Overview
The Iraq War most of us know began on March 20, 2003, with the U.S.-led invasion. In fact, it began more than eight months earlier—on July 10, 2002—when eight Americans crossed the Harburr River from Turkey into Kurdistan. Carrying side arms and assault rifles, the CIA counterterrorist team soon linked up with Kurdish peshmerga to commence their mission: strike and kill Al-Qaeda, and take down Saddam Hussein’s Baathist dictatorship.They endured almost a year of being denied food, weapons, and ammunition by a NATO ally, Turkey, as they carried out a covert operation with profound consequences on the War on Terror, the Iraq War, and U.S. foreign policy: Operation Hotel California.
Drawing on exclusive interviews with the man who led the CIA team, Operation Hotel California tells the story of the dangerous mission that paved the way for the invasion of Iraq. In a riveting narrative, much of it in the words of the operation’s leader—publicly identified here for the first time as Charles S. “Sam” Faddis—Mike Tucker chronicles a staggering trail of corruption and incompetence by the Bush White House, from pursuing federal tax cuts rather than Al-Qaeda in spring 2001, to pandering to Turkey at the expense of America’s fight against Saddam and Islamic terrorists.
With compelling portrayals of the courageous men on Faddis’s team and first-hand accounts of how America’s finest tracked and took down the Mukhabarat assassination squads Saddam had sent to kill them, Operation Hotel California captures fully the thrills and frustrations of hunting the nation’s most fanatical enemies. And—as the most blistering indictment to date by any American counterterrorism officer of the national security blunders vis-à-vis Iraq and Al-Qaeda—it carries lessons that will reverberate in Washington and beyond for years to come.
Synopsis
The untold story of the CIA's secret mission inside Iraq to prepare for the invasion of Iraq—from the secret team leader who led the 2003 mission.
Publishers Weekly
To recreate the early 20th century killing spree which took place primarily in Connecticut's "Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids" (the inspiration for Joseph Kesselring's play Arsenic and Old Lace), Phelps amasses an abundance of research to complement his already-extant authority on female murderers (the author of Perfect Poison: A Female Serial Killer's Deadly Medicine, Phelps has also consulted on serial killer TV drama Dexter). A seemingly charming setting, the Archer Home was run by Amy Archer-Gilligan, a homely "Christian woman" who provided the last hope of a comfortable home for many of her elderly residents. As a nasty heat wave overtook the East Coast, however, the number of deaths occurring in the Archer Home spiked precipitously. After 24 deaths over four years, a vigilant reporter noted that Archer-Gilligan has been purchasing large quantities of arsenic; she was using it to kill the very residents she'd sent to purchase it for her. Phelps' diligent research creates a vivid portrait of the country a century ago, but his telling is oddly dispassionate; readers may not fully understand the brutality of Archer-Gilligan's crimes until the list of the dead at end of the book, laid out over three full pages.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly
To recreate the early 20th century killing spree which took place primarily in Connecticut's "Archer Home for Elderly People and Chronic Invalids" (the inspiration for Joseph Kesselring's play Arsenic and Old Lace), Phelps amasses an abundance of research to complement his already-extant authority on female murderers (the author of Perfect Poison: A Female Serial Killer's Deadly Medicine, Phelps has also consulted on serial killer TV drama Dexter). A seemingly charming setting, the Archer Home was run by Amy Archer-Gilligan, a homely "Christian woman" who provided the last hope of a comfortable home for many of her elderly residents. As a nasty heat wave overtook the East Coast, however, the number of deaths occurring in the Archer Home spiked precipitously. After 24 deaths over four years, a vigilant reporter noted that Archer-Gilligan has been purchasing large quantities of arsenic; she was using it to kill the very residents she'd sent to purchase it for her. Phelps' diligent research creates a vivid portrait of the country a century ago, but his telling is oddly dispassionate; readers may not fully understand the brutality of Archer-Gilligan's crimes until the list of the dead at end of the book, laid out over three full pages.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From the Publisher
"Among Warriors in Iraq is hard-boiled and absorbing.Mike Tucker
also has Hemingway's eye for description, particularly of warriors."
BOOKLIST.
“In Hell Is Over: Voices of the Kurds after Saddam, Mike Tucker
tells a story we should know, but would not except for his bravery.”
Senator Bob Kerrey, member of 9/11 Commission.