Book description
The news-breaking book that has sent schockwaves through the White
House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of
the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeada's evolution.
Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from
the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and
interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives
the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad
against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the
seeds of bn Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and
brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over
national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's
continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the
years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.
Steve Coll, winner of a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory
journalism, has been managing editor of the Washington Post since 1998
and covered Afghanistan as the Post's South Asia bureau chief between
1989 and 1992. Coll is the author of four books, including On the Grand
Trunk Road and The Taking of Getty Oil.
