The Iraq War: A Documentary and Reference Guide (Documentary and Reference Guides)

Ideal for general readers as well as professionals conducting extensive research, this informative book offers a collection of documents on the origins and conduct of the Iraq War.

The Iraq War: A Documentary and Reference Guide gives readers the opportunity to investigate this costly and controversial conflict as professional researchers do―by looking closely at key samples of historical evidence. As readers will see, that evidence proves to be extraordinarily revealing about the drive to war, the course of the initial invasion, the counterinsurgency, the "surge," and the continuing difficulties in unifying and stabilizing the country.

From relevant exchanges in the 2000 Bush/Gore debates to interviews with Saddam Hussein to the latest reorganization of the Coalition Provisional Authority, The Iraq War gives readers an insider's view of the conflict's key decisions and events. Each chapter brings together primary and secondary sources on an important phase of the war, with the author providing context, analysis, and insight from a historian's perspective. The book also provides a solid framework for working with the documentary record―a particularly difficult task in this case, as so many vital sources will remain classified and inaccessible for years to come.

• More than 100 excerpts of government documents, military briefings, Congressional reports, media articles, and more, all related to specific phases of the Iraq War

• An introductory chapter on the processes and challenges of researching the historic record

• Commentary in each chapter showing what can be interpreted from the collected sources

• Sidebars offering biographical notes on key figures; explanations of key terms and concepts; accounts of international treaties, laws, and agreements, and background notes on historical events