The CIA War in Kurdistan, Sam Faddis
The CIA War in Kurdistan, Sam Faddis
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The CIA War in Kurdistan
The Untold Story of the Northern Front in the Iraq War

Author: Sam Faddis

Narrator: Paul Boehmer

Unabridged: 8 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 08/25/2020


Synopsis

In 2002, Sam Faddis was named to head a CIA team that would enter Iraq to facilitate the deployment of follow-on conventional military forces numbering over 40,000 American soldiers. This force, built around the 4th Infantry Division, would, in partnership with Kurdish forces and with the assistance of Turkey, engage Saddam's army in the North as part of a coming invasion. Faddis expected to be on the ground in Iraq within weeks, the entire campaign likely to be over by summer.

The 4th Infantry Division never arrived, nor did any other conventional forces in substantial number. The Turks not only refused to provide support, they worked overtime to prevent the United States from achieving success. And an Arab army that was to assist US forces fell apart before it ever made it to the field.

Alone, hopelessly outnumbered, short on supplies, and threatened by Iraqi assassination teams and Islamic extremists, Faddis's team, working with Kurdish peshmerga, miraculously paved the way for a brilliant and largely bloodless victory in the North and the fall of Saddam's Iraq. That victory, handed over to Washington and the Department of Defense on a silver platter, was then squandered. The decisions that followed would lead to catastrophic consequences that continue to this day.

About Sam Faddis

Sam Faddis is the author of The CIA War in Kurdistan.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Fredrik on November 22, 2020

I found this book highly interesting and quite well written. There were som breaks in the seriousnes with some milder jokes and stories about life in camp, which came in nicely in a story about a pretty bleak war. The Iraq war is not a proud part of history. If one reads up, you will see that it was......more

Goodreads review by Ryan on December 02, 2020

One of the best books written about the Iraq war -- starting in 2001/2002 with the initial hesitating deployment of CIA personnel to work with KDP and PUK in the no-fly zone, and continuing to the beginning of the ground war in 2003. Written by Sam Faddis, who was the head of this operation for CIA,......more

Goodreads review by Ted on September 03, 2022

This is yet another of those memoirs detailing the widespread incompetency at the national decision-making level and at senior levels of the Pentagon that so negatively impacted the Iraq war. As someone who had spent much time working in Iraqi Kurdistan in the mid-'90s, I strongly empathized with th......more

Goodreads review by Troy on August 08, 2020

Faddis details the early CIA mission into Northern Iraq in 2002-2003. The author lead a team of intelligence officers and Special Forces into Iraq in advance of the war. This is a story of missed opportunities in the run up to OIF. Faddis is highly critical of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and h......more

Goodreads review by Magdalena on July 08, 2022

An absolutely riveting non-fiction book about the first jawbreaker teams that landed in the mountains of Kurdistan. Although I began reading the book as part of my required school reading, I was quickly sucked in by Faddis' snappy, no-nonsense writing style. The vignettes he told were perfectly plac......more