“After a year-long sabbatical as the Edward R. Murrow Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in NY, long-time CNN Baghdad correspondent Jane Arraf has returned to Iraq — now as a correspondent for NBC News,” an e-mailer notes. “The Arabic-speaking Arraf established CNN’s Baghdad bureau and served there eight years, longer than any western correspondent.”

She reported live from Baghdad on Saturday’s Today Show. On MSNBC.com, Arraf blogs: “I spent the last year in New York looking at U.S. policy in Iraq and talking to Americans about what was happening here. In the U.S. everyone wants to know what to do about the war. The only thing I knew with any certainty is that it’s impossible to understand what’s going on here unless you’re actually here.”