Michael R. Gordon is the chief military correspondent for The New York Times and co-author of the national bestseller, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.

For over 20 years, he has covered some of the most crucial conflicts of our time, including the Iraq War, the American intervention in Afghanistan, the Kosovo conflict, the Russian war in Chechnya, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the American invasion of Panama. He also has reported on the Pentagon, arms control, weapons proliferation, and other diplomatic and national security issues.

Before becoming The Times’ chief military correspondent, Gordon served four years as chief of the paper’s Moscow Bureau. The contacts he made during this period yielded unprecedented access to the Chechen conflict, and in 2002 Gordon produced and hosted the award-winning documentary, Deadlock: Russia's Forgotten War, for CNN Presents. Narrated by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the film chronicled Gordon’s risky trip into dangerous and highly restricted areas of Chechnya to capture horrific scenes of war and the inhumanity it engenders. The documentary also looked at the impact of this war on civilians, especially the families of those fighting.

In November 2002, Gordon did a series of reports for The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on U.S. military training efforts in the horn of Africa. In February 2003, The Learning Channel aired the documentary, A Show Of Force, Gordon’s report on how the military buildup in the Gulf in preparation for a possible war with Iraq was part of the Bush administration's larger, controversial policy of pre-emption or 'first strike.'

When war broke out a month later, Gordon was the only reporter embedded with the Allied land command. In March 2006, he published Cobra II, the definitive chronicle of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq, informed by his unparalleled access to still–secret documents, interviews with top field commanders, and a review of the military’s own internal after–action reports. Co-authored with Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor, the book, which describes in depth how the American rush to Baghdad provided the opportunity for the virulent insurgency that followed, became an immediate bestseller. The Washington Post called Cobra II “the best account of the war to date.”

Gordon is also the author (with Lieutenant General Bernard E. Trainor) of The Generals' War, a definitive, behind-the-scenes account and analysis of the planning and execution of the first Gulf War. Published by Little Brown in January 1994, it was rated the best single volume on the 1991 Persian Gulf War by Foreign Affairs magazine. NPR proclaimed, “This model of investigative military history punctures the self-aggrandizing manipulations of commanders and the self-serving hype of politicians . . . [and leaves] the battlefield strewn with burned-out myths.”

In 1989 Gordon received the George Polk Award for International Reporting for his joint work with Times correspondent Stephen Engelberg on several nuclear proliferation stories, including one about the role of German firms' in assisting Libya's construction of a chemical weapons plant.

Gordon’s television appearances include Meet the Press, NBC Nightly News, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Charlie Rose, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Hardball with Chris Matthews, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Anderson Cooper 360° and CNN’s The Situation Room. He has also appeared on several news programs abroad, including in Japan, Spain and in the UK.

He lives in the Washington, D.C. area.