This book is a professional military-intelligence officer's—and controversial insider's—view of some of the greatest intelligence blunders of recent history. It includes the serious developments in government misuse of intelligence in the US-led coalition's 2003 war with Iraq, as well as failures of intelligence in Ukraine following Russia's invasion in February 2022. Colonel John Hughes-Wilson analyzes not just the events that conspire to cause disaster, but why crucial intelligence is so often ignored, misunderstood or spun by politicians and seasoned generals alike. This book analyses: how Hitler's intelligence staff misled him in a bid to outfox their Nazi Party rivals; the bureaucratic bungling behind Pearl Harbor; how in-fighting within American intelligence ensured they were taken off guard by the Viet Cong's 1968 Tet Offensive; how overconfidence, political interference and deception facilitated Egypt and Syria's 1973 surprise attack on Israel; why a handful of marines and a London taxicab were all Britain had to defend the Falklands; the mistaken intelligence that allowed Saddam Hussein to remain in power until the second Iraq War of 2003; the truth behind the US failure to run a terrorist warning system before the 9/11 WTC bombing; and how governments are increasingly pressurizing intelligence agencies to 'spin' a party-political line.
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Jonathan Keeble, winner of four AudioFile Earphones Awards, combines his audio work with a busy theater and television career. He has been featured in over six hundred radio plays for the BBC, appearing in everything from Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes to Doctor Who and The Archers, in which he played the evil Owen. As an Earphones Award–winning narrator, he is in high demand for his voice work. He has recorded over two hundred audiobooks.