As a writer I had the space to try to humanize him without sanitizing him. That was my mission: to try to see the world from behind his eyes in order to explain his otherwise inexplicable behavior.

Steve Coll

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A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.

Steve Coll is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has served as President and CEO of New America and the Dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is currently a staff writer at The New Yorker. His most recent book is The Achilles’ Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq.

Key Highlights

• Introduction - 0:20
• Saddam Hussein - 2:56
• Iran-Iraq War - 10:22
• WMD - 27:06
• 2003 American Invasion - 46:03

Key Links

The Achilles’ Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll

“How Iraq was Lost” by Robert Kaplan in The New Statesman (Book Review of The Achilles' Trap)

Read more from Steve Coll at The New Yorker

Democracy Paradox Podcast

Robert Kaplan on the Politics of the Past and Future of the Greater Middle East

Steven Simon on American Foreign Policy in the Middle East including Iran and the Wars in Iraq

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