Author: Patrick Cockburn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
This is the first book about Muqtada al Sadr, the most important political figure in post-occupation Iraq. Muqtada has become the kingmaker of Iraq and a force that is indispensable to any Iraqi government: the Mehdi Army, his devoted militia, now rules half of Baghdad. Far from being the 'firebrand cleric' portrayed in the western media, he is an astute and experienced politician who struggles to lead an anarchic mass movement that he only half controls. In a compelling narrative, award-winning war correspondent Patrick Cockburn charts the rise of Muqtada, and has written an essential book for our understanding of Iraq's future. Cockburn has reported from Iraq since 1977, often at great personal risk, and Muqtada al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq combines first hand accounts of his investigations with vivid and dismaying descriptions of the civil war that is tearing the country apart.
Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq
Author: Patrick Cockburn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
This is the first book about Muqtada al Sadr, the most important political figure in post-occupation Iraq. Muqtada has become the kingmaker of Iraq and a force that is indispensable to any Iraqi government: the Mehdi Army, his devoted militia, now rules half of Baghdad. Far from being the 'firebrand cleric' portrayed in the western media, he is an astute and experienced politician who struggles to lead an anarchic mass movement that he only half controls. In a compelling narrative, award-winning war correspondent Patrick Cockburn charts the rise of Muqtada, and has written an essential book for our understanding of Iraq's future. Cockburn has reported from Iraq since 1977, often at great personal risk, and Muqtada al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq combines first hand accounts of his investigations with vivid and dismaying descriptions of the civil war that is tearing the country apart.
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
This is the first book about Muqtada al Sadr, the most important political figure in post-occupation Iraq. Muqtada has become the kingmaker of Iraq and a force that is indispensable to any Iraqi government: the Mehdi Army, his devoted militia, now rules half of Baghdad. Far from being the 'firebrand cleric' portrayed in the western media, he is an astute and experienced politician who struggles to lead an anarchic mass movement that he only half controls. In a compelling narrative, award-winning war correspondent Patrick Cockburn charts the rise of Muqtada, and has written an essential book for our understanding of Iraq's future. Cockburn has reported from Iraq since 1977, often at great personal risk, and Muqtada al Sadr and the Fall of Iraq combines first hand accounts of his investigations with vivid and dismaying descriptions of the civil war that is tearing the country apart.
Muqtada
Author: Patrick Cockburn
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 9781416551478
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
From one of the bravest and most-respected correspondents in the Middle East comes the first-ever biography of the formidable, young Shiite leader, who many predict will take over Iraq after the Americans leave.
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 9781416551478
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
From one of the bravest and most-respected correspondents in the Middle East comes the first-ever biography of the formidable, young Shiite leader, who many predict will take over Iraq after the Americans leave.
Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Shia Insurgency in Iraq
Author: Patrick Cockburn
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
A portrait of the formidable Shiite figure who has been predicted to be a future leader in Iraq, this book describes his rise from a resistance fighter, the assassinations of his family members, and his frequent confrontations with the American military.
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN:
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 326
Book Description
A portrait of the formidable Shiite figure who has been predicted to be a future leader in Iraq, this book describes his rise from a resistance fighter, the assassinations of his family members, and his frequent confrontations with the American military.
Muqtada Al-Sadr and the Battle for the Future of Iraq
Author: Patrick Cockburn
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439141193
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Time magazine listed him as one of its "100 People Who Shape Our World." Newsweek featured him on its cover under the headline "How Al-Sadr May Control U.S. Fate in Iraq." Paul Bremer denounced him as a "Bolshevik Islamist" and ordered that he be captured "dead or alive." Who is Muqtada al-Sadr, and why is he so vital to the future of Iraq and, arguably, the entire Middle East? In this compellingly readable account, prize-winning journalist Patrick Cockburn tells the story of Muqtada's rise to become the leader of Iraq's poor Shi'ites and the resistance to the occupation. Cockburn looks at the killings by Saddam's executioners and hit men of the young cleric's father, two brothers, and father-in-law; his leadership of the seventy-thousand-strong Mehdi Army; the fierce rivalries between him and other Shia religious leaders; his complex relationship with the Iraqi government; and his frequent confrontations with the American military, including battles that took place in Najaf in 2004. The portrait that emerges is of a complex man and a sophisticated politician, who engages with religious and nationalist aspirations in a manner unlike any other Iraqi leader. Cockburn, who was among the very few Western journalists to remain in Baghdad during the Gulf War and has been an intrepid reporter of Iraq ever since, draws on his extensive firsthand experience in the country to produce a book that is richly interwoven with the voices of Iraqis themselves. His personal encounters with the Mehdi Army include a tense occasion when he was nearly killed at a roadblock outside the city of Kufa. Though it often reads like an adventure story, Muqtada is also a work of painstaking research and measured analysis that leads to a deeper understanding both of one of the most critical conflicts in the world today and of the man who may well be a decisive voice in determining the future of Iraq when the Americans eventually leave.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439141193
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258
Book Description
Time magazine listed him as one of its "100 People Who Shape Our World." Newsweek featured him on its cover under the headline "How Al-Sadr May Control U.S. Fate in Iraq." Paul Bremer denounced him as a "Bolshevik Islamist" and ordered that he be captured "dead or alive." Who is Muqtada al-Sadr, and why is he so vital to the future of Iraq and, arguably, the entire Middle East? In this compellingly readable account, prize-winning journalist Patrick Cockburn tells the story of Muqtada's rise to become the leader of Iraq's poor Shi'ites and the resistance to the occupation. Cockburn looks at the killings by Saddam's executioners and hit men of the young cleric's father, two brothers, and father-in-law; his leadership of the seventy-thousand-strong Mehdi Army; the fierce rivalries between him and other Shia religious leaders; his complex relationship with the Iraqi government; and his frequent confrontations with the American military, including battles that took place in Najaf in 2004. The portrait that emerges is of a complex man and a sophisticated politician, who engages with religious and nationalist aspirations in a manner unlike any other Iraqi leader. Cockburn, who was among the very few Western journalists to remain in Baghdad during the Gulf War and has been an intrepid reporter of Iraq ever since, draws on his extensive firsthand experience in the country to produce a book that is richly interwoven with the voices of Iraqis themselves. His personal encounters with the Mehdi Army include a tense occasion when he was nearly killed at a roadblock outside the city of Kufa. Though it often reads like an adventure story, Muqtada is also a work of painstaking research and measured analysis that leads to a deeper understanding both of one of the most critical conflicts in the world today and of the man who may well be a decisive voice in determining the future of Iraq when the Americans eventually leave.
My Year in Iraq
Author: L. Paul Bremer
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743289072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
"BAGHDAD WAS BURNING." With these words, Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush and his admiration for the president's firm wartime leadership. And we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. He admires the selfless and courageous work of thousands of American servicemen and -women and civilians in Iraq. The flames Bremer describes on arriving in Baghdad were from fires started by looters. One of his first acts was to request an additional 4,000 Military Police to help restore order in the streets. For most of the next year, as the insurgency spread, Bremer resisted efforts by generals and senior Defense Department civilians to reduce American troop strength prematurely, replacing our forces with ill-trained, poorly led Iraqi police and soldiers. And he lays to rest the myth that the Coalition disbanded Saddam's army, a force comprised of Shiite draftees who had deserted and refused to serve under their former Sunni officers. Bremer also describes his frustration with intelligence operations that concentrated on the search for weapons of mass destruction while the insurgency gathered strength. Bremer faced daunting problems working with Iraq's traumatized and divided population to find a path to a responsible and representative government. The Shia Arabs, the country's long-repressed majority, deeply distrusted the Sunni Arab minority who had held power for centuries and had controlled the detested Baath Party. Iraq's non-Arab Kurds teetered on the brink of secession when Bremer arrived. He had to find Sunnis willing to participate in the new political order. Some in the U.S. government pushed for what Bremer would come to call a cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam exiles. Bremer vigorously resisted this ill-conceived course. He takes the reader inside marathon negotiations as he and his team shepherded Iraq's new leaders to write an interim constitution with guarantees for individual and minority rights unprecedented in the region. My Year in Iraq is required reading for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743289072
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 433
Book Description
"BAGHDAD WAS BURNING." With these words, Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush and his admiration for the president's firm wartime leadership. And we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. He admires the selfless and courageous work of thousands of American servicemen and -women and civilians in Iraq. The flames Bremer describes on arriving in Baghdad were from fires started by looters. One of his first acts was to request an additional 4,000 Military Police to help restore order in the streets. For most of the next year, as the insurgency spread, Bremer resisted efforts by generals and senior Defense Department civilians to reduce American troop strength prematurely, replacing our forces with ill-trained, poorly led Iraqi police and soldiers. And he lays to rest the myth that the Coalition disbanded Saddam's army, a force comprised of Shiite draftees who had deserted and refused to serve under their former Sunni officers. Bremer also describes his frustration with intelligence operations that concentrated on the search for weapons of mass destruction while the insurgency gathered strength. Bremer faced daunting problems working with Iraq's traumatized and divided population to find a path to a responsible and representative government. The Shia Arabs, the country's long-repressed majority, deeply distrusted the Sunni Arab minority who had held power for centuries and had controlled the detested Baath Party. Iraq's non-Arab Kurds teetered on the brink of secession when Bremer arrived. He had to find Sunnis willing to participate in the new political order. Some in the U.S. government pushed for what Bremer would come to call a cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam exiles. Bremer vigorously resisted this ill-conceived course. He takes the reader inside marathon negotiations as he and his team shepherded Iraq's new leaders to write an interim constitution with guarantees for individual and minority rights unprecedented in the region. My Year in Iraq is required reading for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis.
Battle for the City of the Dead
Author: Dick Camp
Publisher: Zenith Imprint
ISBN: 0760340064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
In the spring and summer of 2004, Iraq was coming apart at the seams. Sectarian violence pitted Shiite against Sunni. American proconsul L. Paul Bremer had disbanded the Iraqi Army, placing disgruntled young men on the street without jobs or the prospect of getting one. Their anger developed into a full-blown insurgency fed by a relentless campaign by the clergy for jihad against the occupation force. In August, a Shiite cleric named Muqtada Al-Sadr called upon his thousands of armed followers, the Mahdi Militia, to resist the occupation. Fighting broke out in several locations, including the holy city of Najaf, the site of the largest Moslem cemetery in the world, and the Imam Ali Mosque. The U.S. forces fought in 120-degree heat through a tangle of crypts, mausoleums, and crumbling graves. The fight was brutal, pitting religious zealots against the highly motivated and disciplined U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops. It makes for a riveting account of Americans in battle.
Publisher: Zenith Imprint
ISBN: 0760340064
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 320
Book Description
In the spring and summer of 2004, Iraq was coming apart at the seams. Sectarian violence pitted Shiite against Sunni. American proconsul L. Paul Bremer had disbanded the Iraqi Army, placing disgruntled young men on the street without jobs or the prospect of getting one. Their anger developed into a full-blown insurgency fed by a relentless campaign by the clergy for jihad against the occupation force. In August, a Shiite cleric named Muqtada Al-Sadr called upon his thousands of armed followers, the Mahdi Militia, to resist the occupation. Fighting broke out in several locations, including the holy city of Najaf, the site of the largest Moslem cemetery in the world, and the Imam Ali Mosque. The U.S. forces fought in 120-degree heat through a tangle of crypts, mausoleums, and crumbling graves. The fight was brutal, pitting religious zealots against the highly motivated and disciplined U.S. Army and Marine Corps troops. It makes for a riveting account of Americans in battle.
Counterinsurgency in Iraq (2003-2006)
Author: Bruce R. Pirnie
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833045849
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 135
Book Description
Examines the deleterious effects of the U.S. failure to focus on protecting the Iraqi population for most of the military campaign in Iraq and analyzes the failure of a technologically driven counterinsurgency (COIN) approach. It outlines strategic considerations relative to COIN; presents an overview of the conflict in Iraq; describes implications for future operations; and offers recommendations to improve the U.S. capability to conduct COIN.
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833045849
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 135
Book Description
Examines the deleterious effects of the U.S. failure to focus on protecting the Iraqi population for most of the military campaign in Iraq and analyzes the failure of a technologically driven counterinsurgency (COIN) approach. It outlines strategic considerations relative to COIN; presents an overview of the conflict in Iraq; describes implications for future operations; and offers recommendations to improve the U.S. capability to conduct COIN.
Revolt on the Tigris
Author: Mark Etherington
Publisher: C. HURST & CO. PUBLISHERS
ISBN: 9781850657736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
"This gritty and compelling firsthand account of post-conflict Iraq describes the turmoil visited on the country by outside intervention and the difficulties faced by the Coalition in fashioning a new political and civil apparatus."--BOOK JACKET.
Publisher: C. HURST & CO. PUBLISHERS
ISBN: 9781850657736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284
Book Description
"This gritty and compelling firsthand account of post-conflict Iraq describes the turmoil visited on the country by outside intervention and the difficulties faced by the Coalition in fashioning a new political and civil apparatus."--BOOK JACKET.
What future for Iraq’s PMU?
Author: Mona Alami
Publisher: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
ISBN: 6038206736
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 30
Book Description
The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units has recently completed its transformation from a loose coalition of militant group groups to a semi-state actor, entrenched in Iraqi state institutions thanks to the large victory of a number of its leaders in the recent Iraqi elections under the label of the Fateh Coalition. The PMU emerged in 2014 when it conglomerated a number of substrate armed groups under the banner of the Hashd al-Shaabi at the behest of the prime minister, Nouri Maliki Al-Maliki and after a call by the country’s highest Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to fight the escalating terror of the so-called caliphate. The emergence of this new non-state armed actor in a country was sectarian rivalries are historically high and where power centers are traditionally weak triggered a large debate within the think tank world, with many experts labeling the PMU as an Iranian proxy. However, this report will show that while a segment of the PMU falls within Iran’s larger regional security program, a Hezbollization as a whole of the PMU will represent a challenge for Iran due to local Iraqi dynamics, the financial and ideological independence and new-found pragmatism shown by influential Iraqi figures and the competition within the pro-Iran militant groups. Based on a series of interviews with PMU commanders in Iraq and local and international experts, this report will look at the evolution of the PMU and the impact of its integration within the state apparatus.
Publisher: King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)
ISBN: 6038206736
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 30
Book Description
The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units has recently completed its transformation from a loose coalition of militant group groups to a semi-state actor, entrenched in Iraqi state institutions thanks to the large victory of a number of its leaders in the recent Iraqi elections under the label of the Fateh Coalition. The PMU emerged in 2014 when it conglomerated a number of substrate armed groups under the banner of the Hashd al-Shaabi at the behest of the prime minister, Nouri Maliki Al-Maliki and after a call by the country’s highest Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, to fight the escalating terror of the so-called caliphate. The emergence of this new non-state armed actor in a country was sectarian rivalries are historically high and where power centers are traditionally weak triggered a large debate within the think tank world, with many experts labeling the PMU as an Iranian proxy. However, this report will show that while a segment of the PMU falls within Iran’s larger regional security program, a Hezbollization as a whole of the PMU will represent a challenge for Iran due to local Iraqi dynamics, the financial and ideological independence and new-found pragmatism shown by influential Iraqi figures and the competition within the pro-Iran militant groups. Based on a series of interviews with PMU commanders in Iraq and local and international experts, this report will look at the evolution of the PMU and the impact of its integration within the state apparatus.
What I Heard About Iraq
Author: Eliot Weinberger
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178960995X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 58
Book Description
The Iraq War has unleashed such a torrent of opinion - impassioned polemic, neo-con apologia, world-weary cynicism - that it feels like the important truths are being lost in a media feeding-frenzy. Eliot Weinberger eschews the rehtoric of the soapbox in an extraordinary montage of facts, sound bites and testimonies. He assembles an uncompromising and blackly comic narrative, which permits the voices of the war to speak for themselves, and allows the protagonists to damn themselves in their own words. This pocket-sized volume is vast in scope, a work unlike any other you have read on Iraq, which finds an unexpected eloquence in its refusal to join in the facile grand-standing and selective amnesia of so much contemporary commentary.
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 178960995X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 58
Book Description
The Iraq War has unleashed such a torrent of opinion - impassioned polemic, neo-con apologia, world-weary cynicism - that it feels like the important truths are being lost in a media feeding-frenzy. Eliot Weinberger eschews the rehtoric of the soapbox in an extraordinary montage of facts, sound bites and testimonies. He assembles an uncompromising and blackly comic narrative, which permits the voices of the war to speak for themselves, and allows the protagonists to damn themselves in their own words. This pocket-sized volume is vast in scope, a work unlike any other you have read on Iraq, which finds an unexpected eloquence in its refusal to join in the facile grand-standing and selective amnesia of so much contemporary commentary.