Victory Undone: The Defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Its Resurrection as ISIS

Here is a dramatic, first-person account of how the United States won the war in Iraq, only to see the peace lost by an unengaged administration, with Iraqis terrorized and the new "caliph" of ISIS promising , "I’ll see you in New York."

Military contractor Carter Andress was the ultimate boots-on-the-ground "civilian" in Iraq. While reporters, aid workers, diplomats, and even U.S. soldiers were often cut off from the "ground truth" in Iraq by the blast walls protecting the Green Zone and our bases, Andress was in the thick of things: driving through insurgent-infested territory, negotiating with hostile tribes, and witnessing the transformation of Iraq from chaos and violence to a stable multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy that needed only minimal American support to defend itself - support, however, that thanks to the Obama administration was not forthcoming.

A page-turner of a story, but also an incredibly important account of what actually happened in the Iraq War and afterwards, Victory Undone is a book every American needs to read.