A Time of Our Choosing: America's War in Iraq

by Todd S. Purdum, The Staff of the New York Times

Overview

The authoritative account of America's most controversial war since Vietnam, a conflict in which "shock and awe" were not confined to the battlefield

It was a war like no other the United States had ever fought. It began with the bombing of Saddam Hussein's bunker and ended with statues of the Iraqi dictator being toppled in downtown Baghdad, and it marked a turning point in America's relations with its enemies, its allies, and its sense of itself. Yet most Americans experienced the war as impressionistic and often confusing—the story of one battle here, one unit there, a report from one city, then another, without the larger context we so urgently needed. Each reporter had his "slice" of the war, it seemed, but no one had the whole story or the broad view.

A Time of Our Choosing fills that gap brilliantly, drawing on the unparalleled resources and reportage of The New York Times. Todd S. Purdum, one of the paper's most gifted storytellers, traces the war in Iraq from the first rumblings after 9/11, to the diplomatic recriminations at the United Nations, to the battles themselves and their aftermath. He deftly rolls out the whole canvas before our eyes, showing how the individual "slices" fit together into a single, gripping drama.

Purdum also explores the complex legacy of America's near-unilateral action. Since the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush has vowed that the United States would confront its enemies "at a time of our choosing," and Purdum shows in vivid terms what this choice has meant for our now transformed world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466866102
Publisher:	Holt, Henry & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	03/18/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Todd S. Purdum is the author of An Idea Whose Time Has Come, A Time of Our Choosing, and Something wonderful. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a senior writer at Politico, having previously worked at The New York Times for more than twenty years, where he served as White House correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, and Los Angeles bureau chief. A graduate of Princeton University, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Dee Dee Myers, and their two children, Kate and Stephen.

Read an Excerpt

From A Time of Our Choosing:

It was 4 a.m. when the two men arrived in the empty darkness of downtown. They carried a letter from the president, bearing his signature and authorizing a large transaction. They gave no reason. They did not have to. No questions were asked. Soon enough, Qusay Saddam Hussein, the president’s second son, and Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Tikriti, Saddam’s personal assistant, were overseeing the loading of 236 boxes into three tractor-trailers outside Iraq’s Central Bank. A team of workers took two hours to finish the job. Bank employees were meticulous, good bureaucrats to the end. They kept records of every batch of bills, then placed a packing slip enumerating the contents into each box before it was sealed.

Over the years, Saddam and his family would sometimes demand cash from Iraqi banks. “Small amounts, maybe $5 million,” one official said. This withdrawal was something else again. The total haul: almost $1 billion. There was $900 million in $100 bills and perhaps $100 million worth of euros, about a quarter of the country’s hard-currency reserves, enough to rank as one of the largest bank robberies in history. Then again, Saddam’s power was so absolute that this seizure might have broken no laws. What was the money for? Where was it going? No one may ever know. But on that early spring morning, Saddam Hussein, president for life of the Republic of Iraq, Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Central Leader of the Ba’ath Party, and Great Uncle to the fearful populace he had ruled for almost a quarter century surely knew this: far away in Washington, the president of the United States had given him and his sons just forty-eight hours to surrender power and leave their country—or face war.

Editorial Reviews

"A useful and comprehensive narrative of the Iraq saga during the last year . . . The great strength of this book is Mr. Purdum's astute ability to pull together the varied reporting for The Times into a single whole . . . Mr. Purdum has done a superb job." -The New York Times

From the Publisher