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Saddam: King of Terrorby Coughlin, Con
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Book DescriptionNew York, NY: Ecco, 2002. Very Good in Very Good jacket 350 p. Illus with b/w photographs, genealogical tables, and maps. Indexed. Includes chapter notes. Black paper covered boards have some white smudges on the front and one smudge on the black cloth covered spine. There is a bump on the top edge of the back board. Text is clean and unmarked. Dust jacket is rubbed at the edges. This biography covers Saddam's life until 2002, before the beginning of the Iraq war.. First edition.. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. Book summaryCoughlin, a reporter for the London Daily Telegraph, offers this portrait of the former leader of Iraq. SADDAM draws on interviews from key figures in Iraq to outline how this man was able to control the oil-rich nation for so long and explains where he drew his support among the population of Iraq.Media Reviews"Coughlin's account is a swift, grisly read, but it's light on analysis. Although his hostility comes through nicely, Coughlin's acuity waver - particularly with his treatment of Iraq's ties to Al Qaeda....Coughlin does a fine, creepy job of evoking the gangster ambience of 1970's Iraq, in which the nouveau riche Hussein cultivated a taste for fancy cars, expensive suits, American-style barbeque ribs, racetrack gambling, married blondes and sickly sweet Portuguese rose wine." -- Warren Bass, New York Times Book Review Publisher Notes
Two weeks before September 11, 2001, Saddam Hussein placed his troops on their highest military alert since the Gulf War. As al-Qaeda terrorists set their attacks on America in motion, the Iraqi dictator was prepared to go to war for a second time with the United States. How did an illegitimate child from Tikrit become the West's greatest adversary, and one of the most dangerous and murderous dictators of modem times? Saddam: King of Terror is the most insightful and illuminating portrait of the Iraqi president to date-and a fascinating study of the making of a tyrant. Con Coughlin, executive editor of London's award-winning Sunday Telegraph, has covered the Middle East for decades -- on the front lines, narrowly escaping kidnapping and violence. He has cultivated exclusive contacts among the Western intelligence community and numerous defectors from Saddam's inner circles -- including former generals, political associates, and bodyguards as well as childhood friends. Coughlin knew immediately that American and British declarations of war against terrorism after the September 11th attacks would sooner rather than later encompass Saddam Hussein as well as Osama bin Laden. Coughlin shows that any operation against terrorism will be incomplete as long as Saddam remains in power -- that international policies will have to change from cautious tolerance to active intervention, a change that is already becoming a reality. Coughlin also provides the first complete portrait of Saddam's childhood ever published, compiled from the author's inter-views with Saddam's contemporaries and relatives who have never before spoken publicly about him According to Coughlin, Saddam has a younger sister no one knew about, and he idolizes his mother, although his childhood was deeply marred by his shame about being fatherless. From his earliest years, he looked to his mother's brother as a father figure, and Coughlin tells how it was this uncle who first introduced Saddam to a life of crime and political rebellion. Saddam: King of Terror meticulously traces Saddam's bloody rise to power, from Saddam's first murder and his time in prison, to an eyewitness account of Saddam storming Iraqs presidential palace in a tank, to his almost feral ruthlessness in disposing of his opponents, even dose friends and relatives, to create his regime -- a complex mechanism in which family and tribe are central, held together by Saddam's carefully orchestrated reign of fear. In Saddam: King of Terror, we see both the bizarre, almost pathological behavior of an international pariah and the unshakable power of a tyrant who has defied the world's censure and holds a nation in his grasp. Other Recommended Books
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