The Assassins' Gate (73 page)

Ezekiel, shrine of

Fadhel, Gha'ab

Fairbanks, Charles

Falluja

Fedayeen Saddam

Feinstein, Dianne

Feith, Douglas; Chalabi and; on debaathification; postwar planning and

Feldman, Noah

Fenton, James

Fleischer, Ari

Fleischer, Michael

Ford, Gerald

foreign jihadis

Forrest, Charles

Franks, Tommy

Fromkin, David

Frosheiser, Chris

Frosheiser, Kurt

Frum, David

Future of Iraq Project

al-Gaaod, Talal

Galbraith, Peter

Gallup poll

Garner, Jay

Gelb, Leslie

Geneva Conventions

Gingrich, Newt

Goldwater-Nichols Act

Gonzales, Alberto

Governing Council, Iraqi

Greene, Graham

Greenstock, Sir Jeremy

Green Zone

Grimsley, William

Grossman, Marc

guerrilla war.
See
insurgency

Gul, Abdullah

Gulf War (1991); in Basra; Islamization after; unfinished business of

Haass, Richard N.

Hadidi, Ismail

Hadley, Stephen

Hagel, Chuck

al-Hakim, Ayatollah Mohamed Baqr

Halabja

Halliburton

Hamadi, Emad

Hamilton, Lee

Hammes, T. X.

Hamood, Sabiha

Hamre, John

Hannah, John

Hanson, Victor Davis

Harvin, Chris

al-Hashemi, Aqila

Hassan, Prince

Havel, Vaclav

Helms, Jesse

Hilla

Hisham

Hitchens, Christopher

Hitler, Adolf

Hobbes, Thomas

Hodgkinson, David

Holbrooke, Richard

Homeland Security Department

homosexuals

Horan, Hume

Huffington, Arianna

Hughes, Paul

Hussein (king of Jordan)

Hussein, Qusay

Hussein, Saddam: al-Qaeda and; Assassins' Gate built by; bodyguard's personal stories of; capture of; “chaos is better than,”; court appearance of; cruelty of; fall of statue of; five lines of guards of; guerrilla warfare planned by; after Gulf War; Kirkuk visits of; monument of arms of; 9/11 and; 1990s Islamization policy of; ruling class under; Rumsfeld's meeting with; Stalin as hero of; things worse after; 2002 prisoner release by;
see also
WMD

Hussein, Uday

al-Hussein, Yasin Ali

Ibrahim, Yousef

IEDs (improvised explosive devices)

Ignatieff, Michael

insurgency (guerrilla warfare)

Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988)

Iraqi army: dissolution of; former soldiers of, in Falluja Brigade; new

Iraqi Islamic Party

Iraqi National Congress (INC)

Iraq Liberation Act

Iraq Property Claims Commission

Istrabadi, Feisal

Italian troops

al-Jabouri, Omar Hechel

Jabr, Bayan

Jackson, Henry “Scoop”

al-Janaby, Kassim

Jasim, Mohamed

Jassim, Mohamed Kareem

al-Jazairy, Hashim

Jennings, Ray Salvatore

Jett, James

Jews; blamed for violence in Iraq; in Kirkuk; in Makiya's files; supposedly warned to stay away from World Trade Center

Johns, Simon

Johnson, Lyndon

jokes, Iraqi

Jones, Richard

Juhi, Raed

al-Kadhimi, Mustafa

Kagan, Robert

Kamal, Abdulillah

Kamal, Nimat

Karbala; Ashura bombings in (2004)

Karzai, Hamid

Kay, David

Kean, Thomas

Kennedy, John F.

Kerik, Bernard

Kerrey, Bob

Kerry, John

Khader, Mohamed

al-Khafaji, Isam

al-Khalil, Samir.
See
Makiya, Kanan

Khalilzad, Zalmay

al-Khoei, Ayatollah Abdul-Majid

al-Khoei, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Abu al-Qasim

Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah

Kimmitt, Mark

Kinani, Sheikh Mohamed

Kirkpatrick, Jeane

Kirkuk; 1957 census of

Kissinger, Henry

Klein, Naomi

Koestler, Arthur

Komer, “Blowtorch” Bob

Kristol, Irving

Kristol, William

Kucinich, Dennis

Kurdistan; author's trip to (2004); federalism and (autonomy); independence of; Kirkuk as part of;
peshmerga
of; two political parties of

Kurds: return to Kirkuk of; Saddam's deportation of; Saddam's genocide vs. (Anfal)

Lacey, Erin

Lahan, Mark

Lawrence, T. E.

Lewis, Bernard

Libby, I. Lewis

Lilla, Mark

Lindsay, Lawrence

Locke, John

looting; prevented by local leaders

Lott, Trent

Lugar, Richard G.

Luti, William J.

McCain, John

McKiernan, Dave

McKissen, Scott

Mahdi Army

Mahmood

Mahmudiya

al-Majid, Ali Hassan (Chemical Ali)

Makiya, Kanan (Samir al-Khalil); as American adviser; background of; ethnic politics opposed by; Memory Foundation of; war in Iraq supported by

Makiya, Mohamed

Malaya, guerrilla warfare in

Maloof, F. Michael

Mann, James

May, Ernest

McMaster, H. R.

Miller, Frank

Milligan, Chris

Mneimneh, Hassan

Mobbs, Michael

Mohamed, Sardar

Moore, Michael

Morley, John Viscount

Moshin, Haider

Mosul

Moynihan, Daniel Patrick

Mudhafar, Sami

Mukhlis, Hatem

Murdoch, Rupert

Murphy, Marcus

al-Musawi, Nabil

Myers, Richard

Mylroie, Laurie

al-Naimy, Mayasa

Najaf

Namikh, Khadija

Nasir, Mohamed

National Security Strategy

nation building

neoconservatives: foreign policy of; Iraq policy of; left-wing origin of; messianism of; never say when they are wrong

Netanyahu, Benjamin

Nixon, Richard

no-fly zones

al-Obeidi, Jawdet

Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance.
See
ORHA

Office of Special Plans.
See
Special Plans

Ogali, Ahmad

oil: Baghdad Ministry of; DPG on; Halliburton's contract on; of Kirkuk; to pay for Iraq rehabilitation; Wolfowitz on

Omar (translator)

O'Neill, John

O'Neill, Paul

ORHA

Orwell, George

O'Sullivan, Meghan

Othman, Mahmoud

Ottoway, Marina

Pachachi, Adnan

Palestine Hotel

Pariser, Eli

peacekeeping

Perle, Richard

Petraeus, David

Phillips, David L.

Pletka, Danielle

Plumley, Matt

PNAC (Project for the New American Century)

Podhoretz, Norman

Polish troops

postwar planning for Iraq War

Powell, Colin; Chalabi and; on Iraq as priority; last meeting of Bush and; on troop strength in Iraq

Powell Doctrine

preemptive war

Prior, John

prisoners and arrests; of Kurds; scandal of;
see also
Abu Ghraib prison

private security contractors, killing of

privatization

psychiatric patients

al-Qaddafi, Muammar

Qais (driver)

Qutb, Sayyid

Raghda

Rahim, Nabil

Rahim, Rend

Ramadan, Taha Yassin

Ramadi

Ravich, Samantha

Reagan, Ronald; neoconservatives and

Republican Palace

Rhode, Harold

Rice, Condoleezza; background of; on Iraq and postwar Germany; in Iraq War planning; National Security Strategy of; as secretary of state; on WMD

Richmond, Alan

Rida, Mohamed

Roosevelt, Franklin

Roosevelt, Theodore

Rove, Karl

Rozbayani, Hasib

Rubin, Michael

Rudd, Gordon W.

rumors

Rumsfeld, Donald; background of; Bremer's policy approved by; insurgency and; military transformation plans of; postwar planning for Iraq by; Saddam's meeting with; soldiers' bitterness toward; and troop strength for Iraq

Saad

al-Sabti, Qasim

Saddam.
See
Hussein, Saddam

Sadiq, Abdulrahman

Sadiq, Mohamed

Sadiq, Othman Ali

al-Sadr, Ayatollah Mohamed Baqr

al-Sadr, Ayatollah Mohamed Sadiq

al-Sadr, Moqtada; Chalabi and; uprising by

Safar, Jamila

Said, Edward

Salamé, Ghassan

Salih, Barham

Salman Pak

Salvadoran troops

Sanchez, Ricardo

Sarbanes, Paul

al-Sarraf, Sermid

al-Sarraf, Wallada

al-Sary, Majid

Scheuneman, Randy

Schwarzkopf, Norman

Scowcroft, Brent

Senor, Dan

Sepp, Kalev

September 11, 2001 (9/11); as cause of Iraq War; Commission; Jews supposedly warned before; Kamal's play about; neoconservatives' answer to

Serwan (translator)

al-Shahbander, Ammar

Shaker, Ali

Shaker, Ayob

Shaker, Bashir

Shaker, Samir

Sharifpour-Hicks, Elahe

Sharon, Ariel

Shaways, Rowsch

Shekhany, Azad

Shia (Shiites): alliance of Sunni and; American Jewish support of; Ashura bombings of (2004); as chosen U.S. instrument; in Gulf War; INC and; insurgency of; after liberation; origin of; parties of; pleasure marriage in; restoration of monarchy and; retaliation against Sunnis; theocracy in Iraq and

Shinseki, Eric K.

Shulsky, Abram

Shultz, George

Silverman, Jerry

al-Sistani, Ayatollah Ali; election coalition of

Sky, Emma

Slocombe, Walter

Soane, E. B.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

South African mercenaries

Spanish troops

Special Plans, Office of

Stalin, Joseph

Stewart, Rory

Strauss, Leo

Strosky, E. A.

suicide bombers

Suleimaniya

Sullivan, Andrew

Sumaidaie, Samir Shakir

Sunnis: alliance of Shia and; election boycott by; in elections; insurgency of; as modernizers; origin of; traditional rule of Iraq by; United Nations and

Sunni Triangle

Suskind, Ron

Swanson, Brad

Swope, Robert

Sykes-Picot agreement (1916)

Talabani, Hawry

Talabani, Jalal

Tal Afar

Talib, Ali

Talib, Tariq

Taylor, Glade

Tenet, George

al-Tikriti, Barzan

torture: hunger as protection against; Washington's responsibility for

Trotsky, Leon

Truman, Harry

Turkomans

Ukrainian troops

United Nations; asked to return to Iraq; in Baghdad, and its bombing; CPA endorsed by; DPG's failure to mention; Human Rights Commission; inspectors in Iraq from; sanctions on Iraq by

United States Armed Forces; alcohol use in Iraq by; Commanders Fund of; redeployment of; strength needed for Iraq War

United States Marines

universities: debaathification in; Iraqi presidents elected by

Van Buren, Matt

Vidal, Gore

Vieira de Mello, Sergio

Vietnam War; Bush on; neoconservative attitude to

Vilsack, Tom

Wahhabis

Wallace, William

Walzer, Michael

Ward, George

Warrick, Thomas

Weinberger, Caspar

Wershow, Jeffrey

Westmoreland, William

Wetherington, Karl

Weydemuller, Patrick

White, Thomas E.

Wieseltier, Leon

Wilson, Sir Arnold

Wilson, Isaiah, III

Wittington-Jones, Brendan

WMD (weapons of mass destruction); “loose,” in Russia

Wohlstetter, Albert

Wolfowitz, Paul; background of; Bush and; Chalabi and; DPG and; foreign companies barred by; Makiya and; military deferment of; on 9/11 and Iraq; postwar Iraq and; in rocket attack in Green Zone; self-delusion by; on Strauss and Iraq War; on troop strength needed; and unfinished Gulf War

women, Iraqi; dress code of; Kurdish; pleasure marriage and; reprisal killings of; virginity exams on; Wolfowitz on

Woodward, Bob

Woolsey, R. James

Wurmser, David

al-Yaqoubi, Ayatollah Mohamed

Yaqoubi, Mustafa

al-Yawer, Ghazi

al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab

Zebari, Hoshyar

Zelikow, Philip

Zinni, Anthony

R
EADING
G
ROUP
G
UIDE

About This Guide

The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your reading of George Packer's
The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq.
We hope they will enrich your experience of the history and frontline reporting presented in this unsettling portrait of war.

Introduction

Providing unprecedented insight into America's most controversial foreign-policy decision since Vietnam,
The Assassins' Gate
recounts how the Bush administration set about changing the history of the Middle East and became mired in brutal guerrilla warfare in Iraq. During four tours on assignment for
The New Yorker,
award-winning reporter George Packer observed firsthand the complex struggles of soldiers and civilians from myriad backgrounds. Bringing to life the people, ideas, and history that led America to the Assassins' Gate—the main point of entry into the American zone in Baghdad—Packer reveals the gritty realities of nation-building and insurgency in a war that followed none of the preconceived scripts. The result is a masterwork of journalism, providing answers on a subject seldom addressed with clarity while raising important new questions about the future.

Questions for Discussion

1. What wisdom is revealed in the book's epigraph, written by a Syrian diplomat and poet?

2. The book's prologue describes the crowds that gather at the Assassins' Gate and gives the history of the gate itself (built by Saddam Hussein as an imitation of antiquity). In what way is the gate a metaphor for the current situation in Iraq, and America's role in the world?