Contents

PART 1: GETTING IN

1 Rule Number One

3 Making – and Almost Killing – a President

5 Losing bin Laden – the Not So Great Escape

6 A Tale of Two Generals

7 Taliban Central

8 Merchants of Ruin – the Return of the Warlords

9 Theatre of War

10 A Tale of Two Wars

11 Voting With Mullah Omar

13 Bringing Dolphins to Helmand

14 Tethered Goats

15 The President in His Bloody Palace

16 Whose Side Are You On?

17 The Snake Bites Back

18 The Weathermen of Kandahar

19 We’ll Always Have Kabul

20 Death of a Poet

21 Meeting Colonel Imam

PART III: THE GOOD WAR

22 The View From Washington

23 All About the Politics

24 The Butcher of Mumbai

25 Losing the Moral High Ground in Margaritaville

26 Chairman Mullen and the Cadillac of the Skies

PART IV: GETTING OUT

27 Killing bin Laden

Postscript: War Never Leaves You

Appendix: The Costs of War

Picture Section

Acknowledgements

Select Bibliography

Also by Christina Lamb

About the Author

About the Publisher