Until recently, the possibility that the United States was responsible for war crimes seemed unthinkable to most Americans. But as previously suppressed information has started to emerge -- reports of U.S. attacks on Iraqi hospitals, mosques, and residential neighborhoods, accounts of secret war-planning meetings held long before the invasion, photographs from Abu Ghraib prison -- Americans have begun an agonizing reappraisal of the Iraq war and the way in which their government has conducted it.

Drawing on a wide range of documents - from the protocols of the Geneva Convention, to FBI e-mails about Guantanamo, to executive branch papers justifying the circumvention of international law -- In the Name of Democracy examines the legality of the Iraq war and the occupation that followed. Included in this powerful investigation are eyewitness accounts, victim testimonials, statements by soldiers turned resisters and whistleblowers, interviews with intelligence insiders, and contributions by Senator Robert Byrd, President Jimmy Carter, Elizabeth Holtzman, John W. Dean, Mark Danner, Richard Falk, Seymour Hersh, and many others.

The result is a controversial, chilling anthology that explores the culpability of officials as well as the responsibilities of ordinary citizens, and for the first time squarely confronts the matter of American impunity.

Visit the authors' site, War Crimes Watch

Jill Cutler is an assistant dean at Yale College, where she is also a lecturer in the Department of English. She has edited many books, including Global Visions: Beyond the New World Order.

Brendan Smith is the coauthor of Globalization from Below and has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and the Baltimore Sun. He holds a law degree from Cornell University.