This book is a testimony of an Iraqi nuclear scientist who worked for the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission over a period of thirty years. The period covers the peaceful beginnings of the Iraqi nuclear program, its gradual and then sudden turn into a weapon program and its final demise and disintegration. Imad Khadduri elucidates about his educational background, commitment to the Iraqi nuclear program, involvement in its various directions and ultimate disengagement and escape from Iraq. During half a year before the occupation of Iraq, he embarked on a lonely battle to counter the misinformation campaign mounted by the United States and Britain and fueled by people with questionable credibility.

Features the official report from the bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction--named by President Bush to try to prevent similar policy debacles in Iran and North Korea. It also includes the official speeches, United Nations reports, and declassified government investigation reports that show, step by step, how the United States got the crucial question of arms in Iraq so terribly wrong. The documents show that:  The CIA concluded in 2002 that Iraq had reconstituted its WMD programs, but in fact Saddam had dismantled them;  American policymakers consistently assumed the worst case: regardless of his denials, if there was intelligence that Saddam might be making weapons of mass destruction then he had them and was hiding them. UN inspectors, by contrast, assumed that thorough inspection and insistence on complete Iraqi documentation could determine what the truth was;  UN inspectors were frustrated by Saddam's refusal to cooperate freely and thwarted by American military impatience just as they thought themselves on the verge of success;  American inspectors sent in after the war in 2003 found no weapons of mass destruction and how they--and Washington insiders--began to question the basis of the prewar intelligence. The New York Times editor and contributor to The 9/11 Investigations (PublicAffairs, 2004) Craig R. Whitney has scoured the documents surrounding the search for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. In The WMD Mirage, he has assembled the most revelatory and pertinent of these. The result is a startling narrative trail that leads readers through the intelligence and misinformation leading into Iraq--and a telling portrait of how the Bush administration, whether deliberately or unintentionally, with scant evidence and largely against the will of the international community, convinced the American people and their few allies of the urgent need for war. A must-read for scholars, voters, and anyone interested in the goings-on in Iraq, the growing threats perceived elsewhere, and the truth behind our frayed international reputation, The WMD Mirage offers the real story of the missing weapons of mass destruction. In offering such a clear-eyed and documented picture of how we got it wrong in Iraq, The WMD Mirage is the first widely-available book that also includes the new conclusions of the Presidential Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission.

A former editor at the New York Times examines the war over gun control in America and the rigid and intolerant ideologies that have informed the debate on both sides for more than 50 years. 20,000 first printing.

“A crucial study in the political manipulation of intelligence, understanding how Curveball got us into Iraq will arm us for the next round of lies coming out of Washington.”—Robert Baer, author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism Curveball answers the crucial question of the Iraq war: How and why was America’s intelligence so catastrophically wrong? In this dramatic and explosive book, award-winning Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Drogin delivers a narrative that takes us to Europe, the Middle East, and deep inside the CIA to find the truth—the truth about the lies and self-deception that led us into a military and political nightmare. Praise for Curveball “Just when you thought the WMD debacle couldn’t get worse, here comes veteran Los Angeles Times national-security correspondent Drogin’s look at just who got the stories going in the first place. . . . Simultaneously sobering and infuriating—essential reading for those who follow the headlines.”—Kirkus Reviews “In this engrossing account, Los Angeles Times correspondent Drogin paints an intimate and revealing portrait of the workings and dysfunctions of the intelligence community.”—Publishers Weekly “An insightful and compelling account of one crucial component of the war's origins . . . Had Drogin merely pieced together Curveball's story, it alone would have made for a thrilling book. But he provides something more: a frightening glimpse at how easily we could make the same mistakes again. . . . The real value of Drogin's book is its meticulous demonstration that bureaucratic imperative often leads to self-delusion.”—Washington Monthly “Drogin delivers a startling account of this fateful intelligence snafu.”—Booklist “By the time you finish this book you will be shaking your head with wonder, or perhaps you will be shaking with anger, about the misadventures that preceded the misadventures in Iraq. This book is so powerful, it almost refutes its subtitle: The man called Curveball did not cause a war; he became a pretext—one among many.”—George F. Will

The forgotten cloak-and-dagger history of the former Nazi scientists who were recruited by Egypt to develop long-range missiles capable of striking Israel. From 1951 to 1967, Egypt pursued a secret program to build military rockets that could have conceivably posed a threat to neighboring Israel. Because such an ambitious project required Western expertise, the Egyptian leader president Nasser hired West German scientists, many of them veterans of the Nazi rocket program at Peenemünde and elsewhere.These covert plans soon came to the attention of Israel’s legendary secret service, Mossad, and caused deep alarm in Tel Aviv. Could the missiles be fitted with warheads filled with radiological, chemical, or even nuclear materials? Israel responded by using threats, intimidation, and brutal assassination squads to deter the German scientists from working on Nasser’s behalf. Exactly half a century later, this book tells the gripping story of the mysterious arms dealers, Mossad assassins, scientific genii, and leading figures who all played their part in Operation Damocles

Failure of Intelligence is designed to inform the debate over intelligence policy and suggest a reform agenda. The provocative mingling of historical description with contemporary political analysis and reform prescription challenges the conventional wisdom on clandestine collection and ultimately and persuasively asserts that the failure to have diplomatic relations has led to the inability to collect intelligence.