Customer Reviews

Circle of Fear: My Life As an Israeli and Iraqi Spy

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The author tells a fascinating tale of life inside Iraq. Being the son of one of Saddam's closest advisors, he had access to much interesting information. Iraqis are taught to hate Israelis, but Hussein Sumaida never did buy into the hate. He would often sneak into his father's "banned books" stash and read books about Israeli heroes. He grew up wanting to defect to Israel and become a spy. The story he tells is fascinating, and well worth the read.

A reviewer said Hussein Sumaida is blinded by hatred of jews. I don't know what book that person read, but it wasn't this one. Hussein is very forthright about his liking of Jews and Israel, despite the propaganda the people of Iraq are subjected to. Overall a very exciting book.

"Cirlce of Fear" is the story of a young author (Hussein Sumaida) whose father (a prominent figure in Saddam's regine) has abused Hussein since he was a child. To get even with his father, and his country (Iraq), he decides to work as a spy for Mossad in England. When the Iraqi secret service (Mukhabarat) catches up with him, the author switches sides and decides to work for Iraqi intelligence. By doing so he gets an inside look of the Iraqi regime and its brutalities. In this book Hussein exposes the inner workings of Saddam's regime, the torture of Iraqis, and the leacherous life-style of the government officials in great detail. Hussein hate of his father, and his country is carried over to his religion that he mis-quotes, derides and mis-interprets.

This book ranks among such espionage books as "By Way of Deception" and "The Other Side of Deception" both by Victor Ostrovsky -the Mossad agent who turned against the Israeli regime because of Mossad's atrocities and Israeli government policies in terrorizing the Palestinian population.

The book describes alleged intelligence connections of the author. Unfortunately, the author is blinded by hate, of both Israel and the "Zionist satan". As well, the author subscribes to a number of conspiracy theories that evoke the golden age of blood libels. Finally, the writing style is simply awful: the book may be a translation from another language. For example, consider the following passage:

"I thought to myself how awful and perverted the Zionists are; how disgraced their society and how corrupt their souls". Ugh.