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Title details for Arrows of the Night by Richard Bonin - Available

Arrows of the Night

Ahmad Chalabi and the Selling of the Iraq War

by Richard Bonin
Kaleo Griffith
Audiobook
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In 1958, Ahmad Chalabi’s wealthy Shiite family was exiled from Iraq after a revolution that ultimately put Saddam Hussein in power. The young Chalabi devoted his life to restoring his family to prominence. His first coup attempt was in 1963 at age nineteen, while on a school break from MIT. His next was aided by Iranian intelligence. But as the years passed and Saddam stayed in power, Chalabi made an audacious decision: he needed the support of both Iran and its powerful archenemy, the United States.
Drawing on unparalleled access to Chalabi, Bonin traces the exile’s ingenious efforts to stoke a desire for Iraqi regime change in the U.S. He narrates Chalabi’s ill-fated engage­ment with the CIA and his later focus on neoconservative policy makers who rose to power under George W. Bush. As a result, from day two of the Bush presidency, the push for a new Iraq was on, with the intent to install Ahmad Chalabi as overseer of U.S. interests in the Middle East. The outcome was perhaps the biggest foreign policy disaster in our history and a triumphant end to Chalabi’s forty-five-year quest.
Today, as we prepare to withdraw our troops from Iraq, Arrows of the Night is full of shocking revelations about how we got there, including the true story of Chalabi’s relation­ship with Iran. This page-turner, with its definitive account of the war, irrevocably alters a story we thought we knew.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 6, 2011

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780307940728
      • File size: 356269 KB
      • Duration: 12:22:13

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 21, 2011
      Bonin, a 60 Minutes producer, clearly has the chops to tell a good story and this highly detailed study of Ahmad Chalabi, an Iraqi-born Shiite exiled to London during his childhood, does not disappoint. A determined and opportunistic man, Chalabi followed a cyclical pattern of "attaining power, provoking controversy and then turning adversity into advantage," with the ultimate goal of provoking the U.S. into overthrowing Saddam. Bonin's unflattering view of the U.S. government describes the Iraq Operations Group (IOG) in 1994 as "swarming with drunkards and whores" and former President George W. Bush as a hapless and ignorant figure. After attending meetings with the IOG, Chalabi learned that the CIA could be easily manipulated into starting a war. In fact, Chalabi was a major contributor to the "confirmation" of weapons of mass destruction that resulted in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Despite his early successes, the U.S. cut ties with Chalabi in 2004, causing his "near-Biblical fall from grace." Alive with action, Bonin's account is a whodunit for avid newshounds.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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