It has been tempting to view the C.I.A. as omniscient. Yet Coll’s chastening new book about the events leading up to the Iraq War, in 2003, shows just how often the agency was flying blind.

The 1.3-kilometer stretch of the Berlin Wall was painted by various artists after the German reunification. The former gray dividing wall, a symbol of the Iron Curtain, was turned into the longest ...