Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq

Readers unsatisfied with mainstream coverage of the Iraq War will want to grab this, an up-close look at daily life in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. One of the few unaffiliated journalists in Iraq, journalist Jamail went to see the conditions for himself, and the compelling, heartbreaking stories he sent back over his eight month stay were carried in publications world-wide: from family houses destroyed with their inhabitants to mosques full of people held under siege to the ill-equipped medical facilities and security forces meant to deal with them. Emphatically populist and unapologetically dubious of the U.S. government's party line, Jamail sees ""resistance"" where ""obedient"" mainstream reporters see ""insurgents,"" ""the occupation"" where others see ""the war."" Jamail is a courageous writer who relates fears and bouts of panic alongside jaunts to Fallujah and other hotbeds unapproached by the press at large. Though the writing can be clunky, and the stories hard to distinguish-without any characters to follow (besides Jamail) one is left with the picture of a terrible forest, but few of the trees-this fascinating, eye-opening document of Iraq's day-to-day has a unique perspective and moments of incredible impact.