As the dust settles over Baghdad, a leading expert on Iraq tells the story of the obstacles that stood between the US and the fall of Saddam – and reveals that many of them came from within the US Government itself. Combining groundbreaking new research with an insider's understanding of the workings of Washington, Mylroie describes how forces within the CIA and the State Department have conspired to ly discredit crucial intelligence about Saddam Hussein's regime, from his links to al Qaeda to his development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weaponry. She charges the bureaucrats within these agencies with cynical, self–serving behaviour, designed to help them save face even at the expense of our national security. She describes how major elements of the case against Iraq––from new information about the al–Qaeda terrorists' possible links to Iraq, to potential Iraq involvement in the fall 2001 anthrax attacks––were suppressed or prematurely dismissed by these agencies. She reveals how the very idea of state–sponsored terrorism had been pronounced dead after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing––thereby giving states like Iraq the perfect cover to carry out well–orchestrated terrorist acts without ever being detected.
First time in paperback, with a new Introduction and final chapter World affairs expert and intrepid travel journalist Robert D. Kaplan braved the dangers of war-ravaged Afghanistan in the 1980s, living among the mujahidin—the “soldiers of god”—whose unwavering devotion to Islam fueled their mission to oust the formidable Soviet invaders. In Soldiers of God we follow Kaplan’s extraordinary journey and learn how the thwarted Soviet invasion gave rise to the ruthless Taliban and the defining international conflagration of the twenty-first century. Kaplan returns a decade later and brings to life a lawless frontier. What he reveals is astonishing: teeming refugee camps on the deeply contentious Pakistan-Afghanistan border; a war front that combines primitive fighters with the most technologically advanced weapons known to man; rigorous Islamic indoctrination academies; a land of minefields plagued by drought, fierce tribalism, insurmountable ethnic and religious divisions, an abysmal literacy rate, and legions of war orphans who seek stability in military brotherhood. Traveling alongside Islamic guerrilla fighters, sharing their food, observing their piety in the face of deprivation, and witnessing their determination, Kaplan offers a unique opportunity to increase our understanding of a people and a country that are at the center of world events.
