Tom Ricks Releases New Book - The Gamble

The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008
by Thomas E. Ricks

The Center for a New American Security was thrilled to host CNAS Senior Fellow and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Thomas E. Ricks in an event to release his new book The Gamble: General Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008, a definitive account of the insurgency within the U.S. military that led to a radical shift in America's strategy in Iraq. 

In The Gamble, Thomas E. Ricks documents the inside story of the Iraq war since late 2005. Using hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reporting, Ricks--working in the tradition of his highly lauded bestseller Fiasco--examines the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.

The Gamble offers newsbreaking information, revealing behind-the-scenes disagreements among top commanders. Ricks concludes that the war is likely to last another five to ten years--and that that outcome is a best case scenario. His stunning conclusion, stated in the last line of the book, is that "the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered by us and by the world have not yet happened."