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Synopsis
In the first half of this account of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, Keegan (defense editor, The Daily Telegraph, UK) provides a historical account of the political events that led to the invasion. He describes Iraq's response to calls to account for its alleged stockpiles of illegal weapons and failed US and British efforts to gain imprimatur for their military actions in a manner that largely conforms to official views and eschews much critical analysis. The second half of the work, an account of the invasion itself, focuses on military tactics and strategies of the American and British invading armies. In this edition, Keegan provides a new postscript wherein he recounts some of the difficulties facing the occupation in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The Washington Post - Max Boot
Keegan provides a vivid account of how we got here, emphasizing the coalition's successes, though he touches upon some failures in a concluding chapter. Unlike many other authors of instant histories of the Iraq War, Keegan was not embedded with the allied forces. What his account lacks in ground-level details, it more than makes up for with a panoramic perspective befitting the best-known (and perhaps the best, period) military historian in the world.