1. Interview with Philip Carroll. Michah Sifry and Christopher Cerf, The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, and Opinions (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), p. 618 (“addiction”); Richard Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), p. 162; Paul Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq” Foreign Affairs 85, no. 2 (2006) (“broad consensus”), p. 20; Report to the President, March31, 2005, The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, pp. 157–87.

2. New York Times, February 10, 2003 (“indisputable”); interview (“no evidence”).

3. New York Times, October 7, 2004 (“deceiving”); Sifry and Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, p. 413 (chemical and biological); interview.

4. Catherine Collins and Douglas Frantz, Fallout: The True Story of the CIA’s Secret War on Nuclear Trafficking (New York: Free Press, 2011), p. 23; Laura Bush, Spoken from the Heart (New York: Scribner, 2010), pp. 242, 277; George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown, 2010), p. 253; Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, p. 234 (“unable to prevent”); Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,” p. 21 (“any analysis”).

5. Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2007), chs. 2–3; interview with John Negroponte (“toughest message”).

6. The New York Times, August 27, 2002 (“infinitely more difficult”); Sifry and Cerf, The Iraq War Reader, p. 269 (“materialize”); Ricks, Fiasco, p. 30; George Packer, The Assassin’s Gate: America in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), ch. 4; Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (New York: Random House, 2006), pp. 72–73.

7. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, p. 206 (“true threat”); Ricks, Fiasco, pp. 5, 65 (“not have an easy time”).

8. Interview with John Negroponte.

9. Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004), p. 323; interview (“proposal to invest”).

10. Donald Rumsfeld, “The Future of Iraq,” speech, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington, DC, December 5, 2005 (“speed and agility”); Washington Post, February 27, 2003 (Gen. Shinseki); Donald Rumsfield, “Beyond Nation Building,” speech, Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum, New York City, February 14, 2003; Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, pp. 459, 506 (Franks). Also Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir (New York: Sentinel, 2011), pp. 482–83; 649–51.

11. Pillar, “Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq,” p. 22 (“strong wind”); Brent Scowcroft, “Don’t Attack Saddam,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2002; interview with Brent Scowcroft; Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice, p. 226 (“all else is jeopardized”); International Monetary Fund, “Iraq: Macroeconomic Assessment,” October 21, 2003 (government revenues); Ricks, Fiasco, pp. 96–98 (“its own reconstruction”).

12. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, p. 459.

13. Interview with Philip Carroll; Thomas Ghadhban, CERA, “Expansion of Iraq’s Crude Oil Production Capacity,” presentation, “Tale of Three Cities” conference, January 20–22, 2006 (twenty-three were put into production); Issam al-Chalabi, “Oil in Postwar Iraq,” presentation, CERA “Tale of Three Cities” conference, January 11–13, 2003.

14. Interview with Philip Carroll; L. Paul Bremer III and Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006), p. 61.

15. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, p. 481 (“civil servants”); interview with Aleksander Kwaśniewski; Bremer and McConnell, My Year in Iraq, pp. 36–39; Terence Adams to author.

16. “Iraq’s Come Back: Consequences for the Oil Market and the Middle East,” CERA, January 2004; The New York Times, March 17, 2008 (expletive); Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, pp. 483–84 (“incendiary”).

17. Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, pp. 473–78 (“stuff happens”); Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, pp. 46, 465, 472, 575; The New York Times, October 19, 2004; Bush, Decision Points, pp. 257–59.

18. Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II, pp. 489–95, 579.

19. Jeremy Greenstock, “What Must be Done Now,” Economist, May 6, 2004.

20. Interview with Rob McKee; Vera de Ladoucette and Leila Benali, “Iraqi Production: More (but Slower) Growth ahead,” CERA, November 12, 2003 (Baath plan).

21. Petroleum Intelligence Weekly, June 21, 2004; Michael Makovsky, “Oil’s Not Well in Iraq,” Weekly Standard, February 19, 2007; Michael Makovsky, “Iraq’s Oil Progress,” Weekly Standard, August 25, 2008.