Chain of Command - The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib

Yellowing inside front and back covers

For over thirty-five years Hersh has been a relentless thorn in the side of successive US administrations, plumbling an unrivalled list of secret military and intelligence contacts for the stories the others can't - or won't - get. In 'Chain of command', he reveals what really lies behind the public story of Bush's war on terror, giving the full picture of the intelligence failures, lies, distortions and obsessions - including the White House's false claims about weapons of mass destruction - that led to the invasion of Iraq and turned America from victim of terror into perpetrator of torture. Examining the full extent of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, Hersh discloses the institutional failures of the Army prison system and lays responsability at the hightest levels. He shows how policy decisions at the Pentagon - endorsed by Rumsfeld and his aides - to expand a top secret 'special-acess program' brought extreme torture methods to the prisons in Iraq and created a culture of brutality where the old rules no longer applied. He also looks at who blew the whistle and what the Pentagon's reaction was to the scandal...