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Author to speak on how the United States got involved in IraqSeptember 13, 2007SU News ServicesSUnews@syr.edu

Thomas Ricks, U.S. military correspondent for The Washington Post and author of the best-selling book “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq” (Penguin Press, 2006), will speak in Maxwell Auditorium on Thursday, Sept. 20, at 7 pm. Ricks’ talk, “The Iraq War and the Breakdown of the American System,” will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Charlotte Grimes, Knight Chair in Political Reporting at the Newhouse School; William Banks, director of SU’s Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism; and Alasdair Roberts, professor of public administration at the Maxwell School.

Ricks has covered the U.S. military for the Post since 2000. Before that, he had the same beat at The Wall Street Journal for 17 years. He has reported on U.S. military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Fiasco,” his most recent book, has been hailed as essential reading for “anyone interested in understanding how the United States came to go to war in Iraq, how a bungled occupation fed a ballooning insurgency, and how these events will affect the future of the American military.” Ricks also was part of a Washington Post team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for reporting about the beginning of the U.S. counteroffensive against terrorism.

Ricks’ talk is co-sponsored by the Newhouse School of Public Communications; the Maxwell School’s Campbell Public Affairs Institute and Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs; the Newhouse III First Amendment Celebration; the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism; and the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics and the Media.