-A member of Veterans for Peace, Mike Ferner traveled to Iraq twice, just before the invasion in March 2003 and again a year later. In this book he reports on those travels, describing the experience of serving as a human shield in an attempt to prevent the war during the first visit and presenting reportage from the Red Zone, in other words the entirety of Iraq except for Baghdad's Green Zone. His reporting profiles other peace activists alongside ordinary Iraqis just trying to survive the chaos and violence of occupation and war. —Reference & Research Book News

-Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq provides an account by a peace activist and journalist who visited the country just before the U.S. invasion in March 2003 and again a year later, visiting ordinary Iraqis, peace activists, soldiers and others working in the country. The result is a hard-hitting set of stories of a country often hidden from American view: accounts chronicling the daily life of Iraqis both urban and rural. Inside the Red Zone is essential for any thorough understanding of the psyche and structure of the nation, and is especially recommended for public lending libraries. —The Bookwatch

-[I] would recommend that anyone wanting to know about the real Iraq read Inside the Red Zone. It is a book of power and insight into this nation where we have been fighting for nearly four years now, at the cost of thousands of lives....When one reads this, and thinks of the Iraqi people and what is likely to come, one is likely to be sad. And chagrined it took so long to make us listen. —The Toledo Blade