Author: Kevin M. Woods
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139505467
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
During the 2003 war that ended Saddam Hussein's regime, coalition forces captured thousands of hours of secret recordings of meetings, phone calls and conferences. Originally prepared by the Institute for Defense Analyses for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, this study presents annotated transcripts of Iraqi audio recordings of meetings between Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. The Saddam Tapes, along with the much larger digital collection of captured records at the National Defense University's Conflict Records Research Center, will provide researchers with important insights into the inner workings of the regime and, it is hoped, the nature of authoritarian regimes more generally. The collection has implications for a range of historical questions. How did Saddam react to the pressures of his wars? How did he manage the Machiavellian world he created? How did he react to the signals and actions of the international community on matters of war and peace? Was there a difference between the public and the private Saddam on critical matters of state? A close examination of this material in the context of events and other available evidence will address these and other questions.
Author: Kevin M. Woods
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781139224840
Category : HISTORY
Languages : en
Pages : 393
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Book Description
"This study presents the annotated transcripts of Iraqi audio recordings of meetings between Saddam Hussein and his inner circle"--
Author: Pierre Razoux
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674088638
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 679
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Book Description
From 1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought the longest conventional war of the twentieth century. The tragedies included the slaughter of child soldiers, the use of chemical weapons, the striking of civilian shipping in the Gulf, and the destruction of cities. The Iran-Iraq War offers an unflinching look at a conflict seared into the region’s collective memory but little understood in the West. Pierre Razoux shows why this war remains central to understanding Middle Eastern geopolitics, from the deep-rooted distrust between Sunni and Shia Muslims, to Iran’s obsession with nuclear power, to the continuing struggles in Iraq. He provides invaluable keys to decipher Iran’s behavior and internal struggle today. Razoux’s account is based on unpublished military archives, oral histories, and interviews, as well as audio recordings seized by the U.S. Army detailing Saddam Hussein’s debates with his generals. Tracing the war’s shifting strategies and political dynamics—military operations, the jockeying of opposition forces within each regime, the impact on oil production so essential to both countries—Razoux also looks at the international picture. From the United States and Soviet Union to Israel, Europe, China, and the Arab powers, many nations meddled in this conflict, supporting one side or the other and sometimes switching allegiances. The Iran-Iraq War answers questions that have puzzled historians. Why did Saddam embark on this expensive, ultimately fruitless conflict? Why did the war last eight years when it could have ended in months? Who, if anyone, was the true winner when so much was lost?
Author: Joseph Sassoon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 052119301X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
A unique and revealing portrait of Saddam Hussein's Iraq which was every bit as authoritarian and brutal as Stalin's Russia or Mao's China.
Author: Lisa Blaydes
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691211752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
A new account of modern Iraqi politics that overturns the conventional wisdom about its sectarian divisions How did Iraq become one of the most repressive dictatorships of the late twentieth century? The conventional wisdom about Iraq's modern political history is that the country was doomed by its diverse social fabric. But in State of Repression, Lisa Blaydes challenges this belief by showing that the country's breakdown was far from inevitable. At the same time, she offers a new way of understanding the behavior of other authoritarian regimes and their populations. Drawing on archival material captured from the headquarters of Saddam Hussein's ruling Ba'th Party in the wake of the 2003 US invasion, Blaydes illuminates the complexities of political life in Iraq, including why certain Iraqis chose to collaborate with the regime while others worked to undermine it. She demonstrates that, despite the Ba'thist regime's pretensions to political hegemony, its frequent reliance on collective punishment of various groups reinforced and cemented identity divisions. At the same time, a series of costly external shocks to the economy—resulting from fluctuations in oil prices and Iraq's war with Iran—weakened the capacity of the regime to monitor, co-opt, coerce, and control factions of Iraqi society. In addition to calling into question the common story of modern Iraqi politics, State of Repression offers a new explanation of why and how dictators repress their people in ways that can inadvertently strengthen regime opponents.
Author: Taylor Branch
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416594345
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 763
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Book Description
Taylor Branch’s groundbreaking book about the modern presidency, The Clinton Tapes, invites readers into private dialogue with a gifted, tormented, resilient president. Here is what President Clinton thought and felt but could not say in public. This book rests upon a secret project, initiated by Clinton, to preserve for future historians an unfiltered record of presidential experience. During his eight years in office, between 1993 and 2001, Clinton answered questions and told stories in the White House, usually late at night. His friend Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch recorded seventy-nine of these dialogues to compile a trove of raw information about a presidency as it happened. Clinton drew upon the diary transcripts for his memoir in 2004. Branch recorded his own detailed recollections immediately after each session, covering not only the subjects discussed but also the look and feel of each evening with the president. The text engages Clinton from many angles. Readers hear candid stories, feel buffeting pressures, and weigh vivid descriptions of the White House settings. Branch's firsthand narrative is confessional, unsparing, and personal. The author admits straying at times from his primary role -- to collect raw material for future historians -- because his discussions with Clinton were unpredictable and intense. What should an objective prompter say when the President of the United States seeks advice, argues facts, or lodges complaints against the press? The dynamic relationship that emerges from these interviews is both affectionate and charged, with flashes of anger and humor. President Clinton drives the history, but this story is also about friends. The Clinton Tapes highlights major events of Clinton's two terms, including wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, the failure of health care reform, peace initiatives on three continents, the anti-deficit crusade, and titanic political struggles from Whitewater to American history's second presidential impeachment trial. Along the way, Clinton delivers colorful portraits of countless political figures and world leaders from Nelson Mandela to Pope John Paul II. These unprecedented White House dialogues will become a staple of presidential scholarship. Branch's masterly account opens a new window on a controversial era and Bill Clinton's eventual place among our chief executives.
Author: Latif Yahia
Publisher: Arcanum Media Group
ISBN:
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE: is the first of 3 autobiographical books chronicling Latif Yahia’s incredible life story. It vividly describes how Latif was forced to become Uday Hussein’s ‘fidai’ (body double) and gives a unique insight into the extreme extravagance and cruelty of the Saddam regime. Latif survived assassination attempts and witnessed Uday’s psychotic temper, rapes, orgy parties, torture atrocities, and sadistic murders. The book has recently been made into a highly acclaimed movie. THE BLACK HOLE: gives a fascinating account of what happened to Latif in Europe after he escaped from Iraq. How he was treated by western governments and the CIA. How Uday sought revenge on Latif and vice-versa. How he was offered a British passport by Saudis to murder a dissident and how they beheaded Latif’s Saudi princess lover. How Latif made and lost a fortune. How he strived in vain for a peaceful life and survived 4 more assassination attempts. Forty Shades of Conspiracy: brings Latif’s story right up to date by detailing his time in Ireland. His run-ins with drug-dealers, Corrupt Irish Garda officers and Irish politicians who continually denied him Irish citizenship. His despair as a beggar on the streets and the happiness he found after he met the love of his life. His reaction to Uday and Saddam’s deaths and his opinion on the current political situation in Iraq all makes fascinating reading. Book Description: In 1987, Latif Yahia was taken to Saddam's headquarters to meet Uday, Saddam's eldest son, and told that a great honour had been bestowed upon him: that because of the great likeness between them, he had been chosen to be Uday's double. For many Iraqis it would have been the highlight of their lives, but for Latif, a peace-loving man who did not agree with Saddam's brutal regime, it was not. He refused. Following a week of torture, and realising he would be killed if he continued to refuse, Latif was forced to accept the role. After a gruesome training programme during which he was made to watch over thirty films of torture, hours of tapes of Uday, and undertake a final remodelling of his appearance, Latif was deemed ready. But it was only after the final test, a meeting with Saddam himself, that Latif made his first public appearance. And so began his life as Uday's double - a life on the perimeter of the inner circle of Saddam's eldest son, a witness to the horror of his insane life of debauchery, excess and brutality, and an experience for which he almost paid with his life on more than one occasion.
Author: Kevin M. Woods
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781107016859
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392
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Book Description
During the 2003 war that ended Saddam Hussein's regime, coalition forces captured thousands of hours of secret recordings of meetings, phone calls, and conferences. Originally prepared by the Institute for Defense Analyses for the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, this study presents annotated transcripts of Iraqi audio recordings of meetings between Saddam Hussein and his inner circle. The Saddam Tapes, along with the much larger digital collection of captured records at the National Defense University's Conflict Records Research Center, will provide researchers with important insights into the inner workings of the regime and, it is hoped, the nature of authoritarian regimes more generally. The collection has implications for a range of historical questions. How did Saddam react to the pressures of his wars? How did he manage the Machiavellian world he created? How did he react to the signals and actions of the international community on matters of war and peace? Was there a difference between the public and the private Saddam on critical matters of state? A close examination of this material in the context of events and other available evidence will address these and other questions.
Author: Williamson Murray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107062292
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 413
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Book Description
A comprehensive account of the Iran-Iraq War through the lens of the Iraqi regime and its senior military commanders.
Author: Adolf Hitler
Publisher: Enigma Books
ISBN: 1929631618
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283
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Book Description
The unpublished followup to Hitler's autobiography never published during the dictator's lifetime includes details of his vision for a foreign policy based on continual aggression that would inevitably result in a confrontation with the United States, which he saw as a major stumbling block to his plans.
