false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1211112379m/3236297.jpg 3236297 1 In the most dramatic and intimate account of battle reporting since Michael HerrÕs classic <I>Dispatches</i>, NBC NewsÕs award-winning Middle East Bureau Chief, Richard Engel, offers an unvarnished and often emotional account of five years in Iraq. Engel is the longest serving broadcaster in Iraq and the only American television reporter to cover the country continuously before, during, and after the 2003 U.S. invasion. Fluent in Arabic, he has had unrivaled access to U.S. military commanders, Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, Iraqi families, and even President George W. Bush, who called him to the White House for a private briefing. He has witnessed nearly every major milestone in this long war. <I>War Journal</i> describes what it was like to go into the hole where U.S. Special Operations Forces captured Saddam Hussein. Engel was there as the insurgency began and watched the spread of Iranian influence over Shiite religious cities and the Iraqi government. He watched as Iraqis voted in their first election. He was in the courtroom when Saddam was sentenced to death and interviewed General David Petraeus about the surge. In vivid, sometimes painful detail, Engel tracks the successes and setbacks of the war. He describes searching, with U.S troops, for a missing soldier in the dangerous Sunni city of Ramadi; surviving kidnapping attempts, IED attacks, hotel bombings, and ambushes; and even the smell of cakes in a bakery attacked by sectarian gangs and strewn with bodies of the executed. <I>War Journal</i> describes a sectarian war that American leaders were late to understand and struggled to contain. It is an account of the authorÕs experiences, insights, bittersweet reflections, and moments from his private video diaryÑitself the subject of a highly acclaimed documentary on MSNBC. <I>War Journal</i> is the story of the transformation of a young journalist who moved to the Middle East with $2,000 and a belief that the region would be Ò<I>the</i> storyÓ of his generation into a seasoned reporter who has at times believed that he would die covering the war. It is about American soldiers, ordinary Iraqis, and especially a few brave individuals on his team who continually risked their lives to make his own daring reporting possible. 3270800 3 6 2008 War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq total:78|5:23|4:35|3:17|2:3|1:0| 78 312 147 39 4 1 false false Mon Jun 30 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 27 12:29:45 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 30 12:39:36 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon May 11 16:41:01 -0700 2009 Thu May 14 12:08:08 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Oct 13 17:23:33 -0700 2009 Thu Aug 07 20:08:08 -0700 2008 Tue Oct 13 17:23:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Jul 07 21:55:12 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 07 21:58:14 -0700 2008 4 1 false false Tue Jun 10 19:43:36 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 17 22:35:40 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Wed Sep 24 16:03:22 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 14 07:22:35 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 24 16:03:22 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 09 20:54:06 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 13 09:34:53 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 20 06:43:41 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 20 06:58:54 -0800 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 15 17:36:17 -0700 2008 Sun Jun 15 17:43:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 13 07:16:22 -0700 2008 Tue Nov 04 18:51:47 -0800 2008 1
I've only read two other books about the current war in Iraq, and both of those were either by a soldier or with a journalist that spent his short time in Iraq with soldiers.

Also they were written at the start of the war....more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Dec 19 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jun 13 18:18:11 -0700 2008 Sun Dec 21 16:46:18 -0800 2008
He can freely describe the many horrors he saw that he couldn't talk abou...more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Dec 09 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Aug 05 17:57:42 -0700 2008 Tue Dec 09 16:43:09 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Dec 14 22:48:36 -0800 2008 Sun Dec 14 22:49:58 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Mon Oct 27 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 20 05:57:07 -0700 2008 Mon Oct 27 17:47:18 -0700 2008
I was blown away with what Richard Eng...more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Dec 29 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Aug 28 04:37:41 -0700 2008 Tue Dec 30 05:52:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 06 05:41:48 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 06 05:42:46 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Fri Feb 20 10:24:18 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 20 10:31:00 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Tue Nov 10 08:56:37 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 10 08:58:21 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 01 06:07:59 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 01 06:09:14 -0700 2008 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sat Sep 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 30 18:28:04 -0700 2009 Thu Jul 30 18:28:47 -0700 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=3236297