1999, ISBN: 9781400065837

"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… Mehr…

"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. In 1999, a mysterious Iraqi applies for political asylum in Munich. The young chemical engineer offers compelling testimony of Saddam Hussein's secret program to build weapons of mass destruction. He claims that the dictator has constructed germ factories on trucks, creating a deadly hell on wheels. His grateful German hosts pass his account to their CIA counterparts but deny the Americans access to their superstar informant. The Americans nevertheless give the defector his unforgettable code name: Curveball.The case lies dormant until after 9/11, when the Bush administration turns its attention to Iraq. Determined to invade, Bush's people seize on Curveball's story about mobile germ labs-even though it has begun to unravel. Ignoring a flood of warnings about the informant's credibility, the CIA allows President Bush to cite Curveball's unconfirmed claims in a State of the Union speech. Finally, Secretary of State Colin Powell highlights the Iraqi's "eyewitness" account during his historic address to the U.N. Security Council. Yet the entire case is based on a fraud. America's vast intelligence apparatus conjured up demons that did not exist. And the proof was clear before the war. Most of the events and conversations presented here have not been reported before. The portrayals-from an obdurate president to a bamboozled secretary of state to a bungling CIA director to case handlers conned by their snitch-are vivid and exciting. "Curveball" reads like an investigative spy thriller. Fast-paced and engrossing, it is an inside story of intrigue and incompetence at the highest levels of government. At a time when Americans demand answers, this authoritative book provides them with clarity and conviction. "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 Enter Bob Drogin's new book... 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 But, again, the intelligence community was disappointing the Bush administration... Los Angeles Times correspondent Bob Drogin lays out the whole sorry tale in his forthcoming book, "Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War."" "--Newsweek" "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 "There used to be an old rule that *real* journalists lived by: 'All governments are run by liars, and nothing they say should be believed.' We've come a long way from those days, to a media that has been cowed into submission and accepting the 'official story.' Thank God for Bob Drogin and his refusal to believe. It's journalists like him and books like CURVEBALL that give many of us a sliver of hope that we can turn things around." --Michael Moore, Director of "Fahrenheit 9/11," and "Sicko""Curveball is the factual equivalent of Catch 22. It is impossible to read this book and then look at our world leaders without thinking, "F*ck. Oh f*ck. Oh my God, oh f*ck." "--Mark Thomas, comedian and political activist ."..the biggest fiasco in the history of secret intelligence over 500 years."--Frederick Forsyth, author of "The Day Of The Jackal," "The Odessa File" and "The Afghan" "Bob Drogin struck journalistic gold in this story of a conman who told his intelligence handlers exactly what they wanted to hear. If this twisted tale could be read simply as a thrilling farce it would be pure delight Media >, [PU: Random House]<

1999, ISBN: 9781400065837

"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… Mehr…

"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. In 1999, a mysterious Iraqi applies for political asylum in Munich. The young chemical engineer offers compelling testimony of Saddam Hussein's secret program to build weapons of mass destruction. He claims that the dictator has constructed germ factories on trucks, creating a deadly hell on wheels. His grateful German hosts pass his account to their CIA counterparts but deny the Americans access to their superstar informant. The Americans nevertheless give the defector his unforgettable code name: Curveball.The case lies dormant until after 9/11, when the Bush administration turns its attention to Iraq. Determined to invade, Bush's people seize on Curveball's story about mobile germ labs-even though it has begun to unravel. Ignoring a flood of warnings about the informant's credibility, the CIA allows President Bush to cite Curveball's unconfirmed claims in a State of the Union speech. Finally, Secretary of State Colin Powell highlights the Iraqi's "eyewitness" account during his historic address to the U.N. Security Council. Yet the entire case is based on a fraud. America's vast intelligence apparatus conjured up demons that did not exist. And the proof was clear before the war. Most of the events and conversations presented here have not been reported before. The portrayals-from an obdurate president to a bamboozled secretary of state to a bungling CIA director to case handlers conned by their snitch-are vivid and exciting. "Curveball" reads like an investigative spy thriller. Fast-paced and engrossing, it is an inside story of intrigue and incompetence at the highest levels of government. At a time when Americans demand answers, this authoritative book provides them with clarity and conviction. "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 Enter Bob Drogin's new book... 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 But, again, the intelligence community was disappointing the Bush administration... Los Angeles Times correspondent Bob Drogin lays out the whole sorry tale in his forthcoming book, "Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War."" "--, [PU: Random House]<

2001, ISBN: 9781400065837

[ED: Gebundene Ausgabe], [PU: Random House], Gebraucht - Gut Gebrauchtes Exemplar , ordentlicher Zustand. Altersbedingte Vergilbung möglich. Der Versand aus Deutschland erfolgt mit Rech… Mehr…

[ED: Gebundene Ausgabe], [PU: Random House], Gebraucht - Gut Gebrauchtes Exemplar , ordentlicher Zustand. Altersbedingte Vergilbung möglich. Der Versand aus Deutschland erfolgt mit Rechnung. - America was determined to go to war. Curveball had the information they needed. One problem...He was lying.'Curveball'was the undercover code name given to the mysterious defector whose assertions set the Iraq War in motion. A desperate young Iraqi applying for political asylum in Munich, his first-hand'evidence'on Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons programme would ultimately be a central plank of the Bush administration's justification in launching an invasion. Trouble was, virtually everything he told the intelligence services was a fabrication.Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Drogin, who broke the story to a shocked world, has written the definitive account of the most notorious intelligence fiasco in recent American history. How Curveball hoodwinked his handlers in the German secret services. How petty nationalistic rivalries meant the CIA never even got to meet their primary source. How squabbling, arrogance and incompetence within the various US intelligence agencies allowed Curveball's lies to spread higher and higher up the chain of authority, eventually reaching the White House itself. An irresistible story of international intrigue that twists its way from Germany to America to Iraq and back again,'Curveball'shows how honour and dishonesty amongst spies led to the US and the UK becoming embroiled in a catastrophic war. -, DE, [SC: 0.00], leichte Gebrauchsspuren, gewerbliches Angebot, 368, [GW: 585g], Banküberweisung, PayPal, Internationaler Versand<