Monday in Afghanistan

FLAK JACKET MOMENT

CNN's Anderson Cooper has gone to Afghanistan to mark the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. For security reasons, he is unable to reveal his exact location or the unit with which he is embedded. Still, it's business as usual. Beginning Monday, Mr. Cooper will anchor "AC 360" all week, live from an active combat zone.

"My own safety? I'd be foolish not to take it into consideration. But there are tens of thousands of troops here who are facing the real danger. It really seems like such a small thing I'm doing," Mr. Cooper tells Inside the Beltway. "The press isn't covering this war like it should. The families of these men and women are not getting the news about their loved ones, about their lives in a combat zone, on a nightly basis. And they should."

Mr. Anderson is accompanied by CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen, who reports some visible progress in the rugged nation - such as the Kabul airport and successful local minesweeping operations.

"Consider that more than 5 million refugees have returned home since the fall of the Taliban. This is one of the most substantial refugee repatriations in history, yet it is little remarked upon because it has largely gone so smoothly," Mr. Bergen says, before going on to detail other signs of progress.

"One in six Afghans now has a cell phone. Under the Taliban, there was no phone system. Millions of kids are now in school, including many girls. Under the Taliban, girls were not allowed to be educated. And in 2008, Afghanistan's real [gross domestic product] growth was 7.5 percent. Under the Taliban, the economy was in free fall."