We Meant Well

"One diplomat's darkly humorous and ultimately scathing assault on just about everything the military and the State Department have done—or tried to do—since the invasion of Iraq. The title says it all."—Steven Myers, The New York Times

"A burn-his-bridges book by a foreign service officer . . . A scathing, gallows humor look at a massif of missteps . . . Van Buren is merciless."—The Boston Globe

"Checkbook diplomacy . . . In shopping for hearts and minds in Iraq, the State Department made some bizarre impulse purchases."—Foreign Policy

"Laugh-out-loud funny . . . In more than 250 pages of text, Van Buren can think of almost no expenditure that made sense or helped with the long-term goal of stabilizing Iraq. Read it and weep, or laugh—or probably both."—The Dallas Morning News

"If Joseph Heller's war began in 2004 instead of 1944, this would be Catch-22. I could not put the book down."—Seattle-Post Intelligencer

"If this ain't Catch-22, it's awfully close. We Meant Well is held together by Van Buren's hilariously rendered absurdities, from his encounters with American officials and their fictitious reconstruction projects to the U.S. command's annual distribution of a single can of beer to the troops. I laughed 'til I cried."—SpyTalk

"A foreign service officer exposes the truth about American aid to Iraq, using satire, irony, and sometimes laugh-out-loud humor to convey grim reality."—The Kansas City Star

"I've read just about every memoir out of Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade, military or otherwise, and this stands as one of the best—certainly one of the most self-aware and best written."—Washingtonian

"An amusing or horrifying account of the disposition of $172 billion—depending on how sensitive one is to seeing U.S. taxpayer dollars seep into the Mesopotamian sand." —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Reality so rich it stuns. A time capsule, priceless deep insights into occupation at its worst."—Public Intelligence Blog

"Long after the self-serving memoirs of people named Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld are consigned to some landfill, this unsparing and very funny chronicle will remain on the short list of books essential to understanding America's Iraq War. Here is nation-building as it looks from the inside—waste, folly, and sheer silliness included."—Andrew J. Bacevich, author of Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War

"The road to Hell is paved with taxpayer dollars in this insider's account of a misspent year rebuilding Iraq. Abrasive, honest, and funny."—Nathan Hodge, author of Armed Humanitarians: The Rise of the Nation Builders

"One of the rare, completely satisfying results of the expensive debacle in Iraq."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In this shocking and darkly hilarious expose of the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq, former State Department team leader Van Buren describes the tragicomedy that has been American efforts at nation building, marked by bizarre decisions and wrong-headed priorities . . . With lyrical prose and biting wit, this book reveals the devastating arrogance of imperial ambition and folly."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)