The Long Road to Baghdad
Lloyd C Gardner, The New Press, £18.99
This is an important book. It stands out from the growing literature on the build-up to the Iraq war for three reasons. First it has to be amongst the most closely researched and information-rich accounts of how and why US foreign policy has evolved. It provides chapter and verse to show that not just Donald Rumsfeld but George Bush too was pressing to attack Iraq within 24 hours of 9/11. "Go back over everything, everything," Bush reportedly ordered his head of counter-terrorism on 12 September, 2001, "See if Saddam did this.