Iraq & Afganistan Wars

The Dixie Chicks are considered the biggest-selling female band in history. Martie Maguire, Emily Robison and Natalie Maines have gone from the bluegrass and country world to wider success with hits such as "Wide Open Spaces" and "Long Time Gone." Now, they are releasing their first CD in three years: Taking the Long Way, a collaboration with rock and rap producer Rick Rubin.

In a new documentary, soldiers on the front lines in Iraq capture their own footage of the experience of war. The War Tapes, directed by Deborah Scranton, opens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend.

The film follows three men: Sgt. Steve Pink, Sgt. Zack Bazzi and Spc. Mike Moriarty, members of the National Guard who arrived in Iraq in March 2004.

The new documentary Baghdad ER goes inside the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Iraq, the Army's premier medical facility in Iraq. Shot over two months in 2005, the film tells the stories of the hospital's doctors and wounded soldiers. The film debuted on HBO last week. Filmmakers Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill discuss their project with Terry Gross.

National Guard Lt. Paul Rieckhoff is the founder and executive director of the organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (formerly Operation Truth). One of the group's aims is to see that troops in active duty and veterans are properly provided for.

He has written a memoir about his tour in Iraq shortly after the occupation: Chasing Ghosts: A Soldier's Fight for America from Baghdad to Washington.

Rock critic Ken Tucker reviews Living with War, a new CD by Neil Young that includes the song "Let's Impeach the President." He posted the entire album on his website last week for free. It's now on sale as a CD.

Stephen Kinzer has reported from more than 50 countries for The New York Times and has been the paper's bureau chief in Turkey, Germany, and Nicaragua. In his new book, Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq, he writes that in the past 110 years, America has overthrown 14 governments that displeased them for "ideological, political, and economic" reasons.

The most frightening thing the United States could do to Iran, short of attacking it, is to leave Iraq, says New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. The second most frightening thing for Iran, he says, would be a U.S. success in Iraq.

President Bush is an enigmatic leader who uses an insurgent approach in reshaping policy and politics. That idea is central to Rebel in Chief, the new book by political writer Fred Barnes. Barnes is the executive editor of conservative magazine The Weekly Standard.

The Bush administration misused intelligence to justify decisions like going to war in Iraq, according to former senior CIA official Paul Pillar. From 2000 to 2005, Pillar was the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia.

The new book While They're At War is the product of dozens of interviews with husbands and wives of those serving in the military. The stories collected by journalist Kristin Henderson, herself the wife of a veteran, describe wives waiting at home in a haze of anticipatory grief.

While reporting on the torture scandal at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Jackie Spinner was nearly kidnapped. Shaken by the experience, the Washington Post journalist returned to work, spending a total of nine months in Iraq.

Coleman is a senior fellow for U.S. foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank. She's an expert on economic development, Afghanistan and women's initiatives in the Middle East.

In October 2003, Mark Etherington became governor of the Shiite-majority Wasit Province in Iraq. Six months later, Etherington, isolated from the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, was forced to flee his headquarters in al-Kut, the province's capital.

Two big surprises awaited Paul Bremer when he arrived in Iraq: that the country's chaos made it ripe for insurgency; and that the U.S. government would withhold additional troops. Bremer became the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq in May of 2003.

New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins has been covering the recent elections in Iraq. In April, he received the George Polk Award for War Reporting for "his riveting, first-hand account of an eight-day attack on Iraqi insurgents in Falluja."

In a cover article for the December issue of Atlantic Monthly, reporter James Fallows argues there is no easy way out of Iraq for American forces. Pressure is mounting to withdraw U.S. troops, but the move would almost certainly leave Iraq in chaos. It will take years to train an Iraqi security force.

Writers Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon are the co-authors of The Next Attack: The Failure Of The War On Terror and a Strategy For Getting it Right. The book criticizes the Bush administration's responses to the terror attacks of Sept 11, 2001.

A need for foreign workers in Iraq -- and the flood of American dollars into the country -- have created a labor network that critics call misleading, illegal and even dangerous. Chicago Tribune correspondent Cam Simpson retraced the fatal journey of 12 men from Nepal.

Army National Guardsman Jason Christopher Hartley. While serving in Iraq, Hartley kept a blog of his experiences until his commanders forced him to shut it down. He’s now back from Iraq, and has a new memoir, “Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq” (HarperCollins).

New York Times reporter Dexter Filkins has been covering Iraq... thoroughly. In April he received the George Polk Award for War Reporting for his riveting, first-hand account of an eight-day attack on Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah.