The Assassins' Gate

by George Packer

  Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. London: Saqi Books, 2004 (3rd ed.).

  Gertrude Bell, The Letters of Gertrude Bell: Vols. I and II. London: Ernest Benn, 1927.

  Paul Berman, Terror and Liberalism. New York: Norton, 2003.

  Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004.

  Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003.

  Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. New York: Times Books, 2005.

  David Dudley, “Paul’s Choice,” Cornell Alumni Magazine, July/August 2004.

  James Fallows, “Blind into Baghdad,” The Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2004.

  Franklin Foer and Spencer Ackerman, “The Radical,” The New Republic, December 1, 2003.

  David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 1989.

  Thomas X. Hammes, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century. Osceola, WI: Zenith Press, 2004.

  Seymour M. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.

  Robert Kagan, Of Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order. New York: Knopf, 2003.

  Robert Kagan and William Kristol (eds.), Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defense Policy. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2000.

  Mark Lilla, “Leo Strauss: The European” and “The Closing of the Straussian Mind,” The New York Review of Books, October 21 and November 4, 2004.

  Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.

  ———, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991 (rev. ed.).

  James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. New York: Viking Books, 2004.

  Jane Mayer, “The Manipulator,” The New Yorker, June 7, 2004.

  Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi’is of Iraq. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

  David Rieff, “Blueprint for a Mess,” The New York Times Magazine, November 1, 2003.

  Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf (eds.), The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions. New York: Touchstone, 2003.

  Sam Tanenhaus, “Bush’s Brain Trust,” Vanity Fair, July 2003.

  Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2002 (2nd ed.).

  Lawrence Weschler, Calamities of Exile: Three Nonfiction Novellas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.

  Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004.

  David Wurmser, Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press, 1999.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I AM ABOVE ALL GRATEFUL to the Iraqis who worked with me, in extenuating circumstances, in Iraq. Those who can be named here are Omar Abdelkhader, Ali Fadhil, Ali Hussein, Qais al-Jalili, Dhia al-Lamy, Omar Salih, and “Serwan.” They kept me alive and allowed me to get to know their country, for which they have my deep thanks. I am also grateful for the hospitality of my friends at the Baghdad bureau of National Public Radio and of The New York Times. I also thank Tom Rhodes and Tamam Zeidan of USAID for their hospitality in Basra. Ranya Kadri of Amman always got me in and out of Iraq safely.

  The editors of The New York Times Magazine first put me on the Iraq story, and for that I thank Katherine Bouton, Megan Liberman, Gerry Marzorati, and Adam Moss. For my four trips to Iraq and the chance to write about the subject at length and in depth, I owe a great debt to The New Yorker and especially to its editor, David Remnick, to Dorothy Wickenden, and to my editor at the magazine, Daniel Zalewski. I also thank Virginia Cannon, Bruce Diones, Pam McCarthy, Lauren Porcaro, and the fact-checking department, especially Nana Asfour, Gita Daneshjoo, Allison Hoffman, Raffi Khatchadourian, Nandi Rodrigo, and Andy Young.

  Kathy Anderson, my agent, has provided consistent support. Douglas Gillison did conscientious work as a research assistant. At Farrar, Straus and Giroux, I am grateful for the work of Wah-Ming Chang, Cary Goldstein, Debra Helfand, Cynthia Merman, Jeff Seroy, Annie Wedekind, and above all Jonathan Galassi, who is a great friend as well as editor.

  Thanks to these friends for sharing and enriching my Iraq obsession: Deb Amos, Jon Lee Anderson, Dan Bergner, Paul Berman, Robyn Creswell, Dexter Filkins, Bill Finnegan, Annie Garrels, Marcela Gaviria, Jeff Goldberg, Philip Gourevitch, Feisal Istrabadi, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, Fred Kaplan, Kanan Makiya, Scott Malcomson, and Ammar al-Shahbander. I thank my mother and sister for their love and support through nerve-racking absences and their unfailing interest in my work. Laura Secor gave this book and its author the full measure of her love and intelligence. For that I owe her my greatest thanks.

  INDEX

  The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages in your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.

  Abbas, Mohamed

  Abdelkhader, Omar

  Abdel-Rahman, Omar

  Abdul-Zahraa, Mufeed

  Abid, Abdul-Zahra

  Abid, Raad Shaker

  Abid, Shirku

  Abizaid, John

  Abood, Abdul-Khadem Hussein

  Abrams, Elliott

  Abu Ghraib prison

  Adams, John

  Adams, Ron

  Adelman, Kenneth

  Aflaq, Michel

  Ajami, Fouad

  Akbar, Fakheraldin

  Ali (translator)

  al-Qaeda: Cheney on Saddam’s WMD for; in guerrilla warfare in Iraq; nihilism of; 9/11 and; Saddam and; Wahhabi members of, and Ashura bombings

  American Enterprise Institute (AEI)

  Amin, Bakhtiar

  Annan, Kofi

  antiwar movement in U.S.

  Arab Baath Socialist Party; American support for; attempted burning of records by; Butti in; debaathification of members of; 1968 coup by; rumors compiled by

  Arabization of Kirkuk

  Arafat, Yasir

  al-Araji, Hazem

  Arendt, Hannah

  Armitage, Richard

  Aseel

  Ashura festival; 2004 bombings of

  Assassins’ Gate

  Assyrian Christians. See Christians

  Atatürk, Kemal

  al-Awad, Zaydan Halef

  al-Awadi, Sheikh Emad al-Din

  Azzam, Abdullah

  Badr Brigade (Badr Organization)

  Baghdadi, Saad

  Baghdad University

  Baker, James

  Baker, Nicholson

  Barnes, Fred

  Barzani, Massoud

  Barzani, Mustapha

  Basra

  al-Basry, Mohamed

  Bayatli, Ali

  Becker, Jordan

  Bell, Gertrude

  Bennett, William

  Berger, Sandy

  Berman, Paul

  Biden, Joseph

  bin Laden, Osama

  Blackwill, Robert

  Blair, Tony

  Blix, Hans

  Bloch, Marc

  Bloom, Allan

  Bodine, Barbara

  Bolton, John

  Bourne, Randolph

  Bouvier, Jean-Bernard

  Brahimi, Lakhdar

  Bremer, L. Paul (Jerry), III; background of; leaves Iraq; Powell and; prison system and; on troop levels in Iraq; United Nations and; uprisings and

  Briggs, Sir Harold

  Brigham, Latrael

  British troops

  Brooke, Francis

  Brooks, David

  Brownback, Sam

  Brownlee, Les

 
; Buchanan, Patrick

  Bulgarian troops

  Burke, Edmund

  Bush, George H. W.; Abrams pardoned by; attempted assassination of; call for Iraqis to rise by; as foreign-policy realist; Kurds and

  Bush, George W.: Aseel’s letter to; author’s proposed Iraq policy for; creating reality in White House of; on democracy in Iraq; elections insisted on by; exit strategy sought by; Garner congratulated by; on insurgency; Iraq War planned by; messianic notions of; military service of; “mission accomplished” of; neoconservative staff of; 9/11 and; in Shiite propaganda; tax cuts of; 2004 campaign of; on Vietnam War; yes-men and yes-women to

  Bush Doctrine

  Butti, Baher

  Cabrera, Veronica

  Cagan, Leslie

  Cambone, Stephen

  Campbell, Les

  Camus, Albert

  Caraccilo, Dom

  Card, Andrew

  Carney, Timothy

  Carter, Jimmy

  Casey, George

  Castle, Scott

  Cevallos, Albert

  Chafee, Lincoln

  Chalabi, Ahmad; background of; debaathification and; Feith and; Free Iraqi Forces of; official support of; after U.S. dumped him

  Chalabi, Salem (Sam)

  Cheney, Lynne

  Cheney, Richard; background of; Chalabi and; DPG and; on liberation of Iraq; Makiya and; military deferment of; 9/11 and; on WMD

  Chomsky, Noam

  Chou En-lai

  Christians

  Churchill, Winston

  Clark, William

  Clarke, Richard

  Clay, Darrell

  Cleveland, Robin

  Clinton, Bill; foreign policy of; Iraq policy of

  Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA); collapse of credibility of; end of; understaffing of; see also Bremer

  Cohn-Bendit, Daniel

  Collis, Simon

  Communist Party, Iraqi

  constitution, Iraqi; interim

  Conway, James

  Cordesman, Anthony

  Crocker, Ryan

  Dafir

  Daniels, Mitchell

  Dawa Party

  Dawood, Emad

  Dawood, Luna

  Dawood, Saad

  Dean, Howard

  Dearlove, Sir Richard

  Defense Planning Guidance (DPG)

  democracy: compared to well-functioning army; ethnic warfare as strategy against; in Iraq; Islam and; in Middle East; neoconservatives and; Zarqawi’s denunciation of; see also elections

  DeMuth, Chris

  Dettman, David

  Diamond, Larry

  Di Rita, Larry

  Diwaniya

  Dodd, Christopher

  Dole, Robert

  Dora

  Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

  Duelfer, Charles

  Dwitch, Abdul-Jabbar

  Edwards, John

  elections; in Basra; Bush’s insistence on; nationwide results of; Saddam’s; Sistani on

  al-Emara, Youssef

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo

  Erbil

  Erdmann, Andrew P. N. (Drew)

  Ezekiel, shrine of

  Fadhel, Gha’ab

  Fairbanks, Charles

  Falluja

  Fedayeen Saddam

  Feinstein, Dianne

  Feith, Douglas; Chalabi and; on debaathification; postwar planning and

  Feldman, Noah

  Fenton, James

  Fleischer, Ari

  Fleischer, Michael

  Ford, Gerald

  foreign jihadis

  Forrest, Charles

  Franks, Tommy

  Fromkin, David

  Frosheiser, Chris

  Frosheiser, Kurt

  Frum, David

  Future of Iraq Project

  al-Gaaod, Talal

  Galbraith, Peter

  Gallup poll

  Garner, Jay

  Gelb, Leslie

  Geneva Conventions

  Gingrich, Newt

  Goldwater-Nichols Act

  Gonzales, Alberto

  Governing Council, Iraqi

  Greene, Graham

  Greenstock, Sir Jeremy

  Green Zone

  Grimsley, William

  Grossman, Marc

  guerrilla war. See insurgency

  Gul, Abdullah

  Gulf War (1991); in Basra; Islamization after; unfinished business of

  Haass, Richard N.

  Hadidi, Ismail

  Hadley, Stephen

  Hagel, Chuck

  al-Hakim, Ayatollah Mohamed Baqr

  Halabja

  Halliburton

  Hamadi, Emad

  Hamilton, Lee

  Hammes, T. X.

  Hamood, Sabiha

  Hamre, John

  Hannah, John

  Hanson, Victor Davis

  Harvin, Chris

  al-Hashemi, Aqila

  Hassan, Prince

  Havel, Vaclav

  Helms, Jesse

  Hilla

  Hisham

  Hitchens, Christopher

  Hitler, Adolf

  Hobbes, Thomas

  Hodgkinson, David

  Holbrooke, Richard

  Homeland Security Department

  homosexuals

  Horan, Hume

  Huffington, Arianna

  Hughes, Paul

  Hussein (king of Jordan)

  Hussein, Qusay

  Hussein, Saddam: al-Qaeda and; Assassins’ Gate built by; bodyguard’s personal stories of; capture of; “chaos is better than,”; court appearance of; cruelty of; fall of statue of; five lines of guards of; guerrilla warfare planned by; after Gulf War; Kirkuk visits of; monument of arms of; 9/11 and; 1990s Islamization policy of; ruling class under; Rumsfeld’s meeting with; Stalin as hero of; things worse after; 2002 prisoner release by; see also WMD

  Hussein, Uday

  al-Hussein, Yasin Ali

  Ibrahim, Yousef

  IEDs (improvised explosive devices)

  Ignatieff, Michael

  insurgency (guerrilla warfare)

  Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)

  Iraqi army: dissolution of; former soldiers of, in Falluja Brigade; new

  Iraqi Islamic Party

  Iraqi National Congress (INC)

  Iraq Liberation Act

  Iraq Property Claims Commission

  Istrabadi, Feisal

  Italian troops

  al-Jabouri, Omar Hechel

  Jabr, Bayan

  Jackson, Henry “Scoop”

  al-Janaby, Kassim

  Jasim, Mohamed

  Jassim, Mohamed Kareem

  al-Jazairy, Hashim

  Jennings, Ray Salvatore

  Jett, James

  Jews; blamed for violence in Iraq; in Kirkuk; in Makiya’s files; supposedly warned to stay away from World Trade Center

  Johns, Simon

  Johnson, Lyndon

  jokes, Iraqi

  Jones, Richard

  Juhi, Raed

  al-Kadhimi, Mustafa

  Kagan, Robert

  Kamal, Abdulillah

  Kamal, Nimat

  Karbala; Ashura bombings in (2004)

  Karzai, Hamid

  Kay, David

  Kean, Thomas

  Kennedy, John F.

  Kerik, Bernard

  Kerrey, Bob

  Kerry, John

  Khader, Mohamed

  al-Khafaji, Isam

  al-Khalil, Samir. See Makiya, Kanan

  Khalilzad, Zalmay

  al-Khoei, Ayatollah Abdul-Majid

  al-Khoei, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Abu al-Qasim

  Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah

  Kimmitt, Mark

  Kinani, Sheikh Mohamed

  Kirkpatrick, Jeane

  Kirkuk; 1957 census of

  Kissinger, Henry

  Klein, Naomi

  Koestler, Arthur

  Komer, “Blowtorch” Bob

  Kristol, Irving

  Kristol, Willia
m

  Kucinich, Dennis

  Kurdistan; author’s trip to (2004); federalism and (autonomy); independence of; Kirkuk as part of; peshmerga of; two political parties of

  Kurds: return to Kirkuk of; Saddam’s deportation of; Saddam’s genocide vs. (Anfal)

  Lacey, Erin

  Lahan, Mark

  Lawrence, T. E.

  Lewis, Bernard

  Libby, I. Lewis

  Lilla, Mark

  Lindsay, Lawrence

  Locke, John

  looting; prevented by local leaders

  Lott, Trent

  Lugar, Richard G.

  Luti, William J.

  McCain, John

  McKiernan, Dave

  McKissen, Scott

  Mahdi Army

  Mahmood

  Mahmudiya

  al-Majid, Ali Hassan (Chemical Ali)

  Makiya, Kanan (Samir al-Khalil); as American adviser; background of; ethnic politics opposed by; Memory Foundation of; war in Iraq supported by

  Makiya, Mohamed

  Malaya, guerrilla warfare in

  Maloof, F. Michael

  Mann, James

  May, Ernest

  McMaster, H. R.

  Miller, Frank

  Milligan, Chris

  Mneimneh, Hassan

  Mobbs, Michael

  Mohamed, Sardar

  Moore, Michael

  Morley, John Viscount

  Moshin, Haider

  Mosul

  Moynihan, Daniel Patrick

  Mudhafar, Sami

  Mukhlis, Hatem

  Murdoch, Rupert

  Murphy, Marcus

  al-Musawi, Nabil

  Myers, Richard

  Mylroie, Laurie

  al-Naimy, Mayasa

  Najaf

  Namikh, Khadija

  Nasir, Mohamed

  National Security Strategy

  nation building

  neoconservatives: foreign policy of; Iraq policy of; left-wing origin of; messianism of; never say when they are wrong

  Netanyahu, Benjamin

  Nixon, Richard

  no-fly zones

  al-Obeidi, Jawdet

  Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance. See ORHA

  Office of Special Plans. See Special Plans

  Ogali, Ahmad

  oil: Baghdad Ministry of; DPG on; Halliburton’s contract on; of Kirkuk; to pay for Iraq rehabilitation; Wolfowitz on

  Omar (translator)

  O’Neill, John

  O’Neill, Paul

  ORHA

  Orwell, George

  O’Sullivan, Meghan

  Othman, Mahmoud

  Ottoway, Marina

  Pachachi, Adnan

  Palestine Hotel

  Pariser, Eli

  peacekeeping

  Perle, Richard

  Petraeus, David

  Phillips, David L.