PERSON: Barbara Starr

Pentagon Correspondent

Barbara Starr is a Pentagon correspondent for CNN, based in the network's Washington, D.C., bureau.

Starr provides viewers with the latest news each day from the Pentagon regarding the war in Afghanistan and other national security matters. Since 2003, Starr has made repeated trips to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa, where she has been embedded with U.S. troops. She traveled to Beirut, Lebanon in 2006 with U.S. Marines tasked with evacuating Americans during Israel’s war with Hezbollah. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Starr had exclusive access to Lt. Gen. Russel Honore as the only reporter traveling with him as he directed hurricane relief efforts. Starr has also reported directly from the Persian Gulf, Russia, Central America and the Chinese-North Korean border. Starr has profiled numerous wounded troops and reported on the fallen regularly from Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Starr joined CNN in 2001 from ABC News where she had worked since 1998 as a producer for the network's news originating from the Pentagon, providing on- and off-air reporting on military and national security affairs. She also reported for Nightline, World News This Morning, World News Now, ABC Radio and ABCNews.com. Previously, Starr was the Washington, D.C., bureau chief for Jane’s Defence Weekly, a London-based weekly newsmagazine, where for nine years she covered all aspects of national security, the intelligence community, defense and military policy. During this time, she conducted numerous one-on-one interviews with current secretaries of defense and directors of central intelligence. She also traveled to the Balkans, the Persian Gulf and NATO headquarters in Brussels. Before Jane’s, Starr worked at Business Week where she was a correspondent from 1979-1988. Based in the magazine's Washington, D.C., bureau, she served as energy correspondent, covering OPEC and other environmental and economic matters.

While at ABC News, she won an Emmy Award as a location producer at NORAD/Cheyenne Mountain, covering the transition to the new millennium at Moscow rollover time.

Starr graduated from California State at Northridge with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism.

-- cnn.com