Book excerpt: General Sir Michael Rose tells the inside story of one of the toughest challenges of his career, as Commander of the UN Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994. Amidst scenes of inhumanity not witnessed in Europe since the Second World War, he describes how he dealt with individuals who would stop at nothing, even the sacrifice of their own people, to fulfil their personal and political agendas. He sets the record straight on his handling of crises such as the sieges of Sarajevo, Gorazde and Bihac, and portrays the other hazards of his command: the often conflicting objectives of NATO and the UN, the political sensibilities of the troop-contributing nations, the historic loyalties and lobbies of the US administration and the manipulation of international opinion by the media.