"Desert One' Told Again For the First Time

When I ran into Mark Bowden a few weeks ago, he said he was working on an ambitious piece for The Atlantic. It is ambitious indeed -- a gripping account of Desert One, the 1980 Delta Force-led mission to free the American hostages being held in Teheran that went horribly awry.

Bowden's piece is meticulously researched and beautifully written and The Atlantic has done a bang-up job of posting it online along with a bunch of cool interactive sidebars. It is, in short, a must read.