Content Warning: This section contains accounts of terrorism and war-related violence, including suicide bombing, torture, and the killing of civilians.

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld avowed, “I don’t recall that I’ve ever lied to the press. I don’t intend to, and it seems to me that there will be no reason for it” (xi). US forces invaded Afghanistan shortly thereafter, with near-unanimous support from the public and the international community. But as the war continued year after year, Rumsfeld and government officials would in fact deceive the press, the public, and even themselves, insisting that victory was around the corner even as conditions deteriorated. Barack Obama entered office promising to end a war that had gone on for more than seven years, but he failed to do so after another eight years. Whitlock had been reporting on the US military for years by that point and wanted to understand how the war had gone on for so long with such disappointing results. In the summer of 2016, he learned of a small federal agency that had steered a project called “Lessons Learned,” which conducted interviews and compiled documents on the war. Whitlock filed Freedom of Information Act requests, and after three years and two federal lawsuits, The Washington Post acquired the bulk of the material.