An authoritative military history of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Operation Iraqi Freedom, describing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the siege and fall of Baghdad, and the nation-building mission that followed. In 21 Days to Baghdad, historian Dr. Heather Stur describes the commitment of the division to Kuwait, the invasion of Iraq and the three weeks of violent desert conflicts on the way to Baghdad before the siege and battle for the city itself, and the “thunder runs” that saw its fall to U.S. forces. She then details the complex security mission that required the soldiers and their commanders to convince Iraqi citizens that the U.S. was there to help them, while at the same time they continued fighting Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard, paramilitary forces, and terrorists. This new history is based on exclusive, extensive interviews with General Buford “Buff” Blount, the U.S. Army two-star general who led the 3rd Infantry Division. His years of experience in the Middle East led him to question the recall of his division from Iraq at the end of 2003 and its replacement by a less experienced unit. President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not believe that peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance were worthwhile uses of a conventional combat force like the 3rd Infantry Division. The division had destroyed Hussein's government. Mission accomplished, or so Bush and Rumsfeld thought. 21 Days to Baghdad illustrates the long reach of the U.S. military, the limitations of nation building in the wake of war, and the tensions between policymakers in Washington, DC, and troops on the ground over the purpose and conduct of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
"Reuters, the international news agency, provides a historic and invaluable account of how the war against Saddam Hussein unfolded in its latest book, Twenty-One Days to Baghdad: A Chronicle of the Iraq War. A day-by-day chronicle assembles more than 100 pictures - from the decks of the American aircraft carriers in the Gulf to the heat of battle in the Iraqi desert, and finally to the streets of Baghdad and Saddam's collapse."--BOOK JACKET.
Chronicles the twenty-one day push of U.S. and British forces from the Kuwait-Iraq border to the streets of Baghdad through photographs of battlefields, coalition forces, and Iraqi civilians.
An on-the-ground commander describes his brigade's first year in Iraq after the U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency, in a firsthand analysis of success and failure in Iraq.
"The best book to have been written about the Vietnam War" (The New York Times Book Review); an instant classic straight from the front lines. From its terrifying opening pages to its final eloquent words, Dispatches makes us see, in unforgettable and unflinching detail, the chaos and fervor of the war and the surreal insanity of life in that singular combat zone. Michael Herr’s unsparing, unorthodox retellings of the day-to-day events in Vietnam take on the force of poetry, rendering clarity from one of the most incomprehensible and nightmarish events of our time. Dispatches is among the most blistering and compassionate accounts of war in our literature.
“A winning blend of travelogue and literary biography” by a British journalist who travels the journey Agatha Christie once did from London to Iraq. (Entertainment Weekly) With her marriage to her first husband over, Agatha Christie decided to take a much needed holiday; the Caribbean had been her intended destination, but a conversation at a dinner party with a couple who had just returned from Iraq changed her mind. Five days later she was off on a completely different trajectory. Merging literary biography with travel adventure, and ancient history with contemporary world events, Andrew Eames tells a riveting tale and reveals fascinating and little-known details of this exotic chapter in the life of Agatha Christie. His own trip from London to Baghdad--a journey much more difficult to make in 2002 with the political unrest in the Middle East and the war in Iraq, than it was in 1928--becomes intertwined with Agatha's, and the people he meets could have stepped out of a mystery novel. Fans of Agatha Christie will delight in Eames' description of the places and events that appeared in and influenced her fiction--and armchair travelers will thrill in the exotica of the journey itself. “Agatha Christie fans, as well as connoisseurs of fine travel writing, will relish British journalist Eames's gripping, humorous and eye-opening account of his train and bus trip across Europe and the Middle East on the eve of the second Gulf War.” Publisher’s Weekly Second;Iraq;Gulf;war;Kurds;Armenians;Palestinians;English;travel;writer;writing;1928;bestselling;mystery;author;English;crime;writer;Europe;passenger;train;memoir;literary;biography;adventure;travel;history;autobiography;holiday;Middle;East;Damascus;Ur;Syria;archaeology TRV026090 TRAVEL / Special Interest / Literary BIO007000 BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Literary Figures BIO026000 BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs TRV015000 TRAVEL / Middle East / General 9781468306415 Candlemoth Ellory, R.J.
In the autumn of 2002, Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows wrote an article predicting many of the problems America would face if it invaded Iraq. After events confirmed many of his predictions, Fallows went on to write some of the most acclaimed, award-winning journalism on the planning and execution of the war, much of which has been assigned as required reading within the U.S. military. In Blind Into Baghdad, Fallows takes us from the planning of the war through the struggles of reconstruction. With unparalleled access and incisive analysis, he shows us how many of the difficulties were anticipated by experts whom the administration ignored. Fallows examines how the war in Iraq undercut the larger ”war on terror” and why Iraq still had no army two years after the invasion. In a sobering conclusion, he interviews soldiers, spies, and diplomats to imagine how a war in Iran might play out. This is an important and essential book to understand where and how the war went wrong, and what it means for America.
A journalist and her fixer struggle for the truth where truth is now a victim. Nabil al-Amari is an English teacher in Baghdad, in Saddam's Iraq, when a chance encounter with Samara Katchens, an American journalist covering the war, changes his life forever. It is April 2003 and American and British forces have recently invaded Iraq. Samara, or Sam for short, is ambitious, cynical and determined. Nabil is both fascinated and bewildered by her, and he's keen to show her things she doesn't notice in her rush to cover the news. She is pushed by her editor to seek concrete proof for a story concerning payments for false documents - a practice which breaks all journalistic codes of ethics - 'as if truth were so hard in that way, like rocks and concrete'. In Iraq it is rarely so. As Sam single-mindedly pursues this story, she discovers a chasm between her editor's expectations and the reality she faces in a city torn apart by war and conflicting loyalties. And in her determination to uncover the truth, she takes one gamble too many, endangering herself, Nabil and his family. '... a vivid portrait of Baghdad in the traumatic aftermath of invasion.' - The Guardian. '... spot-on descriptions of both the craft of reporting and the Iraqi landscape during that volatile time make this novel memorable and informative ... for a glimpse of life under the American occupation of Iraq, few could come close to Prusher's portrait.' - Kirkus reviews. '... this compelling debut is easy to recommend to both male and female readers interested in the Middle East, journalistic ethics, and international affairs.' - Booklist. 'A fascinating story which gives the texture of life in Iraq as it was lived by foreign journalists and Iraqis at the time of the invasion. It conveys a fresher sense of those years than a thousand news reports'. -- Patrick Cockburn, Iraq correspondent, The Independent. 'A fast-paced, evocative thriller that opens our eyes to the excitements and dangers of Iraq after the fall of Saddam. This gripping, beautifully-observed tale, written with a ring of true authenticity, captures the challenges of a journalist and her loyal fixer navigating their way through an Iraq rarely seen by outsiders.' -- Rory McCarthy, author of Nobody Told Us We Are Defeated: Stories from the New Iraq. 'Ilene Prusher's novel is a compelling account of the first few weeks following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime told through the eyes of a fascinating and gracefully drawn Iraqi everyman... Ms Prusher draws us into his story as he is sometimes unwittingly lured deeper and deeper into the world of war journalism, watching with horror as his country descends into chaos.' -- Borzou Daragahi, Middle East and North African correspondent, Financial Times. 'A journalist's fixer is a go-between in so many senses: linguistic, cultural. The fixer straddles borders and boundaries, helping each try to communicate with the Other. Ilene Prusher conjures this so beautifully in her stunning, thrilling debut, as Nabil, an Iraqi English teacher with a poetic soul, is drawn into the unfamiliar, learning as much about his own country and people as about the world in which Samara, the American journalist who has hired him, moves so easily. A unique novel, Baghdad Fixer's compelling plot is combined with poignant and difficult insights into the life and tragedies of ordinary Iraqis during the war. This is not just a wonderful read, it is an important book for helping us, too, to begin to understand the Other.' -- Tania Hershman, author of My Mother Was An Upright Piano and The White Road and Other Stories.
Color photographs and computer imaging provide a portrait of the growth of a baby from conception to birth, tracing the development of individual body parts and systems and celebrating each milestone along the way.
Charlie 1-26 confronted one of the worst neighborhoods in Baghdad and lost more men than any battalion since Vietnam Based on "Blood Brothers", the Michael Kelly Awardnominated series that ran in Army Times, this is the remarkable story of a courageous military unit that sacrificed their lives to change Adhamiya, Iraq, from a lawless town where insurgents roamed freely, to a secure neighborhood with open storefronts and a safe populace. Army Times writer Kelly Kennedy was embedded with Charlie Company in 2007, went on patrol with the soldiers and spent hours in combat support hospitals. During that period, one soldier threw himself on a grenade to save his friends, a well-liked first sergeant shot himself to death in front of his troops, and a platoon staged a mutiny. The men of Charlie 1- 26 would earn at least 95 combat awards, including one soldier who would go home with three Purple Hearts and a lost dream. This is a timeless story of men at war and a heartbreaking account of American sacrifice in Iraq.
