Chapters 16 and 17 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 16: March 3, 1995. Salah Al-Din, Iraq.

The Kurds weren't part of the coup but their continuing conflicts had the potential to foil the plot if their disruptions drew Saddam's army to the north. The Kurds had no love for Saddam; he had gassed thousands of Kurds in 1988. Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, Saddam's opposition, wanted Saddam unseated and wanted to replace him but he had little support inside Iraq. Only the Kurds were his supporters and if Saddam's army came after them, he would lose them. Chalabi was considered an outsider because he grew up in Lebanon and was educated in America. He had a shady past that included an indictment for embezzling depositor funds from a bank he owned in Jordan that collapsed.

Chalabi had a difficult time convincing Kurd leader Masud Barzani to join the...