But it is the third book to present a journalistic first reading of the history of the turnaround in Iraq. The other two are Bob Woodward's, the War Within (the 4th of his Bush at war series and with The Commanders an excellent longitudinal report of how the NSC sytem functioned or failed) and Linda Robinson's Tell Me How This Ends. So far, I think that Robinson's is the best of the three but they are all worthwhile in that they each hold up different mirrors to the same events. Future historians will be indebted to these journalists as will college profs, like me, who can assign some good reading to their undergraduate students.

Cheers

JohnT