New York Times reporter John F. Burns was there when Saddam Hussein's palaces were bombed. He watched as China's open-door policy hatched massive economic growth. He was in South Africa when Soweto rioted and when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and in the Soviet Union when it was at its coldest and darkest.

So when the Pulitzer Prize winner and longest-serving foreign correspondent in The New York Times' history spoke at Franklin & Marshall College on Monday night, it was with the authority of a fly on the wall — the "privilege" of an outsider, as he called it.

His topic was a reporter's view of the world's trouble spots, particularly the Middle East. As a raconteur, he is almost unmatched. (He told the story of a trip to a jihad camp, where he was introduced to a tall man in the room who did not offer his hand. "That was my encounter with bin Laden," Burns said, with downright casualness.)

The United Kingdom-born reporter said that some may argue that journalists like him paved the way for the Iraq War by chronicling Hussein's atrocities. And Burns is quick to say former President George W. Bush did blunder some aspects of the war. And yet, he said, only North Korea's atrocities equal those of Hussein's.

"I thought I knew nasty, but save only one other country, nothing compared with this nasty," he said. " … Saddam Hussein's entire system of government was murder. … It was that brutality that sustained his regime, and that's all that sustained it."

Burns said that Hussein also fueled the Iraq War by ramping up the notion that the country had weapons of mass destruction, but he and other journalists should have realized it was a bluff.

On the state of the war today, Burns said, President Barack Obama's planned troop withdrawal isn't without hazards, but he endorsed the plan as a "subtle" one that allows for a change of pace at the first sign of trouble.

He also endorsed Obama's plan to boost troops in Afghanistan by year's end.

"I don't think the Afghan people would choose to return to the Taliban government, but if there are no troops there, but there are 20 or 30 Taliban with guns, who do you think they're going to support?" he said. "The situation is pretty dire."

Burns held out even less hope for Pakistan, where the U.S. supported a corrupt democratic government because, as Burns said, it was better than supporting a military dictatorship.

While Burns' view of the Middle East is decidedly dark, he said he was impressed when he heard Obama speak at last week's G-20 summit.

"(Obama) seemed to be the man of the moment in Europe last week," he said. "I began to understand how Americans felt last November. … The world is rediscovering America and, to me, that is one of the brightest rays of hope."

And in spite of mistakes associated with the Iraq War, the United States is "once again a beacon of hope."

"(The U.S.) is capable of making mistakes, as we've seen in Iraq, but its national character is your ability to reinvent yourselves.

"A lot more than any people I know, time and time again, when things go wrong, you make a fresh beginning," Burns said.

"I finally conclude by saying, God bless America."

E-mail: slindt@lnpnews.com