The world has changed since 1990. The cold war has ended, the Soviet Union has disappeared, new governments have taken power in Washington and around the globe. But one familiar, dreaded face still looms over the international landscape--that of Saddam Hussein. 
 At the end of the Gulf War, the White House was confident that the Iraqi dictator's days were numbered. His army had been routed, his country had been bombed back into a preindustrial age, his subjects were in bloody revolt, his boarders were sealed. It seemed impossible that he could survive such disasters. World leaders waited confidently for the downfall of the pariah of Baghdad. 
 Almost a decade later, they are still waiting. 
 This is the first in-depth account of what went wrong. Drawing on the authors' firsthand experiences on the ground inside Iraq (often under fire) and their interviews with key players--ranging from members of Saddam's own family to senior officials of the CIA--Out of the Ashes tells what happened when the smoke cleared from the battlefields of the Gulf War. Leaders of the uprising that almost toppled the dictator describe the desperate mission they undertook to plead for American help and how they were turned away. We learn of Saddam's secret plan to fool and corrupt the UN weapons inspectors and how the scheme initially went awry. Senior U.S. intelligence officials explain what they really thought of the Iraqi opposition movement they helped to create. An agent on the CIA payroll recounts his exploits planting bombs in Baghdad. 
 While U.S. officials grappled with the ongoing crisis of Saddam's survival, the Iraqi leader himself presided over a regime dominated by his own terrifying family. Here is the full story of that family--"animals," as one former intimate describes them--and its vicious feuds, including the downfall of the man who once stood at Saddam's right hand. 
 This tale of high drama, labyrinthine intrigue, and fatal blunders has been played out amid one of the greatest,man-made tragedies of our times. At the outset, U.S. leaders resolved that "Iraqis will pay the price" so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power. Out of the Ashes makes chillingly clear just how terrible that price has been.

Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein

Biographies & Memoirs

Cockburn, Patrick

Cockburn, Andrew

Historical

Harper

At the end of the Gulf War, the White House was confident that Saddam Hussein's days as Iraq's dictator were numbered. His army had been routed, his country had been bombed back into a pre-industrial age, his subjects were in bloody revolt, and his borders were sealed. World leaders waited confidently for the downfall of the pariah of Baghdad. Almost a decade later, they are still waiting.
This is the first in-depth account of what went wrong. Drawing on the authors' firsthand experiences on the ground inside Iraq (often under fire) and their interviews with key players--ranging from members of Saddam's own family to senior officials of the CIA--Out of the Ashes tells what happened when the smoke cleared from the battlefields of the Gulf War. This tale of high drama, labyrinthine intrigue, and fatal blunders has been played out amid one of the greatest man-made tragedies of our times-one where, so long as Saddam Hussein remains in power, the Iraqi people will pay the price. Out of the Ashes makes chillingly clear just how terrible that price has been.

Harper-perennial

The Broken Boy

A personal memoir of the last great polio epidemic, affecting 50,000 people, and of the author’s own experience of polio; a portrait of his parents, both radicals; and the story of the epidemic in Cork, Ireland, where the author and his family lived in the mid 1950s.

Vintage Books

A personal memoir of the last great polio epidemic, affecting 50,000 people, and of the author’s own experience of polio; a portrait of his parents, both radicals; and the story of the epidemic in Cork, Ireland, where the author and his family lived in the mid 1950s.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Professionals & Academics

JONATHAN CAPE.

Patrick Cockburn, Middle East correspondent for the Independent, has been reporting from Iraq since 1978. He was awarded the 2005 Martha Gellhorn prize for war reporting and the James Cameron Memorial Award in 2006. He is the author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (shortlisted for a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2007), The Broken Boy, a memoir, and, with Andrew Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein.

MUQTADA AL-SADR And The Fall Of Iraq

Faber and Faber

Muqtada al-Sadr's men are killing more British troops than any other group in the world today. Cleric, militia leader and fiercely anti-American politician, Muqtada's combination of nationalism and religious fervour appealed to countless angry and impoverished Shias, and as US control of Iraq disintegrates, the likelihood increases that he will assume total power in the Shia areas of the country. In a compelling narrative, award winning war correspondent Patrick Cockburn charts Muqtada's rise to power, his links with Hizbullah and the Iranians; and his confrontation with the American and British military. Cockburn has reported from Iraq since the 1970s (often at great personal risk), and combines first hand accounts of his investigations into Muqtada with vivid and dismaying reportage of the civil war now raging in a fractured country.

MUQTADA AL-SADR & FALL OF IRAQ

History

Middle East

Faber&Faber

Diane Pub Co.

Getting Russia Wrong: The End of Kremlinology

Looks at the forces shaping modern Soviet society, explains why Western expectations were so far off, and describes how past events have led to these changes

Politics & Social Sciences

Politics & Government

Verso Books

Whatever else the United States intended when it invaded Iraq in the spring of 2003, it was not to hand the country over to a 32-year-old militant cleric who fought against their presence from the start and whom former Iraqi administrator L. Paul Bremer III described as a "Bolshevik Islamist." Yet, as the occupation steadily disintegrates, the likelihood grows ever stronger that Muqtada al-Sadr, the black-turbaned leader of Iraq's poor Shiites, will take power when the Americans finally leave. In this compelling and narrative-driven account, Patrick Cockburn, one of the bravest and most experienced correspondents reporting from the war, tells the story of Muqtada and his extraordinary rise to become what Canadian journalist Naomi Klein described as "the single greatest threat to U.S. military and economic control of Iraq." In these pages, Cockburn looks at the young cleric's family background, in particular the assassination of his father and two brothers by Saddam's hit men, his leadership of the 70,000-strong Mahdi army, the links between his movement Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian leadership, and his frequent confrontations with the American military, including the pitched battle in the cemetery of Najaf and the recent mass demonstrations demanding an end to the occupation. This is no dry, academic treatise. Cockburn's account draws on dramatic, firsthand dealings with the Mahdi army, including a tense encounter at a roadblock outside Najaf in which he was nearly killed. However, although it often reads like an adventure story, Muqtada! provides a vital analysis of a movement that will be critical to the future of Iraq after the Americans leave.

Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq

Tantor Audio

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cockburn, Patrick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cockburn, Patrick

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cockburn, Patrick. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein

Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein

The Broken Boy

The Broken Boy

MUQTADA AL-SADR And The Fall Of Iraq

MUQTADA AL-SADR & FALL OF IRAQ

Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein

Getting Russia Wrong: The End of Kremlinology

Getting Russia Wrong: The End of Kremlinology

Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq