A War of Choice

Jack Fairweather examines our less than glorious role

Sameer Rahim, Telegraph

Fairweather deftly combines history, analysis and reportage to give a rational and dispassionate account of Britain's war... While A War of Choice is by no means the first book about the war in Iraq, nor even about Britain in Iraq, it is surely one of the finest. It is a compelling and sober exploration of Britain's controversial foreign policy in the Middle East, and, most importantly, it is fantastically readable

Tom Begg, Sugar Street Review

It makes for one of the best histories of the aftermath of war, and a staggering story of the betrayal of everything it was fought for

Good Book Guide

Britain's campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan have spawned a new generation of war correspondents as brave and fluent as any that went before, many of whom go on to write books. Jack Fairweather, who reported from Baghdad for The Daily Telegraph, has compiled his own account, which is sound, vivid and [...] simply describes in cool prose how Britain's share in the western allies' initial 2003 success in deposing Saddam Hussein and occupying Iraq turned into a nightmare struggle against insurgency

Max Hastings, Sunday Times

Jack Fairweather, the accomplished correspondent of the Daily Telegraph for much of the Iraq venture, gives a brilliant summary of the British entanglement for the fourth time in that country in A War of Choice... It should provide an ideal introduction to the forthcoming, and much delayed, report about British involvement in Iraq by the Chilcot committee. That inquiry should finally lay bare who took the decisions for what, who knew what and at what time, and who should take responsibility. It won't do all that, we know already, because Sir John Chilcot himself has said he won't apportion blame. He should, and the fact he won't means we will have to rely on Jack Fairweather's pithy analysis for a long time ahead

Robert Fox, Evening Standard

The calamitous decision-making process that sent Britain into the "perfect storm" of fighting two wars on two fronts is brilliantly catalogued in Jack Fairweather's excellent book A War of Choice. Through more than 300 interviews, Fairweather, a former Daily Telegraph correspondent in Iraq, expertly dissects the lies, spin and appalling decision-making which led to the biggest British foreign policy disaster since the Suez Crisis

Sean Rayment, Daily Telegraph

A brilliant summary of the British entanglement for the fourth time in that country...It should provide an ideal introduction to the forthcoming, and much delayed, report about British involvement in Iraq by the Chilcot committee.

Robert Fox, Evening Standard

A well-written and comprehensive history of the war in Iraq from the British perspective, and a timely work that offers a considered appraisal of what went wrong

Eamonn Gearon, Times Literary Supplement