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

On Tuesday, November 19, 2024, the Strauss-Clements Intelligence Studies Project will host author Steve Coll for a book talk on The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq. Dr. Aaron O’Connell, Associate Professor of History at UT-Austin and Director of Research for the Clements Center for National Security, will moderate the talk.

• Registration is RECOMMENDED. Registrants will receive any updates regarding the event.
• Lunch will be provided.
• Garage parking is available for a fee at the San Jacinto Garage. Parking will not be validated.

BIOGRAPHY

Steve Coll is an editor at the Economist, the author of nine books of nonfiction, and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize. Between 1985 and 2005, he was a reporter, foreign correspondent and senior editor at the Washington Post. There he covered Wall Street, served as the paper’s South Asia correspondent in New Delhi, and was the Post’s first international investigative correspondent, based in London. He served as managing editor of the Post between 1998 and 2004. The following year, he joined The New Yorker, where was a staff writer until 2023, when he joined the Economist as a senior editor. 

Coll is the author of “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001,” published in 2004, for which he received an Overseas Press Club Award and a Pulitzer Prize. His 2008 book, “The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century,” won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction in 2009 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Biography. His book “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power” won the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Award as the best business book of 2012. His book "Directorate S," a follow-up to "Ghost Wars," received the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. 

His most recent book, published in February 2024, is “The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the CIA, and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq.” 

He has four children and is married to Eliza Griswold, the journalist and poet. He has a B.A. in English and history from Occidental College.