Book Review: ‘War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq’ - Entertainment, Books - Navy Times

Book Review: ‘War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq’

The most fascinating chapter in “War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq” by NBC’s Richard Engel isn’t set in Iraq.

Engel, 33, who has been report¬ing in the Middle East since grad¬uating from Stanford, was in Washington last year to be on “Meet the Press.” With little warning, he was invited to the White House for what turned into a 90-minute candid conversation with President Bush.

It took place without cameras, more of a two-way briefing than a journalist’s interview. Engel writes that NBC’s Tim Russert warned him, “You want to make sure you stay a reporter.”

It doesn’t appear he did. That’s good for the book, even if it blurs the lines between reporting and commentary.

“You have been a war presi¬dent,” Engel told Bush. “You need to become a diplomat.”

Bush was “much more in touch with the inner workings of Iraqi politics than I expected,” Engel observes. He also writes, “Bush’s detractors say he doesn’t have an attention span. He does.”

In the end, however, Engel con¬cludes, Bush “had no idea how to deal with Arabs.”

But there’s a problem with that chapter. Engel’s publisher says his conversation with Bush was reconstructed from memory after it happened. That’s not clear in the book.

“War Journal” is like that, both frustrating and revealing. It lacks a coherent structure. At times, it reads like a diary.

More often, Engel sounds like a policy analyst: “The United States invaded the wrong coun¬try, destroying an odious govern¬ment that was not responsible for 9/11. I don’t know how you re¬cover from invading the wrong country, no matter how you spin it.”

He vividly describes the daily dangers and frustrations of trying to report in Iraq. But his tone is defensive: “We’re not all manipu¬lative bastards searching for a headline at any cost, despite what you might have heard.”

Bush and the Pentagon call the U.S.-led military alliance “The Coalition of the Willing.” Engel jokes it is “The Coalition of the Unwilling.” He dubs the security consultants “The Coalition of the Billing.”

Engel mentions his wife only in passing: “She was my college girlfriend and my best friend. Now we were get¬ting a divorce. She couldn’t understand what I was doing, or why.”

He mentions but doesn’t explore pres¬sure from an un¬named NBC execu¬tive who asks him to find “some ‘good news’ to report from Iraq.” He quotes a producer lamenting the “tremendous pressure in the New York newsroom to lighten up on our coverage of the war.”

Engel shows no signs of doing that.

He acknowledges his ambition: “In the run-up to the war, it was clear that Iraq was a land where careers were going to be made.”

He says he liked the Baghdad bureau: “I felt comfortable there, perhaps in the way that some battered wives can’t leave the men abusing them.”

He adds: “There was no time to wal¬low in self-explo¬ration. War is not a petri dish to exam¬ine and analyze our emotions.”

The book ends with unanswered questions: “People don’t want to hear about Iraq anymore. ... I wonder why I have done all this. Why have I dedicat¬ed five years to cov¬ering this conflict if people just want to turn off the light and not listen anymore?”

“War Journal” is not a great book and would have benefited from tougher editing. But when someone has repeatedly risked his life to report a story, attention should be paid.