"Iraq is a case study of decision-making gone wrong. Although the Bush administration's post-conflict choices - notably the de-Baathification order and the dismissing of the Iraqi army - are now widely acknowledged as wholly avoidable catastrophes, mistakes had been piling up for years. Many of them were made by Saddam Hussein's government, long before the U.S. compounded them." "The saga of how the U.S. and Iraq misled each other into war, twice, and created an utterly unsustainable stand-off in between, has dominated our foreign policy for two decades. The lessons from it are vital, and should affect how future conflicts are appraised and managed so that we never enter such a thankless spiral of mutually assured antagonism again." "Duelfer's report to Congress in 2004 decrypted the Saddam regime and its WMD puzzle. It was an exhaustive description of arms inspection and intelligence collection. Here, Duelfer gives the back story. He shows how personal in cost and consequence - good intelligence can be. It depends on good sources and good fieldwork. It cannot all be achieved remotely via a satellite link and a computer terminal. This book is Duelfer's testament to his hands-on experience of Iraq - as an intelligence test, a diplomatic dilemma, a vibrant and technically accomplished Arab state, a tyranny, and since 1991 the greatest challenge to America's global reputation. Here, for the first time, a distinguished American intelligence officer relates a uniquely personal, and definitive, narrative of the misunderstandings and miscalculations that produced the colossal tragedy in Iraq."--BOOK JACKET.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 481-507) and index.