COMBATIVE and challenging, Kate Adie's demeanour seems geared to make you listen and learn.

Speaking with Daily Telegraph defence editor John Keegan on Monday, she highlighted the importance of history to wars and war reporting.

Despite confessing to growing up with dolls - "It took 30 years to realise that I had had an education for girls that missed out the battles" - Adie has reported from conflicts in the Gulf, Tianamen Square and the Balkans.

Describing the scene in following troops into a decimated Croatian village, she found an elderly librarian with a knife in his sock and gun in his belt wandering among the detritus. In offering an explanation about what had happened, the man felt compelled to first return to events of 1943.

"Young people do not understand the continuity of history," said Adie. "They don't understand that everything that happens today is because of yesterday."

She also explained how changing times had meant that objective reporting on other people's wars had led to more tension from countries increasingly aware of the value of propaganda.

About another offensive in Iraq she said: "Iraq realised it missed a trick in not letting the journalists in during the Gulf War. "Western journalists will be allowed in to show to you live the carnage that you have agreed to be inflicted. If you see the damage on the TV screen, have you a moral obligation to stop it happening?"

Ally Hardy