A War of Choice: Honour, Hubris and Sacrifice: The British in Iraq

Description

The remarkable, true story of Britain's role in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, by an award-winning journalist. A gripping account of the moral and political challenges posed by the Iraq war from the Costa Award winning author of The Volunteer When Tony Blair plunged Britain into war he thought that, shortly thereafter, Iraq would emerge as a peaceful democracy. Instead the invasion sparked the worst foreign policy disaster since the Suez crisis in 1956. A War of Choice is a compelling and authoritative portrayal of Britain's war in Iraq. At the outset, Blair insisted that Britain went to war to influence American decision-making. Based on over three hundred interviews, A War of Choice gives the inside story of Blair's war cabinet, Whitehall power struggles and intrigue at the White House, and traces the evolution of the special relationship, from the secret deals struck by Blair, to Brown's desperate bid to save his premiership, which brought already-strained relations with America to the verge of collapse. A story of hubris and honour, betrayal and the ultimate sacrifice, A War of Choice provides powerful insight into one of Britain's most controversial conflicts. 'A timely work that offers a considered appraisal of what went wrong' Times Literary Supplement

Jack Fairweather is an expert on the American and British military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, recent defence policy in both countries, and the issues surrounding humanitarian intervention in the Middle East. He is currently a fellow of the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University and was the Daily Telegraph's Baghdad and Gulf correspondent for five years. As an embedded reporter during the Iraq invasion, he and his team won the Best Team Reporting award at the British Press Awards. Most recently he has been the Washington Post's Islamic world correspondent and a senior editor at the Solutions Journal. He received his BA and MA in English Literature from Lincoln College, Oxford.

Sound, vivid and enhanced by his modesty - there is no "as the bullets flew around my head" here. He simply describes in cool prose how Britain's share in the western allies' initial 2003 success in deposing Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq tuned into a nightmare struggle against insurgency -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times * It makes for one of the best histories of the aftermath of war, and a staggering story of the betrayal of everything it was fought for * Good Book Guide * A rollercoaster narrative of heroism, mismanagement and disaster... as gripping as any novel -- Robert Irwin It does what the Chilcot Inquiry should do, but probably won't -- Robert Fox * Evening Standard, Books of the Year * A compelling history of the seamy realities of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it combines the vivideness of front-line reporting with detached and incisive analysis. A War of Choice should become the definitive account of this era -- Alistair Horne