Achilles Trap

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2024** **A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORKER** From the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of Ghost Wars, the inside story of America''s long and ruinous relationship with Saddam Hussein The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power and geopolitics that led to America''s disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America''s fundamental miscalculations during its ruinous, decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein. Beginning with Saddam''s rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq''s secret nuclear weapons programme, Steve Coll traces Saddam''s motives through understanding his inner circle. He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader - a leader directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the torture or