Customer Reviews
Good in parts - By: Gary B, 19 Jul 2010 
I started off reading this book & was immediately gripped, but by half way through my interest was waning & I was glad to get to the end & put it down. The stories of the special forces operations were interesting. I was appalled at the amount of bickering within & between the US & UK armies - though perhaps we should question why the forces should be any different from other organisations. I learned that the US forces were a more effective military force than I had supposed & the UK forcesin Basra less so. However, the book turned into a list of events rather than a narrative & shortly after half way I was questioning my resolve to see the mission through. I am not sure whether I would tackle another of this author's books, though some reviews are saying his other books are better.
Average - By: Emsworth Hermit, 02 Jul 2010 Bit disappointed with this. It seems a lot of the interesting stuff has been heavily edited, leaving just the military politics & some brief outlines of some very heroic missions. I understand the reasons for this but it's borderline false advertising. I do feel a bit more educated as to the situation that evolvedin Iraq after DS2 but ultimately it's a heavy-read, clearly written by a journalist from a newsy-type perspective.
It seems that Special Forces spent a lot of their time justifying their presence there after the initial plan of finding WMDs was completely scuppered (& doing a sterling job at that) but again i'm left with the feeling that our troops shouldn't be there dying for this pointless cause, & that it's all going to go pear shaped as soon as the ultimate withdrawal finally happens anyway. The Iraqi Govt will clearly topple the second that Western Forces are out of there.
Book Review - Task Force Black - By: CJ Horwood, 04 Jun 2010 
I bought this book because I was there as part of TFB. I just wanted to see how it was being reported. It was a really enjoyable read & contained lots of good stuff about the time that TFB wasin Iraq.
The SAS...wow! - By: Valak, 01 Jun 2010 
I liked this work but for one minor problem: it was missing a map of Iraq. There was a lotin the book about various regions/districts/provinces for which it would have helped to be able to locate. Other than that, I felt it was a good narrative on the contribution of British Special Forcesin the conflictin Iraq.
As I read the book, I remembered a number of the events described from the media coverage which helped with the narrative. The author displays considerable skillin being able to weave a number of seemingly disparate events into a coherent narrative. My respect for our special forces hit a new high after reading this book. I hope to find a similar narrative for Coalition troops and/or specials opsin Afghanistan.
Fascinating, but needs a good editor - By: Sarkasti, 19 May 2010 Mark Urban has knowledge, insight & decent enough writing skills to make this a thoroughly worthwhile read. It appears to be an honest account; I really don't have the knowledge to make that an authoritative judgement, but why would he present bias? He has clearly researched the topic thoroughly, at least from the UK & American sides. Presenting an Iraqi point of view is not the mission of this book & that is not a criticism. I did, however, find it immensely frustrating to read & the publisher is at fault for not imposing a radical edit. I am not suggesting that material should be excluded, but the book needs illustrative aids & glossaries. There are a few maps & diagrams at the front - low-detail maps of Baghdad & Basra & three diagrams of particular raids. Putting all of these at the front is lazy editing - the diagrams should be placedin context, they could have been more detailed & more informative & the maps could also have been more informative. There should have been more of these diagrams to illustrate particular events; a picture really is worth a large number of words. Urban is very fond of acronyms. Mostly he defines these at first use, but not always. Even when defined, their reuse laterin the book can cause confusion. He should have provided a glossary of acronyms & another glossary of individuals to remind the reader of their job/rolein the narrative. This could have been helped by some diagrams of the trees of command. All of these changes could be implemented for the paperback edition. So, thank you, Mark Urban for a fascinating book...now lean on Little Brown to get their act together & edit & illustrate this book properly.
