Tony Blair's decision to back George W. Bush in his attack on Iraq will go down as a defining moment for Blair, and for Britain. As Ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock was centre stage in the dramatic months leading up to the Iraq war. After the war he was Special Envoy for Iraq, the UK’s highest authority on the ground, and he worked side by side with Paul Bremer, the US administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority, in Baghdad and saw first-hand the impact of the divisive turf wars back in Washington.

He kept a diary of what he witnessed in Iraq as the security situation deteriorated and has spoken remarkably candidly about the US-led administration. This extraordinary book is a record of what he saw.

Greenstock writes openly about US—UK relations and takes his readers behind closed doors in the tumultuous days leading up to the Iraq war. Through his eyes we see the actions and interactions of key players in New York, Washington, London, Paris and the Middle East. To what extent was the Bush administration determined to attack Iraq come what may? What promise did Blair extract in exchange for backing Bush? How important was Israel to American calculations? Was the war legal? What effect is it continuing to have on Britain’s long-term relations with America and Europe? No one is better positioned to set the story of Britain’s decision to go to war in its international context.

Held back from publication when originally written in 2005, and now revised with a new foreword and epilogue following the publication of the Chilcot Report, Iraq: The Cost of War is a dramatic and groundbreaking blow-by-blow account of one of the most pivotal and controversial conflicts in recent world history.