When We Misread Dictators... Steve Coll on Saddam Hussein and the American Invasion of Iraq

As a writer I had the space to try to humanize him without sanitizing him. That was my mission: to try to see the world from behind his eyes in order to explain his otherwise inexplicable behavior.
Steve Coll

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Steve Coll is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has served as President and CEO of New America and the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is currently a staff writer at The New Yorker. His most recent book is The Achilles’ Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq.

Key Highlights
• Introduction - 0:20
• Saddam Hussein - 2:56
• Iran-Iraq War - 10:22
• WMD - 27:06
• 2003 American Invasion - 46:03
Key Links

The Achilles’ Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq (penguinrandomhouse.com/books/602066/the-achill…)by Steve Coll

“How Iraq was Lost (newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day….)” by Robert Kaplan in The New Statesman (Book Review of The Achilles' Trap)

Read more from Steve Coll at The New Yorker (newyorker.com/contributors/steve-coll)

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Robert Kaplan on the Politics of the Past and Future of the Greater Middle East (democracyparadox.com/2023/08/29/robert-kaplan-…)

Steven Simon on American Foreign Policy in the Middle East including Iran and the Wars in Iraq (democracyparadox.com/2023/04/11/steven-simon-o…)

More Episodes from the Podcast (democracyparadox.com/the-democracy-paradox-pod…)

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