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Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (P.S.) | 
| Author: Seymour M. Hersh
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
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Rating:  42 reviews
Media: Paperback
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 1.2
ISBN: 0060955376
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.7044
EAN: 9780060955373
ASIN: 0060955376
Publication Date: August 1, 2005
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Seymour Hersh has been a legendary investigative reporter since 1969 when he broke the My Lai story in Vietnam. His considerable skill and well-placed sources inside the government, intelligence community, military, and the diplomatic corps have allowed him access to a wide range of information unavailable to most reporters. Chain of Command is packed with specific details and thoughtful analysis of events since the attacks of September 11, 2001, including intelligence failures prior to 9/11; postwar planning regarding Afghanistan and Iraq; the corruption of the Saudi family; Pakistan's nuclear program, which spread nuclear technology via the black market (and admitted as such); influence peddling at the highest levels; and the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib prison, among other topics. The book collects and elaborates on stories Hersh wrote for The New Yorker, and includes an introduction by the magazine's editor, David Remnick, on Hersh's background and his sources. Part of Hersh's skill lies in uncovering official reports that have been buried because government or military leaders find them too revealing or embarrassing. Chain of Command is filled with such stories, particularly regarding the manner in which sensitive intelligence was gathered and disseminated within the Bush administration. Hersh details how serious decisions were made in secret by a small handful of people, often based on selective information. Part of the problem was, and remains, a lack of human intelligence in critical parts of the Middle East, but it also has much to do with the considerable infighting within the administration by those trying to make intelligence fit preconceived conclusions. A prime example of this is the story about the files that surfaced allegedly detailing how Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger in order to build nuclear weapons. Though the files were soon proven to be forgeries, the Bush administration still used them as evidence against Saddam Hussein and therefore part of the reason for invading Iraq. In these pages, Hersh offers readers a clearer understanding of what has happened since September 11, and what we might expect in the future. --Shawn Carkonen
Product Description
Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his explosive stories in The New Yorker, including his headline-making pieces on the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Now, Hersh brings together what he has learned, along with new reporting, to answer the critical question of the last four years: How did America get from the clear morning when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center to a divisive and dirty war in Iraq? In Chain of Command, Hersh takes an unflinching look behind the public story of the war on terror and into the lies and obsessions that led America into Iraq. Hersh draws on sources at the highest levels of the American government and intelligence community, in foreign capitals, and on the battlefield for an unparalleled view of a critical chapter in America's recent history. In a new afterword, he critiques the government's failure to adequately investigate prisoner abuse -- at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere -- and punish those responsible. With an introduction by The New Yorker's editor, David Remnick, Chain of Command is a devastating portrait of an administration blinded by ideology and of a president whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 America's One Man Truth Commission July 21, 2008
Herbert L Calhoun (Falls Church, VA USA)
As is demonstrated here, Seymour Hersh may be the last of a dying breed of intrepid journalists, who through his skill and resourcefulness alone has turned himself into a "one man Truth Commission." In this book, whether about the intelligence failures leading up to 911, the incompetence in planning, executing and then consolidating the fruits of the Iraq invasion, to the "Yellow Cake" fiasco that eventually led to the "outing" of Valerie Plame; the peddling at the UN of bogus WMD intelligence data, or the mishandling of prisoners at Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib, all the way up to the failure to expeditiously and vigorously prosecute the war in Afghanistan -- not to mention the failure to catch Osama bin Laden -- Hersh has successfully trolled the back alleys of our government's secrecy as only a handful of other journalists have tried to do -- uncovering from behind this termite ridden facade, one embarrassing machination, denial, screw-up, and lie after another.
In this well written, thorough, and deeply disturbing expose, Hersh, has again, as he did with the My Lai massacre, shined a sliver of light and a beacon of hope unto the darker side of what is increasingly becoming a very troubled and shaky democracy. This is one journalist with X-ray vision that can "see through" the lies, excuses, rationalizations, and dissembling of those we have elected to represent us. With uncanny accuracy, Hersh walks through the smoke and gets us to the inside where the fire is. He demonstrates again and again that when those within our government deny an accusation, the odds are that they are at best dissembling, and at worse, that the contested basis of their denials will come tumbling out later as blatant untruths. This expose shows that those we have elected to defend our interests, have concluded that the best way to go about doing so is by lying to us and then challenging us to discover the truth through our own devices.
Since this book fails to even mention the more obvious examples of incompetence in the present government: such as Katrina, the sub-prime loan debacle, the energy crisis with $4/gallon gas, our embarrassing healthcare system, the failure of the U.S. public school system, and the failure to deal with the environment, just to name the more obvious ones - it is difficult not to become depressed at the damage the current political authorities have inflicted on our way of life.
But what is even more disconcerting about the stream of revelations in this book, is that most of what has been done it seems, has been done gratuitously, totally unnecessarily, and is as much a product of our own lack of ability to hold our elected officials accountable, as it is to their arrogance, partisan mean-spiritedness, and just plain incompetence. Altogether, I think this points to a much deeper, and a much more disturbing concern: Our elected officials seem to have no hesitation in showing a new level of disdain and disrespect for us, the American people. But it seems that we ourselves are the blame for this, for we have dealt ourselves a losing hand:
The electoral strategy we are using of trading accountability for ideological solidarity it seems has backfired on us all. For all it does is teach the politicians how to "demagogue" their way right pass us on all matters of substance. They know that by feeding us our daily dose of "ideological cotton candy" they can take us for granted, all the while peddling what is justly ours to the corporate bigwigs who fill their campaign coffers. We actually give them permission to ignore us, and our inputs, altogether until the next election cycle. We actually give them a license to treat us like the herd of ideologically sensitive sheep that we have become.
How else could it happen in the freest and most open democracy in the world, that we cannot discover until after the fact the truth about what our government is actually doing? And then can only find out through anonymous sources, whistleblowers or the memoirs of disgruntled retirees? The very fact that our institutional channels of truth and "governmental crap-detection" are drying up should alarm every true patriot and is itself a serious indictment of our increasingly porous democracy.
Thank God that we still have one other independent resource: Seymour Hersh as a "one man crap detector." Five Stars
Investigative journalism on Intelligence and War. June 28, 2008
Scripture Studier (WI,USA)
"Chain of Command" is an investigation into the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and the success in modeling it after the Guantanamo Bay facility.
The book discusses the mistakes made in misidentifying people arrested with no charges brought against them. Some of these people were later released due to their innocence.
Mr. Hersh examines the report on the scandal written by General Taguba as well as the Afghanistan war report from Hy Rothstein. Some interesting comments about the Afghanistan war from Wesley Clark were detailed.
A lot of the book's content deals with Rumsfeld and his missions. One was the quest to wrest control of covert paramilitary operations away from the C.I.A. He also commandeered military decisions from the Pentagon. History has proven that those decisions provided disastrous results.
From page 362 Seymour Hersh sums up how the administration operates-"Rumsfeld handled the dirty work and kept the secrets,but he and the two White House leaders were a team."
The author demonstrates how the Afghanistan war was used as a stepping stone or launching point for the real,predetermined cause all along-the invasion of Iraq.
Mr. Hersh examines how intelligence(lack of it in another sense)is used in this administration. Rather than having the agencies that are qualified to vet,investigate,and decide the accuracy of intelligence examine it; the White House and particularly the VP office will sometimes manufacture it and then leak it as evidence that can be used to justify pre-planned actions.
The author investigated the fake Niger-Uranium documents that were oppurtunistic "evidence" of the fantasy WMD's that were never found in Iraq. His tracing the history of that document was quite interesting, although he didn't pinpoint the origin.
He also takes a critical look at the policy setters-Richard Perle,Paul Wolfowitz,and Douglas Feith. Perle radically changed foreign policy. Of Perle-"It's an impressive achievement that an outsider can have so much influence and has been given an institutional base for his influence."- an observation quoted on page 193.
Contrasted with the current war on terrorism was Jordan's success in dismantling Abu Nidal's organization.
On the topic of intelligence...there are some troubling, indirect ties from Saudi Arabia's rulers to terrorist groups. Equally troubling is Mr. Hersh's reports of offers from Syria in assisting with the war on terror that were arrogantly dismissed. Syria is looked at suspiciously while there is evidence that Pakistan has been assisting Iran in it's goal of attaining nuclear proliferation.
While the idea of anonymous sources is not ideal, it is understandable when reading the content of this book. Recent history verifies that!
Seymour Hersh covers a lot of ground beyond Abu Ghraib expanding into the broader subject of Bush's foreign policy and the complex consequences of different end scenarios of the war in Iraq. I recommend this book and I am looking forward to reading more from this author.
If you want to properly ascertain American and Middle Eastern relations then I highly recommend you read this book!!! March 9, 2008
BlackJack21 (Connecticut/USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I'm taking it upon myself to respond to some of the book reviews that assert that "Chain of Command" is obsolete to the discourse because it was printed several years ago, meaning that the information within its pages is currently outdated and superfluous.
This contemplation obviously signifies (to some individuals) that numerous events transpired since the sanguineous Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the 9/11 atrocities, and they feel a more recent work is in order, but believe me; you won't find a better analysis of either Abu Ghraib or the Guantanamo Bay prison scandals than in these Pulitzer Prize winning pages.
Even still, some of the other book reviewers' comments can be construed as dubious statements inasmuch as finding this book outdated. I think they should regard this as a history book.
So, with that said, I totally disagree with their assessment because most Americans are still obtuse about what transpired before, during, and after the 9/11 attacks.
They (many Americans) are also extremely oblivious about the prevarications transpiring momentarily within the confines of our government, or the alphabet agencies such as the CIA, NSA, FBI, and the corporate dealings/conspiring with Saudi Arabia through American based corporations such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton, and the Bush family.
Besides, the ipso facto as to why we're not being exposed to the stories and evidence indicative of crimes against humanity presented in this book is because most of the media is acquiescing with the Bush administration's clandestine policies, which means they are passionately covering up the truth.
So, the question we as concerned citizens should be asking ourselves is, why are they (the media) perpetrating this moral turpitude/crime, and what can we do to salvage this situation for the better? Well, for starters we can start by reading books such as this and educating ourselves, that way we can win the information war that has been declared against us, and with journalist like Hersh on our team we can't fail.
In the book "Chain of Command" "the New Yorker magazine" journalist Seymour Hersh exposes a plethora of Bush intrigues and transgressions, from the torturing of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and the torturing/rape of detainees at Abu Ghraib, and he also exposes Bill Clinton and Ahmad Chalabi's plan to usurp the Iraqi government from Saddam Hussein. This plan was called the "End Game," and it took place in 1993. This unequivocally proves that the Clinton administration paved the way for Bush's machinations.
In addition, Hersh writes about the so-called alleged twentieth hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui who was in prison before the September 11th attacks, which the joke was on us because the media and the government were promulgating that Moussaoui was actually a terrorist threat, and this simply wasn't the truth.
Subsequent to this elucidation, Moussaoui failed his flight training course and couldn't fly a plane to save his life, or should I say kill himself.......... (I'm taking a stab at Wellerism so please forgive me).
As a matter of fact, FBI and CIA agents told Hersh that they believed Moussaoui was a wannabe terrorist/joke and that he had no reliable information leading them closer to Al Qaeda.
Moreover, Seymour Hersh's book tackles the issue of 9/11 from the standpoint that the Bush administration was negligently imperceptive and unprepared for the imminent attack against this nation.
This of course isn't the case because 9/11 was an inside job, but even still this book properly conveys the historical significance of the events that led us into the many crises that we're suffering from today, such as, the suspension of Habeas Corpus, the suspension of the Geneva Conventions, the U.S.A. Patriot Act eviscerating our Constitutional rights, the circumventing of the FISA court, the fact that Bush has borrowed over $1.5 trillion from foreign nationals, which is more than all of the U.S. presidents combined, and the fact that this president gets to say and do whatever he wants even if our great grandchildren's children are going to be responsible for paying this copious debt, and the fact that Congress has little say in the matter is something we as concerned citizens should be livid about regardless of whether you're a Democrat or a Republican.
Also, Hersh uncovers the $2.4 billion dollar heroin proliferation scandal in Afghanistan, and these drugs are ending up on our streets, plus the Taliban is allegedly receiving a small cut of the profits. Hersh also details the October invasion of Afghanistan. So, if you want to receive an in depth investigative analysis into what's emerging in Afghanistan and Iraq then look no further than "Chain of Command" because Hersh uncovers the Malthusian mendacities of the Bush/Cheney administration.
"Chain of Command" really takes you on the Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib and beyond.
I also recommend reading Webster Griffin Tarpley's 9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA. This book will fill in the gaps in Hersh's book.
Seymour you get 5 STARS!!!!
Exposing a war built on lies and the failures of US foreign policy July 13, 2007
D. Lawrence
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Seymour Hersh demonstrates that even 30 years after the establishment of his reputation as a skilled investigative journalist, there is plenty of fire left inside him when it comes to revealing the corruption within government, including the executive branch. Chain of Command depicts the sad state of affairs that America has been pushed into since 9/11 by the Bush administration, and how a small group of individuals were basically able to hijack US foreign policy, mismanage two wars along with the Global War on Terrorism, and commit human rights blunders while minimizing public responsibility for their actions.
The ever-present theme to Chain of Command is that major problems, ranging from Abu Graib to poor intelligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, were ignored by top leadership officials in an effort to either conceal unwanted truths or to plot a set course using a hypothesis and selectively use facts to confirm it (rather than taking the more logical approach of gathering the appropriate information and making an educated decision based on those findings).
Hersh covers a lot of ground, and the reader will certainly walk away with a much clearer understanding of how we got to where we are today. Highly recommended.
Peerless Hersh January 27, 2007
Andres R. Guevara (Aurora, CO United States)
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Yes, its true that this book is "out of date" to a great extent. What is amazing is how much is discussed in the book and yet so little has reach the "main stream media." I consider myself a pretty "aware" person, but I was shocked to read the depths of depravity at Abu Ghraib. Hersh's reporting on the foundations of this war were also illuminating: I had an inkling of different parts, but in Chain of Command, it is all put together in a much clearer picture.
For those hestitating as to whether to pick this book up because of its age, my recommendation is: don't wait. I read this before reading Fiasco and found the two worked well together to give me a sense of the war from its inception (and "pre-inception") to early 2006. Of course, so much has happened in the last year, that even more recent books like Fiasco or State of Denial cover increasingly shrinking time periods of this war-without-end.
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