Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu GhraibSince September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command, he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from the clear morning when hijackers crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq? Hersh established himself at the forefront of investigative journalism thirty-five years ago when he broke the news of the massacre at My Lai, Vietnam, for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Ever since, he's challenged America's power elite by publishing the stories that others can't, or won't, tell. In exposés on subjects ranging from Saudi corruption to nuclear black marketeers and -- months ahead of other journalists -- the White House's false claims about weapons of mass destruction, Hersh has cemented his reputation as the indispensable reporter of our time. In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of President Bush's "war on terror" and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. He reveals the connections between early missteps in the hunt for Al Qaeda and disasters on the ground in Iraq. The book includes a new account of Hersh's pursuit of the Abu Ghraib story and of where, he believes, responsibility for the scandal ultimately lies. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a crucial chapter in America's recent history. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an Administration blinded by ideology and of a President whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America. |
From inside the book
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... Afghanistan in December 2001, his American interrogators stripped him, gagged him, strapped him to a board, and exhibited him to the press and to any soldier who wished to see him. These apparent violations of international law met with ...
... Afghanistan or elsewhere throughout the world,” the President asserted. He also stated that he had “the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that ...
... Afghanistan, or Cuba had been tortured. He also responded to a question about how the government knew it had the right person in captivity by insisting that everyone in Guantánamo belonged there. “There is so much process at Guantánamo ...
... Afghanistan, said. “There were always newspeople there,” he said. “That's why you couldn't send them back with a broken leg or so. And if somebody died, I'd get court-martialed.” The roughing up of prisoners was sometimes spur-of-the ...
... Afghanistan. A senior Afghan official subsequently told newsmen in Kabul that the circumstances of their detainment were laughable. The New York Times, in a dispatch published on page A18, noted that one of the detainees, Faiz Muhammad ...
Contents
| 1 | |
| 20 | |
Crossing the Line | 46 |
The Gray Zone | 63 |
INTELLIGENCE FAILURE | 73 |
Why the Government Didnt Know What It Knew | 87 |
The Twentieth Man | 103 |
THE OTHER WAR | 121 |
Behind the Mushroom Cloud | 225 |
THE SECRETARY AND THE GENERALS | 249 |
Manhunts | 262 |
Targeting the Insurgency | 273 |
A MOST DANGEROUS FRIEND | 287 |
The Ultimate Black Market | 302 |
Washingtons Deal | 311 |
THE MIDDLE EAST AFTER 911 | 323 |
The Getaway | 128 |
A Power Base of Warlords | 145 |
THE IRAQ HAWKS | 163 |
Getting Closer | 176 |
Richard Perle Goes to Lunch | 189 |
Into the Intelligence Stovepipe | 207 |
A Lost Opportunity | 333 |
The Next Nuclear Power? | 342 |
Israel Turkey and the Kurds | 351 |
Epilogue | 361 |
Acknowledgments | 369 |