Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration And Iraq

Just weeks before a presidential election in which Iraq is the hottest issue, one of America's sharpest foreign affairs commentators lays out how the Bush team marched with eyes wide shut into a quagmire. In her Worldview column for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Trudy Rubin predicted what would happen, warned about the mistakes on the ground, advised what should be done, and pointed out who made the mistakes.

This collection of Rubin's columns from July 2002 - June 2004, with additional material, vividly portrays how the administration misconceived the Iraq war and mishandled the postwar. The book draws on her three lengthy trips to Iraq since the fall of Baghdad, and her close contacts with members of the new Iraqi government, Iraqi clerics, and a broad range of ordinary Iraqis. Rubin is one of the few foreign policy commentators who knows this story from both the Iraqi and American angles.

Now, as the situation worsens daily, and Washington belatedly tries to adopt many of the strategies she advocated from the start of the occupation, Trudy Rubin, with a sharp eye and penetrating insight looks at what must be done to prevent Iraq from deteriorating into a terrorist haven and to enable the United States to draw down its troops.

At a critical time when Americans need to make an informed decision about their country's political future and its role in Iraq, Trudy Rubin in Willful Blindness simplifies a complex story in a way that lets the readers understand what is really going on behind the headlines.