Photos of the lead protagonists in the new book, A History of the World since 9/11, can now be viewed at the Gallery. Mark Stroman, hero (‘anti-hero’?) of chapter 1, is there showing off his tattoos, as is Abdul Malik, who appears in chapter 3. There will shortly be pictures of the

Children Overboard incident that forms the heart of  chapter 2. Alongside them are some interesting documents that make up the start of chapter 4 – the original contracts and correspondence for the aluminium tubes order that led to the Iraq invasion in 2003.

There are also tons of pictures of the Iraqi weapons plant, Al Qa’qaa (subject of chapter 5)  including US soldiers at Qa’qaa from KSTP-St Paul,

Minneapolis, footage of the explosives they found there, the original Iraqi authorities’ document stating that the explosives had been stolen, and some satellite imagery used by the Pentagon to ‘prove’ that the materiel had not been there when US troops arrived in April 2003.

Finally, there is a screen grab of an interview with a man I’ve called ‘Yusuf‘ (a former bomb maker for Al Qaeda in Iraq) who helped me to put the pieces together regarding what had actually happened to the 377 tonnes of PETN, RDX and HMX.

Here’s a mockup of the UK cover art for A History of the World since 9/11. Bloomsbury in the US are designing their own cover. The text on the back is a draft (not written by me: these things get done elsewhere, then are forwarded for author approval) and rather out-of date: I was going to include a wonderful story in the book about the Masai in Kenya – and their reaction to 9/11 - but this never happened in the end. I was also going to write a story about the Israeli attack on the oil refinery/storage site at Jiyyeh in Lebanon in 2006 – a strike that led to the worst environmental disaster in the Mediterranean’s history. Once again – as often happens in these things – there wasn’t enough time or enough room in the book for the story. Which has proved pretty typical of the entire research and writing process.

The main dilemma I faced in writing this book was choosing which stories to tell. This is largely the reason why a book commissioned in 2006-7 for publication in 2008-9 ended up taking twice that amount of time and is now due out in 2011.

It’s been a long, long haul. Hopefully it’s been worth it.