© 2026 All Rights reserved WUSF
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Our daily newsletter, delivered first thing weekdays, keeps you connected to your community with news, culture, national NPR headlines, and more.

'Fiasco' Author Reports On the Petraeus Report

Thomas Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, discusses this week's long-awaited progress report from Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top two American officials in Iraq.

Ricks is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of the best-selling book Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. It's just come out in paperback.

He tells Terry Gross that in their Congressional testimony this week, Petraeus and Crocker essentially described Iraq as "a place teetering on the edge of disaster, where we have very few options, and where we have to really cross our fingers and hope for the best."

Copyright 2023 Fresh Air. To see more, visit Fresh Air.

Thanks to you, WUSF is here — delivering fact-based news and stories that reflect our community.⁠ Your support powers everything we do.