Washington Post - Tim Weiner won the National Book Award for “Legacy of Ashes” (2007), his history of the Central Intelligence Agency. So it’s no surprise that “The Mission,” a sequel that covers the CIA in the 21st century, is already a bestseller. It is the product of massive research, including on-the-record interviews with more than 100 veterans of the agency.
Weiner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times, made his first visit to the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, 37 years ago. The decades he has spent mining have yielded reams of inside information about the occasional triumphs and multiple failures of America’s principal intelligence agency. His stories of danger, courage and — not infrequently — pure folly will keep readers turning briskly through these pages...
His portrait of utter dysfunction during President George W. Bush’s administration is particularly powerful. The book reminds us that the many terrible decisions made by Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, cost the lives of thousands of American troops and killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans in two of the most pointless wars America has ever fought...
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