Table of Contents
Maps xii
The Leaving 1
Part I Getting In
1 Rule Number One 15
2 Sixty Words 24
3 Making - and Almost Killing - a President 43
4 Ground Zero 63
5 Losing bin Laden - the Not So Great Escape 72
6 A Tale of Two Generals 96
7 Taliban Central 112
8 Merchants of Ruin - the Return of the Warlords 130
9 Theatre of War 154
10 A Tale of Two Wars 178
11 Voting With Mullah Omar 202
Part II War
12 Ambush 225
13 Bringing Dolphins to Helmand 239
14 Tethered Goats 269
15 The President in His Bloody Palace 294
16 Whose Side Are You On? 325
17 The Snake Bites Back 352
18 The Weathermen of Kandahar 372
19 We'll Always Have Kabul 395
20 Death of a Poet 411
21 Meeting Colonel Imam 433
Part III The Good War
22 The View From Washington 457
23 All About the Politics 470
24 The Butcher of Mumbai 480
25 Losing the Moral High Ground in Margaritaville 493
26 Chairman Mullen and the Cadillac of the Skies 512
Part IV Getting Out
27 Killing bin Laden 543
Postscript: War Never Leaves You 573
Appendix: The Costs of War 600
Acknowledgements 601
Notes 605
Select Bibliography 613
Illustration Credits 617
Index 619