Dead Wrong: Will the United States Repeat the Mistakes of the 2003 Iraq War in North Korea and Iran?

Many have called the 2003 decision to invade Iraq the greatest strategic blunder in American history. Even President Bush conceded that it was his "biggest mistake." Yet for the last decade, most debates surrounding the war have centered on events set in motion once the war began — a botched occupation, the relative success of the "surge," and the rise of ISIS. Drawing from his personal experience working on Iraq weapons of mass destruction (WMD) issues at the U.S. Department of State during the Clinton and Bush administrations, Patrick Cottrell (associate professor of political science at Linfield College) returns the focus to the decision to go to war itself. By putting the audience in the shoes of those responsible for making Iraq policy in the years prior to the invasion, he identifies often overlooked contours of this fateful decision and reveals lessons of contemporary relevance that have been obscured or forgotten in the fog of war.