William Tucker

BAYJI, Iraq — Bayji, a Sunni town 40 miles north of Tikrit, is one of the places where the Bush Administration’s new “clear, hold and build” policy should be fairly easy to implement. With a uniform population, there is little…

TIKRIT — The invasion of Iraq began as a gritty, boots-on-the-ground affair. (Karl Zinsmeister’s Boots on the Ground, which chronicled the event, has been read by almost every other soldier I’ve met over here.) “I remember our first six months…

TIKRIT, Iraq — The humvees first sent to Iraq didn’t have side armor. Instead two gunners sat at the open side doors. That proved devastating when the insurgents resorted to roadside bombs. Now the humvees have heavily armored side doors…

BAGHDAD — They call it the “Green Zone” but I prefer to think of it as the Kremlin. The nine-square-mile “International Zone” — mostly Saddam’s former playground — is supposed to be our “secure” portion of Baghdad. In a way…

I’m sitting in the chow hall at the transit base in Kuwait when a Navy Seabee walks over to my table — a big hulking young man a smile so broad it can only mean he’s going home soon. “Can…

KUWAIT — To all intents and purposes, Kuwait City Airport doesn’t look much different from Newark, Nashville or Phoenix. There is the Starbucks, Burger King, Hertz, Longines, and all the other familiar names. The only difference is the number of…

The other night I was having dinner with two friends in an Upper West Side restaurant when an extraordinarily loud group of about a dozen people settled into the next table. Before we knew what had happened, one man had…

Lewis Namier, the great British historian, once called 1848, the year of unsuccessful revolutions in continental Europe, “the turning point where history didn’t turn.” It’s a pithy apothegm that reveals something often overlooked in history — how different things might…

Whenever anybody starts talking about how we can solve our energy problems and end oil imports, they always end up talking about windmills. Wind is indeed the fastest growing form of energy generation in the U.S., expanding at a brisk…

If you want to see the document that may determine history for the next two years — and probably elect a Democratic President in 2008 — take a look at “Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq,” by Frederick…