Terry Gross

Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks. His new book is called Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. Ricks is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. He talks about the possibility of U.S. involvement in the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. This is the first of a two part interview.

Crime writer Mickey Spillane died Monday at age 88. Spillane was most famous for his sex- and violence-drenched Mike Hammer detective novels. His titles include Kiss Me Deadly and I the Jury. While critics rarely praised Spillane, his books were bestsellers. This interview originally aired on Nov. 22, 1989.

Julia Choucair is an associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the deputy editor of the Carnegie's e-monthly, the Arab Reform Bulletin.