U.S. State Department Envoy Goes Rogue By Publishing A Book

Peter Van Buren, a career foreign service officer, wrote a critical book about his year in Iraq as the leader of a provincial reconstruction team. Shannon Jensen for The New York Times

U.S. Envoy Puts Match to Bridges With Iraq Tell-All -- New York Times

PETER VAN BUREN, an American diplomat who speaks Japanese, Mandarin and “some Korean,” though no Arabic, did a very undiplomatic thing when the State Department sent him to Iraq for a year. He wrote a book.

The result is one diplomat’s darkly humorous and ultimately scathing assault on just about everything the military and the State Department have done — or tried to do — since the invasion of Iraq. The title says it all: “We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People” (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company).

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My Comment: The timing for releasing this book is perfect in view of what will be happening in Iraq in the next few months.