To Start a Warpaints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making process that was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear and paranoia, rank navet, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with ides fixes who gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing was true. Robert Drapers fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principal actors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close to sorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusion all the more damning.

In the spirit of Barbara W. TuchmansThe Guns of Augustand Marc BlochsStrange Defeat,To Start A Warwill stand as the definitive account of a collective scurrying for evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirely falseevidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that shows no signs of ebbing.