Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq [Hardcover]

Mike Tucker (Author), Charles S. Faddis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 21, 2008

The untold story of the CIA's secret mission inside Iraq to prepare for the invasion of Iraq--from the secret team leader who led the 2003 mission.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Among Warriors in Iraq is hard-boiled and absorbing.Mike Tucker

also has Hemingway's eye for description, particularly of warriors."

BOOKLIST.

 

 “In Hell Is Over: Voices of the Kurds after Saddam, Mike Tucker

tells a story we should know, but would not except for his bravery.”

Senator Bob Kerrey, member of 9/11 Commission.

From the Inside Flap

The Iraq War most of us know began on March 20, 2003, with the U.S.-led invasion. In fact, it began more than eight months earlier—on July 10, 2002—when eight Americans crossed the Harburr River from Turkey into Kurdistan. Carrying side arms and assault rifles, the CIA counterterrorist team soon linked up with Kurdish peshmerga to commence their mission: strike and kill Al-Qaeda, and take down Saddam Hussein’s Baathist dictatorship.

They endured almost a year of being denied food, weapons, and ammunition by a NATO ally, Turkey, as they carried out a covert operation with profound consequences on the War on Terror, the Iraq War, and U.S. foreign policy: Operation Hotel California.

Drawing on exclusive interviews with the man who led the CIA team, Operation Hotel California tells the story of the dangerous mission that paved the way for the invasion of Iraq. In a riveting narrative, much of it in the words of the operation’s leader—publicly identified here for the first time as Charles S. “Sam” Faddis—Mike Tucker chronicles a staggering trail of corruption and incompetence by the Bush White House, from pursuing federal tax cuts rather than Al-Qaeda in spring 2001, to pandering to Turkey at the expense of America’s fight against Saddam and Islamic terrorists.

With compelling portrayals of the courageous men on Faddis’s team and first-hand accounts of how America’s finest tracked and took down the Mukhabarat assassination squads Saddam had sent to kill them, Operation Hotel California captures fully the thrills and frustrations of hunting the nation’s most fanatical enemies. And—as the most blistering indictment to date by any American counterterrorism officer of the national security blunders vis-à-vis Iraq and Al-Qaeda—it carries lessons that will reverberate in Washington and beyond for years to come.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Lyons Press (October 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1599213664
• ISBN-13: 978-1599213668
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #806,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Two Voices on a Vital Subject, November 29, 2008

By 

William Layman "Will Layman" (Bethesda. MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq (Hardcover)

OPERATION HOTEL CALIFORNIA is a unique and riveting book about war. The reviews here run hot and cold, and that's to be expected -- this is a war book like few others.

Mike Tucker and his interview subject, the US counter-terrorist soldier Charles Faddis, combine their voices in counterpoint here. Tucker frames and story in both historic and mythic terms, while Faddis provides direct commentary on what happened when he and his team were ordered to enter Iraq in mid-2002 before the US invasion. This fugue of voice and view does not pretend to be the final word on US Iraq policy or on the events that preceded the US invasion, but it provides essential insight in two areas: (1) the egregious lack of coordination between the Bush administration and its own soldiers and allies, and (2) the way counter-terrorist teams operate and think in real time and real situations.

Faddis's accounts of action on the ground mix heroism, frustration and wit. I love the account of his team playing "Grand Theft Auto" and watching the film "Sideways" in-country, but I also love the explanations of how the team managed to take out rail lines essential to the Iraqi army in coordination with the Kurds. Faddis does not skimp on expressing his frustration: with inaccuracies in Bob Woodward's recent book, with the unwillingness of Bush administration figures to listen to the military, with failures of nerve and intelligence generally in how the administration failed to trust its own officers and troops.

Tucker's commentary -- and his policy recommendations in the book's epilogue -- strongly credits the Kurds with being the best allies of he US in the region. Tucker also endorses a series of policies going forward from the present (ending the Iraq War, fighting in Afghanistan, moving on global warming, reconstituting the OSS, allying with China and India in the global war on Islamic extremism). You may or may not agree with these notions -- or with the two authors' affection for single-malt scotch and music -- but they come out of a factual narrative about the beginning of the Iraq War that needs to be absorbed by people who are thinking about how to succeed in this critical military effort.

OHC reads quickly and sheds a wholly new light on the recent actions in the Middle East. Anyone interested in the topic should welcome these two unique views.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting But Disapppointing, October 22, 2008

By 

R. DiNardo "Bookreviewer" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq (Hardcover)

First of all I'd like to say the book was interesting. However, I was disappointed in that it is mostly written like a transcript from Mike Tucker's interviews with Mr. Faddis. There's alot of repetitiveness in what Mr. Faddis says and frankly, he comes across as a hot-headed, teenage Lee Marvin character. Makes one wonder if his personality affects his credibility and trustworthiness. I would not pay full price for this book but if you can borrow it from someone, sign it out from a library, or get real cheap, then go ahead and read it. I hope a better organized and written account comes out on this topic in the near future.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Very Disappointing, November 14, 2008

By 

Christopher J. Snell (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq (Hardcover)

I wish I had read the reviews here before I bought this book. A few pages into the book, I began to notice the word and idea repetition. Annoyed, I continued on, hoping that things would smooth out and the real story would begin. Unfortunately, it only got worse and by the time I got through the first chapter, I could take no more. Like another reviewer noted, I'll be selling my copy to a used book store. This book should have been edited by a competent editor before it was published. It was not and now I feel taken for $17.