Red Zone: FIVE BLOODY YEARS IN BAGHDAD

by Oliver Poole

How do you cheer on your national football team when you're terrified to step outside your front door? What's it like to go to the shops when your biggest fear is being blown up by a suicide bomber? Or to risk being shot at a roadblock when you're driving your pregnant wife to hospital? Oliver Poole first arrived in Baghdad in 2003 in an American armoured vehicle, having witnessed first-hand the first weeks of fighting. The city would then became his home as it turned into one of the most dangerous places on earth. He reveals how the war changed his life, and tragically altered that of his interpreter, Ahmed, and his family. He witnesses first-hand its bloody impact on the Iraqi people. Finally, he joins the masses escaping through Baghdad airport - and then campaigns relentlessly to try to save Ahmed and his family before they too are lost.

Genres: Nonfiction, Military History, War

338 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2009

Reviews

[James Aird · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting account from Oliver Poole, a seasoned journalist with extensive experience across Iraq. If the book focused more on the Red Zone in Baghdad specifically, I would give it 5 stars. The writing about life in Baghdad as a civilian journalist is so fascinating!

[Chris Rosenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A interesting read

I really enjoyed reading this book. It gives you a very interesting and different angle on the war in Iraq. I would recommend to those interested in modern conflict.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

The feel good story of the Westerner: about those savages, and how he saved some of them.

[Jeff Flotta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enlightening. Don't go to Baghdad.