The CIA War in Kurdistan
The Untold Story of the Northern Front in the Iraq War
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Narrated by:
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Paul Boehmer
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By:
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Sam Faddis
About this listen
In 2002, Sam Faddis was named to head a CIA team that would enter Iraq to facilitate the deployment of follow-on conventional military forces numbering more than 40,000 American soldiers. This force, built around the 4th Infantry Division, would, in partnership with Kurdish forces and with the assistance of Turkey, engage Saddam's army in the North as part of a coming invasion. Faddis expected to be on the ground in Iraq within weeks, the entire campaign likely to be over by summer.
The 4th Infantry Division never arrived, nor did any other conventional forces in substantial number. The Turks not only refused to provide support, they worked overtime to prevent the United States from achieving success. And an Arab army that was to assist US forces fell apart before it ever made it to the field.
Alone, hopelessly outnumbered, short on supplies, and threatened by Iraqi assassination teams and Islamic extremists, Faddis' team, working with Kurdish Peshmerga, miraculously paved the way for a brilliant and largely bloodless victory in the North and the fall of Saddam's Iraq. That victory, handed over to Washington and the Department of Defense on a silver platter, was then squandered. The decisions that followed would lead to catastrophic consequences that continue to this day.
©2020 Sam Faddis (P)2020 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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In One Hundred Victories, acclaimed military expert Linda Robinson shows how the special operations forces are - after a decade of intensive combat operations - evolving to become the go-to force for operations worldwide.
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Great book very informative.
- By Ashley Cooper on 10-16-13
By: Linda Robinson
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Guardian
- Life in the Crosshairs of the CIA’s War on Terror
- By: Thomas Pecora, Jon Land, Lindsay Preston
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 11 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Somalia was Tom Pecora's first deployment as a CIA Protective Operations Cadre (POC) officer, responsible for providing protective operations support in hostile areas of the world. He later headed up a series of the Agency's undisclosed protective operations teams. From 1989 until his retirement in 2013, he was assigned to multiple war zones across Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, doing the kind of work few are even aware exists.
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Don’t buy it
- By L-E Industries on 06-18-20
By: Thomas Pecora, and others
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88 Days to Kandahar
- A CIA Diary
- By: Robert L. Grenier
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In his gripping narrative, we meet General Tommy Franks, who bridles at CIA control of "his" war; General "Jafar Amin", a gruff Pakistani intelligence officer who saves Grenier from committing career suicide; Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan's brilliant ambassador to the US, who tries to warn her government of the al-Qaeda threat; "Mark", the CIA operator who guides GulAgha Shirzai to bloody victory over the Taliban.
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Honest conclusion based on practical realities.
- By rehman on 03-30-15
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Without Hesitation
- The Odyssey of an American Warrior
- By: General Hugh Shelton, Ronald Levinson, Malcolm McConnell
- Narrated by: General Hugh Shelton
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Abridged
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During a nearly 40-year career in the United States Army, Hugh Shelton has been known as a straight shooter - when he speaks he means what he says. Whether serving under a Democratic president or a Republican president, whether in a war that was popular at home or not, Hugh Shelton gave all he had, and asked nothing less of the men and women who worked for him. Politically independent, Shelton told the truth - not what his superiors wanted to hear.
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Week done!
- By Jennifer on 04-13-18
By: General Hugh Shelton, and others
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Benghazi
- The Definitive Report
- By: Brandon Webb, Jack Murphy
- Narrated by: Melinda Fleming, Salomon Maya
- Length: 2 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 12th, 2012, Brandon Webb learned Glen Doherty, one of his closest friends and his former Navy SEAL teammate, was killed alongside Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and two other Americans when the U.S. State Department and CIA headquarters in Benghazi, Libya, were sieged in a shocking terrorist attack.
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Beware of definitive reports
- By Steve on 04-13-13
By: Brandon Webb, and others
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My Share of the Task
- A Memoir
- By: General Stanley McChrystal
- Narrated by: Kevin Collins
- Length: 19 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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In this illuminating memoir, McChrystal frankly explores the major episodes and controversies of his eventful career. He delves candidly into the intersection of history, leadership, and his own experience to produce a book of enduring value. Joining the troubled post-Vietnam army as a young officer, McChrystal witnessed and participated in some of our military’s most difficult struggles. He describes the many outstanding leaders he served with and the handful of bad leaders he learned not to emulate.
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Incomplete ending
- By Jfadams on 04-23-13
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Black Ops
- The Life of a CIA Shadow Warrior
- By: Ric Prado
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 12 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Enrique Prado found himself in his first firefight at age seven. The son of a middle-class Cuban family caught in the midst of the Castro Revolution, his family fled their war-torn home for the hope of a better life in America. Fifty years later, the Cuban refugee retired from the Central Intelligence Agency as the CIA equivalent of a two-star general. Black Ops is the story of Ric’s legendary career that spanned two eras, the Cold War and the Age of Terrorism.
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Impressive and Inspiring!
- By medardo on 03-12-22
By: Ric Prado
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The Targeter
- My Life in the CIA, Hunting Terrorists and Challenging the White House
- By: Nada Bakos, Davin Coburn
- Narrated by: Christine Lakin
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1999, 30-year-old Nada Bakos moved from her lifelong home in Montana to Washington, DC, to join the CIA. Quickly realizing her affinity for intelligence work, Nada was determined to rise through the ranks of the agency first as an analyst and then as a Targeting Officer, eventually finding herself on the frontline of America's War against Islamic extremists. In this role, Nada was charged with determining if Iraq had a relationship with 9/11 and Al-Qaida, and finding the mastermind behind this terrorist activity: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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Terrible book. Feminazi Propaganda
- By Dan Wells on 08-24-19
By: Nada Bakos, and others
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Special Forces Berlin
- Clandestine Cold War Operations of the US Army's Elite, 1956-1990
- By: James Stejskal
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The massive armies of the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies posed a huge threat to the nations of Western Europe. US military planners decided they needed a plan to slow the juggernaut they expected when and if a war began. The plan was Special Forces Berlin. Their mission, should hostilities commence, was to wreak havoc behind enemy lines and buy time for vastly outnumbered NATO forces to conduct a breakout from the city.
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I was there...
- By rowca on 09-15-18
By: James Stejskal
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The Nazi Conspiracy
- The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill
- By: Brad Meltzer, Josh Mensch
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1943, as the war against Nazi Germany raged abroad, President Franklin Roosevelt had a critical goal: a face-to-face sit-down with his allies Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill. This first-ever meeting of the Big Three in Tehran, Iran, would decide some of the most crucial strategic details of the war. Yet when the Nazis found out about the meeting, their own secret plan took shape—an assassination plot that would’ve changed history.
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Fabulous book!
- By Luke Einfeldt on 01-18-23
By: Brad Meltzer, and others
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The American invasion of Iraq has been a success - for the Kurds. Kurdistan is an invisible nation, and the Kurds the largest ethnic group on Earth without a homeland, comprising some 25 million moderate Sunni Muslims living in the area around the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Through a history dating back to biblical times, they have endured persecution and betrayal, surviving only through stubborn compromise with greater powers. They have always desired their own state, and now, accidentally, the United States may have helped them take a huge step toward that goal.
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As raw as it gets
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Until the war in Iraq, the Special Forces were the military's counterinsurgency experts. Their specialty was going behind enemy lines and training insurgent forces. In Afghanistan, they toppled the Taliban by transforming Northern Alliance fighters into cohesive units. But in the almost nine years since, Special Forces units have forgone their previous mission, instead focusing on offensive raids.
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amazing story
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Run to the Sound of the Guns
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As part of an elite special operations unit at the fighting edge of the Global War on Terrorism, Nicholas Moore spent over a decade with the U.S. Army's 75th Ranger Regiment on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. In this compelling biography, a detailed narrative of grueling life on the ground combines with accounts of some of the most dramatic search and rescue operations of the period to tell the true story of life on the line in the War on Terror.
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A Modern Ranger story, honest and candid
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What listeners say about The CIA War in Kurdistan
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- Cessna
- 01-02-24
Influencing the Iraq war
This guy was in charge of collecting intelligence for invading Iraq from the north. His team was based in Kurdistan. This is his play by play account of what happened.
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- ariel sorensen
- 08-16-24
Love and Hate
I had to pause a lot while reading this book because I got so incredibly angry and frustrated, not with the author, but what the author was reporting. I highly recommend this book. It left me in tears.
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- Bill Brown
- 11-11-21
Highly Recommended Read
Been there...didn't do what Sam and his team did. Straightforward and very accurate. Sam tells you how it was and pulls no punches. If you read one book this year...read this one!
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- The Desert Fly
- 01-25-23
I Wish I Could Return This Title
This book was a big disappointment.
For starters, the narration by Paul Boehmer is awful, particularly for this kind of book - Boehmer makes Faddis' narrative seem even more arrogant and angry than it already is. After abandoning my first attempt to listen, I managed to finish a second attempt through sheer force of will.
The content of the book itself is of moderate interest, but Faddis' narrative leaves it clear that he's a legend in his own mind. He had all the right answers, never made any mistakes, did everything by the book, and consistently proved himself to be smarter than his seniors. Oddly, though, whenever he actually cites the reasons why his calls were overruled, they all make sense to anyone who knows anything about the bigger picture of what was going on in 2002/'03. In particular, Faddis' criticism of "enhanced interrogation" omits any serious discussion of the very real debates that preceded the use of those methods. By contrast, Marc Thiessen's book Courting Disaster discusses how and why officials ultimately decided to employ these controversial methods. Faddis could have added to that conversation, but didn't.
There's little left to the narrative once you strip Faddis' self-aggrandizement away. The audience learns nothing of substance about Iraq or Kurdistan, or about intelligence methodology, or even about the history of the War on Terror. Faddis' author profile on Amazon says that he dabbles in politics, and I can't help but conclude that the purpose of this memoir was to jump start a political career that has yet to materialize.
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- Shadow Kurdi
- 07-07-24
Its ok
The Author highly exaggerates, and mislables Kurdistan as a remote location as if its in the middle of the desert somewhere. Kurdistan is not Remote at all. If anything, its safe than most places in the U.S. or Europe.
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