459 | Steve Coll: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Perils of Misreading Dictator's Ambitions

The Realignment

Technology, News Commentary, National Security, Marshall Kosloff, International Relations, News, Public Policy, Economics, Politics, Saager Enjeti, U.s. Politics, Policy

4.8 • 2.5K Ratings

🗓️ 29 February 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Steve Coll, author of The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq and Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Steve discuss America's decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA's intelligence failures that led to radical misinterpretations of Saddam's ambitions after the Gulf War, the Iraq War's significance 20 years later, and how past mistakes can inform today's assessments of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Marshall here. Welcome back to the realignment.
0:05.0	Today's episode is with one of my favorite authors, Steve Cole.
0:12.0	Steve Preely, Steve Steve wrote Ghost Wars and Direct R at S.
0:16.7	Ghost Wars was the story of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the United States from the 1980s up until September 11th and
0:24.8	Director Das focused on the post-9-11 story covering the Pakistani
0:29.4	Intelligence Services relationship to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. This conversation though is
0:34.7	focused on the Iraq war. Steve has a new book out. It's called the Achilles
0:39.6	trap Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the origin of America's invasion of Iraq.
0:45.0	This book is interesting because he isn't just retreading the Iraq war story, its origins
0:50.0	and aftermath we've covered a lot on the show.
0:52.0	He's focused instead on the relationship
0:53.7	between the United States, the CIA and Saddam, and the miscalculations and misinterpretations
0:59.1	that happened along the course of their 30-year-plus relationship.
1:02.6	As the United States thinks of its relationship
1:05.0	towards authoritarian rulers like Vladimir Putin
1:07.2	and Xi Jinping, obviously Russia and China respectively,
1:10.7	we need to think about how our previous dealings with a previous dictator in the 20th century
1:15.6	failed to lead to understanding and proper courses of action.
1:20.0	As we're thinking about this theme of generational change in American politics,
1:23.7	I'm particularly obsessed with the idea that one of the number one tasks facing
1:27.5	millennials, Gen Xers, or Gen Zs, is the need to avoid anything that normally looks like the Iraq war. So understanding
1:35.6	the lead up to there and the relationship side of it is just really key. So hope you all
	...

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