STEVE COLL. The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq (New York: Penguin Press, 2024). 576 pages. $14.18 hardcover, $16.30, paper. ISBN 9780525562269

a US-led coalition invaded Iraq, capturing Baghdad within months and toppling Saddam Hussein, the dictatorial leader who had ruled since 1979.This invasion was a pivotal moment in Iraqi history, creating a vacuum of power that would lead to years of civil war.By 2023, 200,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed by US forces and sectarian fighting caused by the invasion (446).From the American government's perspective, a wide variety of factors including threats to US national security, UN resolutions that made international demands of the Iraqi state, and attempts to grab geopolitical power by Hussein led to the invasion.The current scholarship on the conflict is divided between two views.Those who supported the US invasion blame Iraq, citing their lies over whether or not they had weapons of mass destruction (WMDs); meanwhile, those more critical of the United States tend to cast President George W. Bush as a warmonger who stirred popular opinion to obtain global power.Steve Coll, in his book The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq, outlines how Iraq and the United States interacted from the 1980s up until 2003, ultimately leading to the invasion.Coll calls for a new analysis of the war, one that goes back nearly twenty years to the beginning of Hussein's reign and analyzes his education, family, and the intelligence community he surrounded himself with.After listening to thousands of hours of recordings from personal meetings between Hussein and his allies and reviewing an abundance of US State Department records from US officials and presidents, Coll presents an extensive overview of the buildup to the war.Coll divides his book into three parts.The first addresses Hussein's rise to power and the Iran-Iraq War, covering the years 1979 to 1990.