The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq

by Steve Coll

“If we had taken strong action against the Iraqis for what they had done in Halabja, and in their later offensives against both the Kurds and the Iranians…I mean really strong action…would Saddam Hussein, under these circumstances, have believed he could get away with invading Kuwait in August 1990?” asked Charles Cogan, the head of the C.I.A.’s Middle East operations during the early 1980s. “Maybe he would” have invaded anyway, since “the grandiosity of the man’s thinking was immense. But I am not so sure.” Thomas Pickering, a respected career ambassador who served at the United Nations and in Moscow, also concluded “that Saddam was encouraged in his Kuwait adventure by our tolerance for just about everything he did, including his use of chemical weapons.”