Iraq History

This is the bizarre tale of 12 young American soldiers who are deployed to Iraq in the summer of 2006. Rather than fight the enemy in combat, the men are unexpectedly assigned to guard the country's notorious leader - Saddam Hussein - in the months leading to his execution. Living alongside and caring for their "high-value detainee" in a former palace dubbed The Rock and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions.

In April 2021, an urgent call was placed from a Special Forces operator serving overseas. The message was clear: Get Nezam out of Afghanistan now. Nezam was part of the Afghan National Army’s first group of American-trained commandos; he passed through Fort Bragg’s legendary Q course and served alongside the US Special Forces for over a decade. But Afghanistan’s government and army were on the edge of collapse, and Nezam was receiving threatening texts from the Taliban.

Suicide rates among Army soldiers increased 80 percent between 2004 and 2008, according to a recent report published in Injury Prevention. In the last several years, the number of soldiers returning from the Middle East with mental and physical wounds has continued to climb. According to Dr. Simon Rego, a supervising psychologist at Montefiore Medical Center, "Unlike any other time in history, U.S. military suicide rates now appear to have surpassed those among comparable civilian populations. It is therefore critical that we address this emerging public-health problem."

A group of U.S. soldiers emailed their observations and experiences from Iraq and their candid opinions on fighting an insurgency. This book is the result. This startling collection of emails is a thoughtful and compelling narrative that carries the reader from the alleys and city streets to the homes of long-suffering Iraqis, and from the soldiers’ concrete bunkers to the “majestic” army base.

Decorated Navy SEAL Lieutenant Jason Redman served his country courageously and with distinction in Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where he commanded mobility and assault forces. But his journey was not without its supreme challenges. He was critically wounded in 2007 when he was struck by machine-gun fire at point blank range. During his intense recovery period, Redman posted a sign on his door, warning all who entered not to "feel sorry for [his] wounds."

The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.

"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the Spanish-American War and the Cold War and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its political and economic goals.

In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. At the time John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator.

From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, 250 marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq, during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Their experience: like being in hell. Now Major Scott A. Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, takes listeners back to the streets of Ramadi in a visceral, gripping portrayal of modern urban combat.

Bernard Lewis examines the historical roots of the frustrations and resentments that dominate the Islamic world today and that are increasingly being expressed in acts of terrorism. He looks at the theological origins of political Islam and tells us what the Islamic doctrine of jihad has meant at different times in history.

Dillard Johnson was at the forefront of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. But surviving the enemy was only the beginning. Johnson would use the intensity, focus, and humor that kept him alive on the battlefield to fight stage three Hodgkin's Lymphoma. A man determined not to die, Johnson made a miraculous recovery - and then returned to Iraq for a second combat tour as an Army sniper. Funny and exciting, Carnivore offers fresh insight into the mind and heart of a warrior and offers a look at the lives of troops on the ground not seen before.

Even now, after more than 15 years, it is hard to see the invasion of Iraq through the cool, considered gaze of history. For too many people, the damage is still too palpable, and still unfolding. Most of the major players in that decision are still with us, and few of them are not haunted by it, in one way or another. Perhaps it's that combination, the passage of the years and the still unresolved trauma, that explains why so many protagonists opened up so fully for the first time to Robert Draper.

In this vivid first-person narrative, a Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack Controller (JTAC) and his commanding general give fascinating and detailed accounts of America's fight against one of the most barbaric insurgencies the world has ever seen. In the summer of 2014, three years after America's full troop withdrawal from the Iraq War, President Barack Obama authorized a small task force to push back into Baghdad. Their mission: protect the Iraqi capital and US embassy from a rapidly emerging terrorist threat.

Unimpeachably sourced, Cobra II describes how the American rush to Baghdad provided the opportunity for the virulent insurgency that followed. The brutal aftermath in Iraq was not inevitable and was a surprise to the generals on both sides; Cobra II provides the first authoritative account as to why. It is a book of enduring importance and incisive analysis, a comprehensive account of the most reported yet least understood war in American history.

Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, we witness the chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today's battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America's wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.

The Washington Post's former Baghdad bureau chief, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, takes us into the Green Zone, headquarters for the American occupation in Iraq. In this bubble separated from wartime realities, the task of reconstructing Iraq is in the hands of 20-somethings chosen for their Republican Party loyalty. They pursue irrelevant neoconservative solutions and pie-in-the-sky policies instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity, angering the locals and fueling the insurgency.

On April 6, 2003, 26 Green Berets, including those of Sergeant First Class Frank Antenori's Special Forces A-Team (call sign Roughneck Nine One), fought a vastly superior force at a remote crossroads near the village of Debecka, Iraq. The enemy unit had battle tanks and 150 well-trained, well-equipped, and well-commanded soldiers. The Green Berets stopped the enemy advance, then fought them until only a handful of Iraqi survivors finally fled the battlefield.

The Sumerians settled in the area known as Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, around 5,000 years ago. They produced many fundamental changes to the way in which human societies developed - these were the first city-builders, the first people to use wheeled vehicles, the first methodical astronomers, and the first people to develop a sophisticated written language. The Sumerians also produced art, music, and literature as well as created some of the first professional soldiers the world had ever seen.

Only once in a lifetime does a war so brutal erupt. A war that becomes an official genocide, causes millions to run from their homes, compels the slaughtering of thousands in the most horrific of ways, and inspires terrorist attacks to transpire across the world. That is the chilling legacy of the ISIS onslaught, and Only Cry for the Living takes a profoundly personal, unprecedented dive into one of the most brutal terrorist organizations in the world.

The incredible true story of former Navy SEAL Mike Day, who survived being shot 27 times while deployed in Iraq.