else seems to disagree. charlie: he also had it -- miscalculated in terms of if he thought, if he promised the chinese it would be less difficult on trade if they would do something on north korea, they didn't do it. and then he began to criticize them. david: so the trade is part of the threat he's wielding to the chinese.

you know, help us out or it will have terrible consequences. we might go to war against north korea. we might slap you with trade sanctions that would be devastating for your economy. i understand all of the pressure points. to do this all in public the way the president does and sometimes in 140-character slices, that is the part that's hard to understand. these are the most delicate, subtle messages, and so much hinges on them. you just want to make sure they're better calibrated than these seem to be. charlie: jamie, how do you see it? jamie: i think this is really concerning. the world has already factored in that the supreme leader of north korea is hostile. he has verbal excesses. he is unpredictable. that's already factored in. the world has not factored in that the president of the united states will play that role. and so when president trump says things like, we are going to bring this fire and fury greater than the world has ever seen, that means nuclear war.

and so for the president of the united states to be threatening nuclear war in this kind of situation is extremely destablizing. a lot of this is drama. at the end of the day all of the countries have their interests. china is not interested in the conflict. north korea, they'd like to threaten, but they know if they have an attack on the united states or any of our allies it could likely mean the end of their country. and that's not what they want. the united states knows if we have some kind of military action that, particularly seoul, will be severely damaged and tens or hundreds of thousands of people will be killed. so a lot of this is drama. we have entered, injected into this very complex situation the unpredictability of the american president. i think that is what is changing this context. charlie: david, i talked to former vice chairman joint chiefs of staff this morning on "cbs this morning" and he suggested that the north koreans do not want to attack the united states. what this really is, in their

mind, a kind of deterrent to being attacked because they generally believe the united states would like to come in and overthrow the regime or damage it in some other way. do you believe that? do most of the people in the national security apparatus believe that? david: well, i think judgments differ. whether the north koreans are doing this for self-protection because they fear that kim jong-un doesn't want to end up like could aussie, -- like qadd afi, giving up his nuclear weapons and then being deposed and killed soon after, or whether there is a more hostile intent is hard to know. there is a cult of militant self-reliance is really the foundation of the modern north korea that backs all this up. i just, like jamie, i think the danger of miscalculation, misreading north korea, is so large now.

i spent a lot of today talking with people about what would be involved if, as our military commanders begin to think about military options. and it is an immensely complicated problem. it's not just the population of seoul would be in effect hostage to north korean missile strikes, by conventional missile strikes. there are, perhaps, a million, up to a million americans there. there are a million nonamerican foreigners there. you have a situation in which the troops would be rushing north as civilians flee south. it's just the most complicated and potentially catastrophic battle space. secretary mattis said this would be the worst kind of battlefield situation we've seen in the world since the world war ii. i think when mattis says that, you better take it seriously. charlie: let me just understand this.

have the american people at the pentagon and at the white house, the leadership of the national security community, have they ruled out the idea that they can live with north korea having nuclear weapons? that they can contain them? david: i think containment is not the order of the day. the president has essentially said, the situation in which north korea possesses these weapons is intolerable. now, you can argue that we've already passed that threshold. that they have by the estimate "the washington post" cited yesterday they have between 50 and 60 nuclear weapons already. and they've mastered the technology for miniaturizing them and putting them on top of missiles. so, in truth, we may be locking the barn door far too late. but i think this line is i don't think it's a bluff. the problem is when a president says, and has his national

security adviser say, this is not acceptable to the united states, it is intolerable, then you are almost required to back it up. that is, again, part of the problem is this is so public. we're back in this redline territory that ended up being crippling for the obama presidency. charlie: you remember obama used to say the same thing about iraq -- i mean iran having nuclear weapons. it was unacceptable. we would never stand for that. david: again, there is a diplomatic track. if the united states can bring enough pressure to bear, can get enough support from china and others to open these talks, the idea is that begins next month when the general assembly convenes. that is a -- an extraordinarily positive development. the moment in which china steps up to its responsibilities and we have the possibility of denuclearization of the korean peninsula. it's an absolutely desirable goal for everybody. so i don't want to rule out the idea that we can get there.

the problem is, this has been so loud and clumsy that i think it's obstructing the reasonable diplomatic goal that the administration has underneath all the rhetoric. charlie: jamie, you wrote a piece called "12 things for trump to know about north korea." what does he need to know about north korea? and the possibility of engaging china? jamie: there are a few really big things. the first is that north korea is developing nuclear weapons for very rational reasons. if north korean leaders wanted to get the level of security they get by having nuclear weapons by building a conventional army, they would spend hundreds of times more than their entire g.d.p. it is a very rational act by the north koreans because they are focused on regime survival. so because of that, the only way the north koreans are going to give up their nuclear weapons is

if they come to believe that the cost of keeping nuclear weapons is greater than the cost of giving them up. the only way that is going to happen is if there was so much pressure on them from the one country they depend on for their existence, and that is china. china provides up to 90% of the total trade. it provides the food to the north korean military, and the oil that keeps everything running. without china, north korea will collapse. and china is in this very precarious situation. on one hand, north korea exists because of china's intervention in the korean war. mao died in that war. the existence of north korea is a buffer against the reunification of korea potentially allied with the united states, which china would fear. on the other hand, the costs to china are great and growing of north korean nuclear weapons because it strengthens america's

presence in the western pacific, which china doesn't want. it strengthens america's relations with japan and south korea, justifies national missile defense, could lead to a nuclear arms race in the region. it justifies japanese military normalization. all of these things and the missile defense shields. all of these things are not in china's interest. so if the united states wants to have an irrational policy, we should continue making these kinds of claims that we can't back up, declaring redlines that are pushed through in minutes. but if we want to have a real policy we have to think , strategically about what are all the levers that we have to influence china to take a stronger line on north korea. unfortunately, the trump administration has weakened our relations undermined our , pressure on china particularly but not exclusively by

with drawing the transpacific partnership, and is seen as an entirely unreliable partner by our adversaries and allies alike. it is a very complicated situation, but america's behavior is making it even worse. charlie: are there any divisions within the white house in the national security establishment, david? david: i think that there was some concern, consternation even, after the president's statement yesterday, fire and fury statement. this is something that has preoccupied senior officials for many weeks really since the beginning of the administration they've been thinking about it. i think people weren't ready for that particular verbal grenade to be thrown. they've been trying to walk it back as we discussed earlier. charlie: i just would note speaking to jamie's good point about the larger context of the

korean peninsula and north korea's paranoia, i think one good thing about the diplomatic effort that tillerson, secretary tillerson has led is that it has tried to speak to chinese and north korean concerns about where this would end up. the chinese are terming the statement tillerson made last week in which he said the united states doesn't seek to overthrow the regime and north korea, doesn't seek to go north of the 38th parallel, doesn't seek this or that, the chinese are calling it the four no's and they regard that as the united states' acceptance of the basic chinese requirements of -- in terms of the future status of the peninsula. it's very interesting tillerson was willing to say that so specifically, that the chinese welcomed it, celebrated it. they think that they've gotten basically the key u.s. statements about the issues jamie was talking about.

diplomacy that actually moves toward real reassurance, you know, the specifics of how this would look, what the future would be like, how you deal with the issue of unification, for example, i think if this got serious, those would immediately become the key issues. and the first step is the chinese ability, chinese willingness and ability to convene a new set of talks soon because this crisis just can't bubble along, i don't think, the way it is for indefinitely. charlie: david, thank you so much for joining us this evening. david: thank you, charlie. charlie: jamie, good to have you. jamie. thank you. charlie: we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪

charlie: readership of "the washington post" and "new york times" has skyrocketed since the 2016 election and primary campaign. their resurgence comes in spite of president trump's criticism of the media giants. in february he called the news media in a tweet "the enemy of the american people." but continuous leaks from the administration have offered a lifeline to newsrooms competing for inside knowledge about the goings-on at the white house. joining us from chicago is james warren the chief media writer for "vanity fair" magazine. his latest piece in the "thember issue asks, is

new york times" vs. "the washington post" vs. trump the last great newspaper war? i'm pleased to have him on this show. welcome. coming from a lifetime of reporting, i mean it. why do you call this the last newspaper war? james: well, because most towns you've got, you've gone from maybe three, four, five, six papers 70 or 80 years ago to one. you've got a few major cities which may have more than one but one is clearly far more advantaged than the other. since competition is by and large long gone when it comes to major newspapers, we have two left in chicago, "the tribune," and "the sun-times." but even folks at the "sun-times" would know it is not a terribly fair battle and one is by far the more dominant. it is because of that that one so rarely sees equals competing as fiercely as these two papers who just about eight, nine, 10 years ago if they weren't left

for dead were certainly early obituaries being written by folks talking about change in the media. here you have these two guys on equal footing with work forces that are almost at historic highs in each case, "the and "the newst" york times." here they are doing work as good and as prolific as they ever have. charlie: does it go back to the competition between the post under ben bradley and "the new york times" under abe rosenthal during the watergate series? james: you know, i'd say, yes, that after that confrontation you had dramatic changes in one case leading to the dramatic sale of the paper by the grant family. -- graham family. that sense of being equals had really dissipated by about 10 years ago and, particularly, at

"the post" there was almost a sort of funeral sense. you had a talent drain. you had buyouts. ultimately, you had donald graham painfully looking to sell amid what seemed to be a very bleak situation. so this harkens back to that but is certainly not a clear continuum. charlie: you also have two great editors that both papers. james: marty baron has probably gotten a little more publicity partly because of his "boston globe" days and the movie which won an academy award focusing on their investigation of the roman catholic church and the boston archdiocese. but the editor of "the times" is one of the best of his generation. two different guys personality wise. strikingly similar professionally. very tough. very high standards.

and attempting to raise the bar of expectations at the same time they're dealing with a digital revolution that has caused havoc with their business models. and then comes this amazing story. and they made the decision to commit significant resources to cover this so far astonishing presidency. charlie: will one or the other win this or will they simply be in a long struggle? james: a great question. one of the things at the end of the "vanity fair" piece i personally struggled with. i think it is a classic on one level newspaper war but is also one in which both could win but also both could lose. so to that extent, it's not like your traditional newspaper war and the ultimate questions have to do with a combination of

factors, including the ongoing implosion of the traditional illness model for media. and then the coming of a president of the united states who so actively tries to devalue and delegitimize the press, i think those tie into questions of whether or not a younger generation, and i've got two kids, one 13, two boys, 13 and 8, and will they pay a decent sum of money for a digital news product? that is relevant because the traditional great revenue stream of these newspapers was the print product. that is now declining to such an extent that at least privately, surely, there are discussions in both places about a world in which there is no print revenue at all. and then the question ultimately, charlie, becomes whether or not they can come up with a digital business model that will support these two terrific, large, talented newsrooms of reporters and editors.

charlie: sometimes competition is really good, isn't it? james: it is fabulous. dean baquet made the point, i think to me, may have been one of many comments i've seen him make, but that one of the most underanalyzed -- you've got lots of academics and thoughtful folks who come on the program all the time. but one of the least examined issues in american media is the value of competition. one is seeing that play out now as opposed to most regions of the country. it doesn't just go for newspapers but also local television, local radio, too. and that lack of creative and economic tension i think has led to a lethargy on both the business and editorial sides of too many media outlets and, ultimately, does disservice to

consumers and can probably make a case it does a disservice to democracy. charlie: two questions about donald trump, the president. has his attack on the media damaged the media at all? james: yes. i think significantly. i think this attempt by trump and steve bannon and others to devalue, even delegitimize us, has had a real impact. it has raised questions about traditional norms, tried and true norms of fairness and balance and of standards. it's brought a new term "fake news" into the lexicon. it's part and parcel of what one might call -- a friend of mine who is a corporate governance expert today -- she coined a phrase, gresham's law of bad money, no pun intended, here the notion is that bad media can trump good media.

and one of the most revealing pieces of research that i've seen at least in the last year was pew research which in the winter of last year, 2016, asked democrats and republicans whether they bought into the notion of the media having a watchdog role in this country. interestingly enough it was a pretty similar response, somewhere in the mid 70's. 75%, 76% both democrats and republicans. one year later, just one year later, that percentage on the republican side has plummeted from the mid-70's into the 40's. on the democratic side, charlie, it's gone up just a little bit. but yes. make no mistake. the trump attack has had i think really negative consequences. charlie: and what has it done to truth, the idea of truth? james: yeah, well, it's raised questions and made it difficult for a lot of people to

differentiate between, again, good media and bad media. to differentiate between the story that is, you know, the cbs news or the bloomberg or the chicago tribune or "the washington post" story that has an array of good, solid, confirmed sources on one hand and the stories that don't have that. i think it is truly muddied the thers and is part of polarization in our culture. if that is your point of view, you know, here is a story that five or six people spent six months coming up with and then you can simply pass it off as that is just "the times'" personal view. i think there are real consequences to how folks value truth. charlie: sometimes in war people finally get tired of war.

will the country ever get tired of donald trump or will he still be such an object of fascination that readers and viewers can't get enough? james: my wife and i were thinking the other night about all these terrific television shows that we've become addicted to over the last four or five years. and why, in some instances -- we just realized it -- we just stopped watching. your focus shifts. something happens. the intensity of your interest is diminished. and what has been seen as an advantageous to the media trump bump will most advantageous to the media trumpy decline. there is some anecdotal evidence now, even a little survey evidence, that it is. but i just don't think this intensity of interest can be maintained. it's like the morning tweets. you get up now and for breakfast there is a 6:15 a.m. eastern series of harsh, antimedia tweets from the president.

at one time a few months ago this seemed astonishing and shocking. now one goes, hum. he's at it again. i think that could be a problem for particularly "the post" and "times" who have done such a stellar job and committed so many resources to the coverage that there would be a sort of, , certain sort of repetitive finality to it all, that, again, decreases the intensity of one's feelings. charlie: here's what you write. the most troubling question is not whether "the times" or "the post" or other news outlets can continue to perform to a superior standard. it is whether trump and people like him have so degraded basic notions of fact and authority

that truth no longer matters. james: yeah. i think one is seeing some of that. you know, one can look at views on the right that "the post" and "the times" are these ideologically dogmatic media organisms. to that extent, to the extent to which he has successfully made "the post" and the "failing "new york times"" epithets it raises questions of what happens beyond that sync with what i still think are really fundamental questions about the business models at both places. right now they are very different, one is a publicly traded company, "the times" on its amazingly constant fifth generation of family leadership. as we know now "the post" is privately held by perhaps the, one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of his generation, jeff bezos.

and the economics on their side for the moment are rather different. but there are real questions to be raised about what happens when that print product -- i get the "new york times" delivered to my northside chicago home seven days a week. it costs me about a thousand bucks. that's a lot of money. what happens when i say that is a little too much money? i would just as well for maybe read it online. $150 that is a dramatic loss in revenue. and then throw in, you know, the 800-pound gorillas in the media universe -- facebook and google -- which are now taking somewhere north, charlie, i think, of 70% of the advertising pie. so whether you're in boston or san antonio or portland, maine, or chicago, it's the same story. that the significant amount of revenue that just naturally gravitated primarily to the local newspaper, also maybe to a tv station, radio station, is

now going to facebook and google. and i don't think that's going to be reversed. charlie: it's a great story. "vanity fair" in the september issue with angelina jolie on the cover. james warren's story about the "new york times" and "the washington post" competition. to get the best journalism possible. thank you. james: my pleasure. charlie: we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪ got you outnumbered.

the dinosaurs' extinction... don't listen to them. not appropriate. now i'm mashing these potatoes with my stick of butter... why don't you sit over here. find your awesome with the xfinity stream app. included with xfinity tv. more to stream to every screen. charlie: the battle to retake

the iraqi city of mosul was characterized by fierce, urban combat. iraqi and coalition forces battled block by block in a series of deadly encounters that took a tremendous toll on the city and citizens. it is estimated 400,000 people were killed during the nine-month offensive. joining me now is ivor prickett who documented the battle of mosul as a photographer for the "new york times." writing about the experience he says the toll of the battle from mosul on nearly every front, human lives, property, and iraqi heritage is only now starting to come into focus. as the last searches in the old city wrap up the almost unfathomable task of rebuilding the city and somehow coming to grips with all that has happened here stretches out ahead into the unknown. i am pleased to have ivor prickett at this table for the first time. welcome. ivor: thank you very much. a real honor to be here. charlie: thank you. let me go back to your quote. what you just said.

tell me the impact of being there in terms of what you've seen, feel, worry about. ivor: yeah. i mean, people have described it as the worst urban combat since vietnam. and i don't have experience dating back that far, but it certainly was the most brutal combat i have ever witnessed. not just from a personal point of view but, you know, the effects it had on the population there and the city, itself. even if you weren't witnessing the fighting firsthand, what you saw was, after the fact, was pretty hard to comprehend the amount of firepower being used in such a densely packed city. charlie: you have said, at least

to me, it is very important not only to cover the battle but to cover the impact of the battle on the lives around the battle. ivor: exactly. exactly. if anything, that is more what i'm interested in as a photographer when i'm working in these kind of situations is the toll that war has on the people caught up in it, both the soldiers, themselves, and the civilians. but it's really, you know, the human toll of war that i'm drawn to as a photographer and that i try and talk about when i'm doing these kind of assignments. charlie: they are the most graphic photographs, too, photographs of pain, loss, suffering. ivor: yes. charlie: people being reduced to, you know, helplessness. ivor: yes. charlie: take a look at this. this is the first photograph from mosul that we'll show you. tell me about this photograph. there it is right there. children are the innocents. ivor: yes, yes. this was taken about three weeks

ago, four weeks ago now at this point. toward the very end of the fight to retake mosul, which took place in the old city district on the western side of the city. and i was there embedded with some of iraq's elite counterterrorism special forces. near the front line of ongoing clashes that were probably less than 200 meters, 300 meters away from where we were. the black uniforms are the counterterrorism forces who were trained by american special forces, were set up after the invasion of iraq in 2003 to combat, you know, the insurgencies that started after that. and have led the fight against isis in mosul, to be honest. and so i was with them as i said

near the front line in the old city and this man was brought in. i didn't see him coming across the front line myself but they brought him in to where i was with one of the commanders. and he crossed the front line holding this boy who was no more than 2 or 3 years old. and he didn't know anything about the child. his story was he just picked him up on the way as he was fleeing. isis-held territory. and, you know, the problem was at the time isis weren't letting anyone flee their area. this was always their policy, their way of operating, to literally assassinate anyone who tried to leave their area of control. so immediately the soldiers didn't really believe him that he had managed to flee the area that easily and presumed he had just picked up the child to use as a human shield. the fact that he didn't know

anything about this boy would suggest that was true. so they took the child from him, took him away and probably interrogated him and i don't know what happened to him, but the child, you know, was then left with the soldiers and they didn't really know what to do because they had no idea who he was. he didn't speak. he was too young probably to speak, but he was also traumatized from what he had been through. so they really didn't know what to do. you know, this all happened very quickly. but on the spot the commander who i was with said, you know, he was going to adopt the child and brought one of his men forward who he knew hadn't been able to have children himself with his wife and said, this is your son and gave him the boy. and this is what i witnessed. this was just after they washed him and washed his clothes and he finally relaxed. charlie: is the picture of the man who is holding the child --? ivor: this isn't the man who received the child. the guy is actually behind him.

the officer who adopted the boy is behind him. charlie: those kind of stories are also part of war, too. ivor: yes, yes. charlie: the acts of humanity. ivor: yes. this is what were, you know, we feel so privileged to see when we're there as reporters, as photographers. you know, you're seeing people stripped down to their most open -- it's really powerful. you know, it's hard to not, you know, want to be there and see these things happening. charlie: what was it about you as a young boy in ireland that made you want to be a photographer? ivor: well, i came to photography quite late, probably, in my late teens when i was still deciding what i wanted to do with my life. you know, what i wanted to study at university. but i was always interested in art. and, you know, wanted to do something creative.

but i was also interested in the outdoors and was quite adventurous so i think that's where it started. and then, yeah. i went to university and studied documentary photography. there is an amazing degree in the u.k. and wales at the university of newport. and didn't look back, really. just found my passion. charlie: one thing led to another. ivor: yeah, yeah. i had no choice in the matter. yeah. charlie: let's move to the second photograph. we'll talk more about your life, as well. describe this photograph to me. ivor: so, yeah. this was around the same kind of time, toward the, you know, toward the end of the fight for mosul in the old city. charlie: is this man alive? ivor: he is. he is barely alive. and he is being pulled from a basement of a destroyed building moments before having surrendered himself, he is an isis fighter. an isis militant who is originally from mosul. he is 36 years old.

he surrendered himself over the course of, you know, 24 hours or so of negotiating with the soldiers. and he's injured and he said he wants to, you know, he wants to surrender and he's not going to put up a fight. and i was there at the moment they pulled him out. it was one of the most surreal things i've witnessed throughout the eight or nine months i was covering mosul, because, you know, all this time the iraqi guys we were with, the iraqi forces we were with were fighting this dark force and isis are this dark force that we know very little about. and, you know, the only glimpse you ever got of them was usually after they were killed and you would move through an area and we would see their dead bodies. i never saw, until this moment, an actual self-confessed isis fighter still alive. and so it was a very, you know, very powerful moment for

everyone involved because these guys the same, very rarely found them alive. he was barely alive had been , injured a couple days before. and it was strange because you know, you would expect to feel just pure hate and animosity toward -- charlie: but? ivor: i couldn't help but feel kind of sorry for him because he was such, you know, he was so far gone. he was such a sorry sight at that point, emaciated, injured, begging for help. charlie: water. ivor: water. to be taken to a doctor. and it was a strange feeling for me, you know, while i was photographing, to feel sorry for someone who i know -- charlie: committed such things. ivor: he personally probably did, as well. charlie: right. ok. next picture? ivor: the last couple of weeks of the fighting and for mosul in

the old city was some of the most brutal and, in fact, happened toward the end, behind closed doors. there was a media black out. we weren't given access. we weren't allowed to embed with the troops who we'd been spending months with all through the conflict. i mean, there was no official reason given, of course, it's an active war zone. they can block access if they want. you have to abide by it. but it was strange, because they -- they announced the city had been liberated, yet all of these operations were still going on. that's when i was there and i was trying to find out what was going on. i think it really the blackout was in place because they had to do some very difficult things, you know, in those final weeks.

they, i think -- charlie: didn't want anybody to witness what they were doing? ivor: didn't want anybody to witness what they felt they had to do which was either catch or kill anyone who was still left in this area of the old city. and they did it with everything they had and then moved through and searched for anyone who was still alive and i think you were very lucky to get out of there alive in those last couple of weeks. so that picture, the bodies, was the aftermath of that kind of fight in the last week. i didn't see what happened. i don't know exactly what happened to those guys. some of them had their hands tied behind their backs. so it appeared they'd been executed rather than killed in battle the way they were congregated in such a tight space. up to 10 bodies. it all pointed to the fact that they had probably been executed. there were a lot of reports of that going on at the time but it was, of course, impossible to witness it happening.

so, you know, this is the closest i got to really uncovering anything like that. it is still circumspect at this point. i think, you know, a lot of that was going on. charlie: ok. next picture is maybe several months earlier. ivor: yes. in may -- in western mosul, also, as they got closer to the old city and the civilians were trying to flee an area that had just been kind of liberated and was being fought for, and i witnessed them as they were trying to cross this junction. it was still in line of sight of an isis sniper and had, so earlier, like 10 minutes before i took this picture, the group had tried to cross and the sniper had fired over their heads and split the group in two, half running forward and half running back. this was the group who had run back. who were crossing 10 minutes later after a truck had driven across the junction and created some -- kicked up some dust and

then they were able to run under the cover of the dust. so it was a very tense moment where, you know, i was afraid, they were afraid they were going to be shot, but luckily -- charlie: the feeling you could be dead in a moment. ivor: yeah. this is what mosul was like all the way through for civilians who were caught between the two opposing forces. charlie: it certainly wasn't easy being there when isis was in charge. ivor: no, no. toward the end it was a very difficult situation. charlie: what happened toward the end? ivor: well, you know, the block -- charlie: killing people who tried to escape. ivor: yeah and mosul had been under siege eight or nine months so anyone still trapped in that part of the city on the western side was under siege. you know, food had gotten very difficult. water. medical services. isis were, you know, increasingly desperate. so, yeah, increasingly brutal. charlie: i know you've been asked many times. what does war like this do to you?

does it become just a job? does it affect your psyche? does it affect --? linger within your consciousness? ivor: i think it can become just a job and you can become very mechanical about it. and it can affect you deeply. charlie: sometimes that is the only way to survive. ivor: yes, yeah. in some ways. both of those things are coping mechanisms. charlie: but i hear you saying something different. ivor: yeah, well, i don't -- i'm at pains to not end up like that. to not turn into a robot who doesn't have, you know, emotion or, you know, isn't deeply concerned by what he's seen or photographing. i never want to end up like that.

i think as soon as i, you know, as i am, if i do end up like that i should probably give up my job. because you really can only take meaningful pictures in these kind of situations if you had empathy, if you had compassion for everyone. you know, like i said, not just the people who you think are on your side. you have to be -- you have to be open to understanding everyone's situation. charlie: no matter, i mean, how criminal or how -- ivor: yeah. how little you might agree with someone's politics, ethical behavior, you know, particularly as a photographer. you've got to remain open. otherwise, you're going to miss things. you're not going to tell the whole story. charlie: speaking of that, where does the instinct come from?

is it your eye looking for something that you think is the most powerful statement of anything around you? what is it that you, as your mind sort of experiences everything that your vision enables you to see and your brain enables you to see, is there something you look for? or does it just present itself and you know it's worthy? ivor: that's a good question. i think, you know, with every story that you're covering, you've got to be informed. you've got to be aware of what you're trying to say and what is going on at that time. and so you're looking -- you are looking for certain things. you are looking for certain things that will fit into that. like i said, you can't be too set in your ways, you can't make up your mind before you go out there. you've got to remain very open as a photographer. and just see what you see and be ready to photograph it when it

happens. charlie: where is home? ivor: i'm based in the region, living and working in the region for eight or nine years now. charlie: so you'll go back to the region? ivor: i'll go back. charlie: will you be in raqqa? ivor: think that is probably the next logical step for many people like myself who have been working in the region over the last couple years and following this story of the fight against isis. charlie: from the beginning of isis. nobody believed that isis, you know, will simply go away. ivor: no. this is the problem. i think that's the next move for a lot of us. charlie: next one? ivor: very sad. charlie: sad just looking at it. like somebody is saying, why? why? ivor: yeah. really, really tough. tough scene to witness. charlie: do you know what's happened to her? ivor: we were nearby. there was an aid distribution going on near this woman's

house. they had a little market, actually, that was set up on the street outside their house. isis fired a mortar, probably targeting the aid distribution but it landed in the street outside her house where the market was and killed her son. so this is the -- charlie: that is a cry. ivor: this is blood and her son's head scarf on the steps after he's been taken away, and she is -- i walked in to see what's happening and she's just, you know, not -- she's explaining. i think she was saying, my son's dead. why did this happen? and, yeah. it was really -- was really angry. you know, what can i say? i had nothing -- there was nothing i could really say to her but she let me take her picture. charlie: i assume this is the plight of refugees in mosul? ivor: yes.

i covered it from the middle east to europe. this is an image of people fleeing syria crossing into iraq and the last image is people crossing the straits from turkey to greece. charlie: do you find, and pardon the question, do you find in some way either through humanity or through courage or through some of their acts that surround war, beauty? ivor: do i see beauty? charlie: some act of courage, some act of humanity, some act of selflessness? ivor: hmm. charlie: some sense of reflecting what is purest about human emotion? ivor: yes, yeah. you do see those moments. you know, mixed in with all of the violence and the tragedy. charlie: all the blood, all the death. ivor: that's what we're probably drawn to, is seeing people at both their worst and their best.

and, you know, i really do feel utterly privileged to be able to do that, you know, as a job. and why i keep going back to these situations and wanting to cover these situations because, yeah. you do. you see moments of beauty and people doing things that you could never imagine. charlie: acts of sheer -- ivor: bravery, kindness. selflessness. charlie: right. ♪ ♪

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washington and you are watching "bloomberg technology." we start with a check of your first word news. president trump is thanking vladimir putin for expelling more than 700 u.s. diplomats. speaking in new jersey today, he said the administration has been trying to cut down payroll and putin may have done them a favor. trump said there is no reason for those diplomats to go back. putin kicked them out in retaliation for u.s. sanctions. president trump said his fire and fury warning for north korea is backed by everybody. that is after pyongyang dismissed it as nonsense. speaking also in new jersey, we heard trump refusing to roll out a preemptive strike. he said north korea better get