<DIV>Salam Pax has attracted a huge worldwide readership for the Internet diary he kept during the buildup, prosecution, and aftermath of the war in Iraq. Bringing his incisive and sharply funny Web postings together in print for the first time, Salam Pax provides one of the most gripping accounts of the Iraq conflict and will be the subject of global media attention. In September 2002, twenty-nine-year-old Iraqi architect calling himself "Salam Pax" began posting daily accounts of everyday life in Baghdad onto the Internet. Salam daily risked retribution from Saddam's regime, as more than 200,000 people went missing under Saddam, many for far lesser crimes than the open criticism of the regime that Salam voiced in his diary. Salam Pax's sharp, candid, and often dryly funny articles soon attracted a worldwide readership. In the months that followed, as a huge American-led force gathered to destroy Saddam's hated regime, Salam's Internet diary became a unique record of the anticipation, anger, resentment, humor, and sheer terror felt by an ordinary man living through the final days of Saddam Hussein's twenty-five-year dictatorship, and the aftermath of its destruction.</div>