Scott Ritter / 2005 / $26.00

In 1998 Scott Ritter resigned as the Chief Weapons Inspector with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) set up 7 years earlier to implement UN resolution 687 which demanded the destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD. Iraq Confidential provides an insider’s view of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction during the 1990s.

Ritter reveals his relationship with Israeli intelligence, provides unprecedented detail of US involvement in the inspections and argues that America’s desire to rid the Middle East of Saddam Hussein prevented the inspections from demonstrating Iraq’s compliance. The essence of "Iraq Confidential" is that the CIA and NSC were unwilling to permit a U.N. arm led by an American to successfully investigate what weapons Saddam really had. essence of "Iraq Confidential" is that the CIA and NSC were unwilling to permit a U.N. arm led by an American to successfully investigate what weapons Saddam really had.

Ritter's book is available online at the Amazon bookstore.

Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq

Ahmed S. Hashim / 2006 / 482 pages / $29.95

The Iraqi insurgency continues to bedevil U.S. plans for a new Iraq. Hashim, a professor at the Naval War College, seeks to address three interrelated issues: who the insurgents are, how they are organized, and what tactics they use. He also seeks to analyze the popular mood in Iraq and trace the development of U.S. policy. In his account, warfare specialist Hashim, Professor of Strategic Studies at the US Naval War College, investigates who is behind this complex insurrection, what the fighters actually want, how they mobilise propaganda, including kidnappings and video ransom demands, and the military tactics adopted by the insurgents.

Hashim's book is available online at the Amazon bookstore.

The Highway War:

A Marine Company Commander in Iraq

Maj. Seth W.B. Folsom, USMC / 2006 / 424 pages / $29.95

The Highway War is the compelling Iraq War memoir of then-Capt. Seth Folsom, commanding officer of Delta Company, First Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, U.S. Marine Corps. Mounted in eight-wheeled LAVs (light armored vehicles), this unit of 130 Marines and sailors was one of the first into Iraq in March 2003. It fought on the front lines for the war’s entire offensive phase, from the Kuwaiti border through Baghdad to Tikrit. Drawing on his daily journal, Folsom tells the story of leading 130 marines and sailors into Bagdad and Tikrit during March and April of 2003. The well-written narration begins with preparations at Camp Pendleton and the flight to Kuwait, shares daily details about the march to Bagdad, and recalls brief conversations with embedded journalist Bob Woodruff. Distributed by Books International.

Maj. Folsom's book is available online at the Amazon bookstore.

Danger Close:

Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq

Steve call / November 2007 / 272 pages / $29.95

"America had a secret weapon," writes Steve Call, an assistant professor at Broome Community College in Binghamton, New York, teaching both American and military history, held many command and staff positions during his 21 years in the US Air Force. Describing the period immediately following September 11, 2001, as planners contemplated the invasion of Afghanistan, small teams of Special Forces operatives trained in close air support (CAS) who, in cooperation with the loose federation of Afghan rebels opposed to the Taliban regime, soon began achieving impressive— and unexpected—military victories over Taliban forces and the al- Qaeda terrorists they had sponsored. Drawing on the gripping first-hand accounts of their battlefield experiences, Steve Call allows the Tactical Air Control Parties (TACPs) to speak for themselves. He accompanies their narratives with informed analysis of the development of CAS strategy, including potentially controversial aspects of the interservice rivalries between the air force and the army which have at times complicated and even obstructed the optimal employment of TACP assets.

Steve Call 's book is available online at the Amazon bookstore.

Marines in the Garden of Eden:

The True Story of Seven Bloody Days in Iraq

Richard S Lowry / 2006 / 448 page / $24.95

On March 23, 2003, in the city of An Nasiriyah, Iraq, members of the 507th Maintenance Company came under attack from Iraqi forces who killed or wounded twenty-one soldiers and took six prisoners, including Private Jessica Lynch. For the next week, An Nasiriyah rocked with battle as the marines of Task Force Tarawa fought Saddam's fanatical followers, street by street and building to building, ultimately rescuing Private Lynch. This the story of the battle for "The Nas," as seen through the eyes of those who were there: Marines, soldiers, and newsmen who made it through those terrible seven days, and would never forget what they experienced, what they learned—or those they lost in the name of freedom.

Richard lowry's books are available online at the Amazon bookstore.

Fiasco:

The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Thomas E. Ricks / 2006 / 416 pages / $16.00

Thomas Ricks has covered the U.S. military for the Washington Post since 2000, reporting on activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was part of a Wall Street Journal team that won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting in 2000 for a series of articles on how the U.S. military might change to meet the new demands of the 21st century. Mr. Ricks’s "Fiasco," is filled with such telling vignettes, offering a comprehensive and illuminating portrait of the willful blindness of the Bush administration to Iraqi realities. Ricks’s fury at the Pentagon higher-ups is understandable.This is a more thorough look at the inability of the U.S. forces to adjust quickly and sensitively after the invasion to the reality of an insurgency.

This book is available here in a Kindle electronic edition

Cobra II:

The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq

Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor.

Pantheon / 2006 / 640 pages / $16.00

Cobra II focuses on the rushed and haphazard preparations for war and the appalling relations between the major players -- with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld contemptuous of military views and the compliant Generals Richard Myers, of the Joint Chiefs, and Tommy Franks, of Central Command. After the lightning war ended, it soon became apparent that the optimistic assumptions on which Iraq had been entered were fallacious. The occupying forces soon came to be seen as a menace to the local people rather than as their liberators. This set the scene for growing chaos, which lasts until today.

The Occupation of Iraq:

Winning the War, Losing the Peace

Ali A. Allawi / April 2007 / 350 pages / $28.00

Written by Iraqi diplomat Ali A. Allawi this book presents an insider's view of the ongoing crisis in Iraq. This book will make every American regardless of political affiliation angry and at the same time sad & disgusted that the whole Iraq tragedy from pre-invasion intelligence to post war occupation could have been handled so amateurishly by the greatest military and economic power in the world. This book is a testament to what happens when politicians pursuing a political agenda push aside the military men and try and take control of a war.

Allawi's book is available online at the Amazon bookstore.

The End of Iraq:

How American Incompetence Created a War Without End

Peter W Galbraigth / 2006 / 260 pages / $15.00

The End of Iraq, definitive, tough-minded, clear-eyed, describes America's failed strategy toward that country and what must be done now.

The United States invaded Iraq with grand ambitions to bring it democracy and thereby transform the Middle East. Instead, Iraq has disintegrated into three constituent components: a pro-western Kurdistan in the north, an Iran-dominated Shiite entity in the south, and a chaotic Sunni Arab region in the center. The country is plagued by insurgency and is in the opening phases of a potentially catastrophic civil war. Mr Galbraith, former US ambassador to Croatia, Peter Galbraith has been in Iraq many times over the last twenty-one years during historic turning points for the country: the Iran-Iraq War, the Kurdish genocide, the 1991 uprising, the immediate aftermath of the 2003 war and writes from his personal experience on this complex country.

Galbraigth's book is available online at the Amazone bookstore.

Suicide Bombers in Iraq:

The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom

Mohammed Hafez / 2007 / 240 pages / $17.50

Written by Mohammed Hafez, Visiting Professor, University of Missouri-Kansas City. The war in Iraq was supposed to be easy. Instead it has delivered the message that Islamic resistance and martyrdom can defeat the only remaining superpower, just as jihadists drove the Soviet Union from Afghanistan during the 1980s. Now a haven for jihadists, Iraq has entered a civil war whose duration, scope, and magnitude have yet to be determined. Offering clear and original analysis, Suicide Bombers in Iraq answers vexing questions on the war against fanatic insurgents.. This study, the first of its kind on the Iraqi insurgency, draws extensively on open-source intelligence and papers of record, primary sources from insurgent groups including online documents and videos, and interviews with U.S. servicemen who have served in Iraq. It examines the history of suicide bombing around the globe, theoretical perspectives on suicide terrorism, the varied factions that comprise the insurgency, the ideology and theology of martyrdom supporting suicide bombers, their national origins and characteristics.

This book is available online at the Amazon bookstore.

Ambush Alley:

The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War

Tim Pritchard / 2005 / 320 pages / $25.95

March 23, 2003: U.S. Marines from the Task Force Tarawa are caught up in one of the most unexpected battles of the Iraq War. What started off as a routine maneuver to secure two key bridges in the town of Nasiriyah in southern Iraq degenerated into a nightmarish twenty-four-hour urban clash in which eighteen young Marines lost their lives and more than thirty-five others were wounded. It was the single heaviest loss suffered by the U.S. military during the initial combat phase of the war. This was not a battle of modern technology, but a brutal close-quarter urban knife fight that tested the Marines’ resolve and training to the limit. At the heart of the drama were the fifty or so young Marines, most of whom hadnever been to war, who were embroiled in a battle of epic proportions from which neither their commanders nor the technological might of the U.S. military could save them.
With a novelist’s gift for pace and tension, Tim Pritchard brilliantly captures the chaos, panic, and courage of the fight for Nasiriyah, bringing back in full force the day that a perfunctory task turned into a battle for survival.
"Ambush Alley" is a gut-wrenching account of unadulterated terror that's hard to read yet impossible to put down. London-based journalist and filmmaker Tim Pritchard, was embedded with US troops during the initial stages of the American-led invasion of Iraq.

Pritchard's book is available online at the Amazon Bookstore.