To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq-Quality Guarantee

Description

“Essential . . . one for the ages . . . a must read for all whocare about presidential power.” —The Washington Post

“Authoritative . . . The mostcomprehensive account yet ofthat smoldering wreck of foreignpolicy, one that haunts us today.”—LA Times

One of BookPage‘s Best Books of 2020

To Start a War paints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making processthat was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear andparanoia, rank naïveté, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with idées fixeswho gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing wastrue. Robert Draper’s fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principalactors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close tosorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusionall the more damning.

In the spirit of Barbara W. Tuchman’s The Guns of August and Marc Bloch’sStrange Defeat, To Start A War will stand as the definitive account of a collectivescurrying for evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirelyfalse—evidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds ofthousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that showsno signs of ebbing.