The story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein, and a deeply researched investigation into how human error, cultural miscommunication, and hubris led to one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time.
A useful reminder that America’s omniscience is just as likely to be overestimated as are the capabilities and intentions of most world actors ... A more intimate picture of the dictator’s thinking about world politics, local power and his relationship to the United States than has been seen before ... The Achilles Trap is occasionally weighed down by the giddiness of a journalist with a giant stack of previously unreported items ... Still, most of the story is vivid and sometimes even funny.
[The book] succeeds because of Coll’s willingness to reexamine the mutually reinforcing delusions of Hussein and four U.S. administrations ... Coll is less effective at contextualizing the incentives that made the CIA a willing partner in this deception ... Another triumph from one of our best journalists.
Absorbing and panoramic ... Readers hoping for a succinct accounting of the quid of American motivations for the 2003 invasion won’t find that here: rather than a hawkish conspiracy or revenge-plot, it’s the accumulation of unreliable intelligence assets, and a pervasive guilt over the failure to prevent 9/11, that gain momentum in Coll’s telling.
