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

by Steve Coll

One after another, three American presidents—George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush—signed Top Secret “findings” directing the C.I.A. to overthrow Saddam. This campaign to foster a coup d’état in Baghdad, which lasted from May 1991 until the 2003 invasion, proved to be spectacularly unsuccessful.