The #1 New York Times best seller, this book revealed for the first time the failures of the Bush Administration to do anything about terrorism before 9-11 and how the Administration intentionally and erroneously used the attacks as a justification to go to war with Iraq. Speaking out publicly against that war long before most Washington insiders, attacking Bush’s folly when doing so was not popular, Clarke took risks others were unwilling to run, but his analysis was eventually vindicated. He also tells a riveting account of the day of 9-11 as only the national crisis manager could tell it.

The book also goes back twenty years to tell us how we got into this situation, but it does so in a fast paced, engaging, and accessible style. This is how the government works behind the doors in national security as told by the longest serving White House national security council staff policy official, appointed to key positions in the Reagan, Bush(41), Clinton, and Bush (43) administrations.