DDC Note: the author appeared on C-Span Book TV, September 11, 2004, and he made a lot of sense.

>From the Publisher
This is a completely fresh, close-up look at the guerilla struggle in Iraq. It is built on weeks spent re-embedded with U.S. soldiers in the most dangerous parts of the Sunni Triangle in early 2004, direct polling of Iraqis, and unmatched reporting on combat raids, interrogations, daily diplomacy, and reconstruction heroics.

It follows the author's Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq, which was the first book from an embedded reporter describing the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Gripping, perceptive, funny, and bluntly honest, Boots became the most popular chronicle of the hot war in Iraq. Now Karl Zinsmeister has again beaten the pack with this groundbreaking sequel on the counterinsurgency phase of the war. This is a powerful, cliché-smashing, up-to-the-minute report on America's most urgent national struggle, as seen through the eyes of ordinary Iraqis and the U.S. servicemen doing today's dirty work.

Dawn Over Baghdad takes you into Iraq's urban neighborhoods, rural villages, and guerilla snake pits, and shows exactly how young American soldiers are quietly but inexorably choking off a terrorist insurrection and planting the seeds (sometimes at great personal cost) of a dramatically different Middle East. Zinsmeister brings home a fascinating, intimate, and insightful story missed by the major media: With the quiet cooperation of millions of everyday Iraqis, the U.S. is approaching something historic-­success in a tough guerilla war.

Includes a 32-page section of color photos taken by the author.

Synopsis
Early in 2004, Zinsmeister, editor-in-chief of The American Enterprise, who had reported on the Iraq War from the front lines during the first year of the war, spent several weeks with US soldiers in the most dangerous parts of the Sunni Triangle. He participated in raids against insurgents and watched US soldiers engage in daily diplomacy with ordinary Iraqis. His book offers a close-up look at the guerilla struggle in Iraq and at Iraqi citizens' support of the US occupation.

About the Author:
Karl Zinsmeister spent three months embedded in combat zones with U.S. soldiers during the first year of the Iraq war. In 2003 he published Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq. Zinsmeister is editor in chief of The American Enterprise, a national magazine of politics, business, and culture (TAEmag.com). He is also the J. B. Fuqua Fellow at Washington, D.C.'s American Enterprise Institute. His writing has appeared in publications like the Atlantic Monthly, Reader's Digest, the Wall Street Journal, and even a Marvel comic-book series of real-life soldiers' tales. A graduate of Yale University and Trinity College, Dublin, and a former assistant to U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he has testified before Congressional committees and Presidential commissions numerous times, and appears regularly on television and radio programs. Karl Zinsmeister lives with his wife and children in rural upstate New York.

Table of Contents
Introduction: American's Warrior Class 1
Trooper Talent 3
Yes Men, No 6
Citizen Soldiers 9
Military Culture 13
1 Crackdown 20
Fighting Fire with Fire 23
Strike, Counterstrike 27
Security Blanket 30
2 The Reconstruction Business 35
Imam Troubles 38
Cordon and Search 44
Walking a Tightrope 48
Fixer Fighters 51
3 Democracy School 56
Reading the Riot Act 59
Sheikdown 61
Seeds of Democracy 64
The Self-Rule Revolution 66
The Upside of Iraq's Divisions 68
Learning to Like Shiites 73
4 What Ordinary Iraqis Want 77
No Need for Nightmares 82
The Un-Fanatics 86
Unpopular Insurgents 89
5 The Character Test 95
Look to Washington, Not D.C. 98
The Responsibility Gap 101
Politics and Religion 103
Individual Scruples, Collective Success 105
The Power of Linked Arms 108
6 Military-Industrial Complex 112
Our Needle-Nose Syndrome 114
The War on Choppers 117
Bricks and Mortar 119
Getting Babylon Back in Business 122
In the Armored Carpool 125
Duel in the Artillery Factory 127
Market Jitters 129
Power to the People 131
Iraqi Imports 134
Weapons Scientists in Watertown 136
7 Guerilla Lessons 138
Following the Infantry 139
Lots of Fighting Left 143
New Blood 149
Balancing the Hard and the Soft 152
Avoiding Dependency 156
8 Here We Come 161
Raiding the Raiders 165
Dreamland 168
In the Snake Pit 171
Walking Fallujah 173
Can We Afford It? 176
Thanks for Nothing 179
New Friends for Old 182
9 What It Takes To Win 186
Hard-Fought Victory 191
The Propaganda Shop 195
Coming Home 199
Undodgeable Reality 201
The Struggle of Wills 204
Author's Note: The Media War 211
Why Iraq? 219
Negativity Without Balance 222
Distortion Dangers 226
Life on Uranus 229
They Report, They Decide? 234

Review:
>From a Southern Californian, June 28, 2004,

Prepare to have your mind opened