Ten years ago Rudi Bakhtiar came to a Harvard summer program for career advice. On Saturday, Bakhtiar—now the lead anchor on CNN’s Headline News Tonight—sat on the table in Sever 113 and spoke about her unorthodox career route as well as the situation in Iraq.

Bakhtiar, who was invited by the Harvard Persian Society, grew up in Iran. She said that she was uncertain of what career to take and had studied biology, psychology and even architecture at the Career Discovery Program at the Harvard School of Design, before taking a job at a pharmaceutical company.

“I just called up CNN one day [and they said], well you can be a non-paying intern if you pass a test,” she said. Bakhtiar, who Lycos ranked last August as the news personality whose name was most searched online, received the internship and said she “started getting promoted like crazy.”

She was soon noticed by the CNN CEO who, according to Bakhtiar, told her, “you’re too pretty to be behind camera—you should be in front.”

But Bakhtiar told the audience of about 75 that being an anchor has been challenging at times.

“The past few days [have been] a tough time to be a anchor,” she said, referring to the Iraq prison abuse scandal.

While she described the photos of abuse as “horrendous,” she said that she hoped that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would not resign.

“I’ve read Donald Rumsfeld’s biography and he is an incredible human being,” she said. “He is a brilliant strategic planner. Being in the middle of war, I would imagine that Bush would want someone like Rumsfeld on his side.”

But Bakhtiar added that she would not be surprised if he were forced to resign.

Bakhtiar, who was on the air live during the Sept. 11 attacks, said she welcomed the ouster of Saddam Hussein but criticized the Bush administration for not having a post-war plan.

“It blows my mind that there was no game plan,” she said. “I think that the danger is that it will become another Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iraq.”

Despite the thrill of narrating the news, Bakhtiar said that she sometimes has doubts about being an anchor.

“I haven’t gone anywhere in a year and a half. [I’m] hoping I’ll go back into the field,” she said. “I feel pigeon-holed right now. I hope next contract I can be a reporter.”

And in a lengthy question and answer period following her 30-minute talk, Bakhtiar complained that she often lacked editorial control over Headline News Tonight.

“I have a reputation at CNN of being very hard to work with,” she said. “I don’t have editorial control. I fight every night with producers about what [story] should come first.”