The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq:

Stand Up! with Pete Dominick

Pete Dominick

News, Politics

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2024

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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Hey Friends!

Here is a special Author Interview I did with Steve Coll whose new book is out today!

The Achilles Trap SADDAM HUSSEIN, THE C.I.A., AND THE ORIGINS OF AMERICA'S INVASION OF IRAQ

Steve Coll is one of the most important and respected journalists of our time and he is out with a new book.

Steve Coll is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Ghost Wars and dean emeritus of the Columbia Journalism School, and from 2007 to 2013 was president of New America, a public policy institute in Washington, DC. He is an editor at The Economist in London, was a staff writer at The New Yorker for nearly two decades, and before that was a writer and editor at The Washington Post, where he received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1990. He is the author of nine books, including The Bin Ladens, Private Empire, Directorate S, and The Achilles Trap.

“Excellent . . . A more intimate picture of the dictator’s thinking about world politics, local power and his relationship to the United States than has been seen before.” —The New York Times “Voluminously researched and compulsively readable.” —Air Mail

From bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Steve Coll, the definitive story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein, and a deeply researched and news-breaking investigation into how human error, cultural miscommunication, and hubris led to one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, its message was clear: Iraq, under the control of strongman Saddam Hussein, possessed weapons of mass destruction that, if left unchecked, posed grave danger to the world. But when no WMDs were found, the United States and its allies were forced to examine the political and intelligence failures that had led to the invasion and the occupation, and the civil war that followed. One integral question has remained unsolved: Why had Saddam seemingly sacrificed his long reign in power by giving the false impression that he had hidden stocks of dangerous weapons? The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power, and geopolitics that led to America’s disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America’s fundamental miscalculations during its decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein. Beginning with Saddam’s rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq’s secret nuclear weapons program, Steve Coll traces Saddam’s motives by way of his inner circle. He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members, and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader—a leader directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the torture or imprisonment of hundreds of thousands more. This was a man whose reasoning was impossible to reduce to a simple explanation, and the CIA and successive presidential administrations failed to grasp critical nuances of his paranoia, resentments, and inconsistencies—even when the stakes were incredibly high. Calling on unpublished and underreported sources, interviews with surviving participants, and Saddam’s own transcripts and audio files, Coll pulls together an incredibly comprehensive portrait of a man who was convinced the world was out to get him and acted accordingly. A work of great historical significance, The Achilles Trap is the definitive account of how corruptions of power, lies of diplomacy, and vanity—on both sides—led to avoidable errors of statecraft, ones that would enact immeasurable human suffering and forever change the political landscape as we know it.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey friends welcome to a very special episode of Stand Up where I just get to my
0:06.8	interview with my very special guest Steve Cole whose new book is so important
0:12.2	and whose work has won Pulitzer Prizes and the respect of millions
0:16.6	of readers and National Security Forum Policy Communities, the Intelligence Agency Communities, and so many more folks like us, journalists
0:26.6	who cover all of it.
0:27.8	He's the author of Ghost Wars, which was a really important book about the origins of the Taliban, the Mujahideen,
0:34.5	Osama Laden, so important our war in Afghanistan.
0:38.2	He's a professor and Dean Emeritus of Columbia Journalism School.
0:42.2	He's a big muckity muck in journalism circles.
0:44.8	From 2007 to 2013 he was president of the New America Foundation, which is a public policy
0:49.8	institute in DC and he's also a staff writer for The New Yorker.
0:54.0	Previously worked for 20 years at the Washington Post, where he received Pields of Prize for
0:58.0	explanatory journalism in 1990, and the author of nine books, are all so important including one called
1:05.9	the Bidlodden's private empire which is about Exxon and Directorate S which is
1:10.9	about the CIA and so much more. This book is called the Achilles
1:15.4	Trapp Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the origins of America's invasion of Iraq.
1:20.9	I've read the almost 500 pages for this interview. I really wanted to be prepared and as I edited it I think I impress myself. I think this is probably one of the better interviews I've ever done on a book like this certainly and I'm guessing it's one of the best interviews that Steve Cole does on this book.
1:36.1	I know he enjoyed it. I certainly did.
1:38.0	Another one of my favorite journalists Spencer Ackerman wrote a review saying,
1:42.6	Steve Cole's book, relying as it often does on newly translated Iraqi documents,
1:47.2	couldn't have been written back when it might have hindered a war,
1:49.9	but it succeeds because Steve Cole's willingness to re-examine the mutually reinforcing
	...

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