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"A riveting investigation of the world's most notorious arms dealer--a page-turner that digs deep into the amazing, murky story of Viktor Bout. Farah and Braun have exposed the inner workings of one of the world's most secretive businesses--the international arms trade."
—Peter L. Bergen, author of The Osama bin Laden I Know
"Viktor Bout is like Osama bin Laden: a major target of U.S. intelligence officials who time and again gets away. Farah and Braun have skillfully documented how this notorious arms dealer has stoked violence around the world and thwarted international sanctions. Even more appalling, they show how Bout ended up getting millions of dollars in U.S. government money to assist the war in Iraq. A truly impressive piece of investigative reporting."
—Michael Isikoff, coauthor of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War
"Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun are two of the toughest investigative reporters in the country. This is an important book about a hidden world of gunrunning and profiteering in some of the world's poorest countries."
—Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
"In Merchant of Death, two of America's finest reporters have performed a major public service, turning over the right rocks that reveal the brutal international arms business at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Viktor Bout, they have given us a new Lord of War, a man who knows no side but his own, and who has a knack for turning up in every war zone just in time to turn a profit. As Farah and Braun uncover and document his troubling role in the Bush Administration's Global War on Terror, his ties to Washington almost seem inevitable."
—James Risen, author of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
"An extraordinary and timely piece of investigative reporting, Merchant of Death is also a vividly compelling read. The true story of Viktor Bout, a sociopathic Russian gunrunner who has supplied weapons for use in some of the most gruesome conflicts of modern times--and who can count amongst his clients both the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the U.S. military in Iraq--is a stomach-churning indictment of the policy failures and moral contradictions of the world's most powerful governments, including that of the United States."
—Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad
Two respected journalists tell the incredible story of Viktor Bout, the Russian weapons supplier whose global network has changed the way modern warfare is fought. Bouts vast enterprise of guns, planes, and money has fueled internecine slaughter in Africa and aided both militant Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan and the American military in Iraq. This book combines spy thrills with crucial insights on the shortcomings of a U.S. foreign policy that fails to confront the lucrative and lethal arms trade that erodes global security.
Review:
"The new Iraq has set a world record, not in the rapid construction of democracy, but in suicide bombings. Since the American-led invasion in 2003, Iraq has suffered nearly 1,000 suicide attacks, more than double the number carried out by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Israel, combined. The majority of these attacks targeted Iraqi security forces... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) and Shia civilians, not coalition troops. As Americans contemplate this morass, one of the saddest questions is whether it is partly 'blowback' — intelligence jargon for what goes around, comes around. The fact that the United States once backed Osama bin Laden and other jihadis against the Soviets in Afghanistan is well known. But three new books, and my own recent experience, suggest that there are other kinds of blowback in the war on terror, some of them little recognized. Far from 'draining the swamp' of terrorism, as U.S. architects of the war had hoped, the new Iraq imports suicide terrorists and exports bombing techniques, most notably to Afghanistan, where insurgents are now copying the improvised explosive devices that have proved so devastating to U.S. forces in Iraq's Sunni Triangle. The old Iraq, though a place of stunning brutality and repression, never saw suicide terrorism and shunned al-Qaeda's ideology and tactics. But in the last 15 months, I have interviewed scores of Arab and Muslim teens all over the Middle East and Europe who say they want to join the fight against the American 'occupiers.' They say their local clerics tell them stories about atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers and instruct them that jihad is an individual obligation. These teenagers — whom I met in the Gulf states, Lebanon, Palestinian refugee camps, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Spain, France and Italy — are trying to raise several hundred dollars each to make their way to Iraq through Syria. Most have no previous connection to Islamist militancy or al-Qaeda, but many talk about sacrificing themselves in 'martyrdom operations.' In 'Suicide Bombers in Iraq,' Mohammed Hafez seeks to understand what drives such men and, in rare cases, women. He believes they are mainly non-Iraqis, though he warns that it is impossible to reach firm conclusions about where, precisely, they come from, what motivates them and how recruiters have mobilized so many in a short time. 'It is not clear who is carrying out most of the suicide attacks in Iraq,' he admits. The uncertainty is widely shared. Analysts worldwide have been unable to arrive at a useful socioeconomic or psychological profile of suicide bombers in Iraq. Some are from poor families in developing countries such as Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Morocco and Pakistan, while others come from affluent homes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, England and Italy. They are educated and uneducated. The bulk seem to be in their teens and 20s, but more than a few are in their 30s to 50s. And while some bombers have had previous links to violent activism, for others the suicide attack is their first (and last) offense. The only consensus among analysts, Hafez says, is that suicide bombers are not simply crazy or born violent. A small bit of good news is that al-Qaeda in Iraq and its ideological allies face growing indignation from fellow Sunnis fed up with the toll on Muslim civilians. Last month, one of bin Laden's most prominent Saudi mentors, the preacher and scholar Salman al-Odah, wrote an open letter reproaching him for 'fostering a culture of suicide bombings that has caused bloodshed and suffering and brought ruin to entire Muslim communities and families.' Similarly, in early October Abdulaziz Al-Ashaikh, the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, issued a fatwa prohibiting Saudis from engaging in jihad abroad and accused Arab regimes of 'transforming our youth into walking bombs to accomplish their own political and military aims.' The bad news is that the United States faces greater challenges in Iraq than suicide terrorism, insidious as it is. Hafez estimates that suicide bombers and other internationalist, ideological jihadis represent just 5 percent of all Iraqi insurgents. The overwhelming majority of fighters are Iraqi nationalists who eschew suicide bombing and deploy Islam as the vocabulary of resistance; their goal is to shift the balance of power in favor of Sunnis and to force U.S. troops to leave. Joost R. Hiltermann, a former Human Rights Watch investigator who is now with the International Crisis Group, traces America's current predicament to its collusion with Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and America's silence over his repeated use of chemical weapons. Hiltermann's 'A Poisonous Affair' is a chilling account of the gassing of Halabja, a village in Iraq's Kurdish region, in March 1988 and the subsequent counterinsurgency campaign known as Anfal ('The Spoils'), in which some 80,000 Kurdish civilians were driven from their homes by poison gas, hauled to transit centers, sorted by age and sex, and carted off to execution sites in Iraq's western desert. In the early 1990s, Hiltermann and his colleagues at Human Rights Watch pieced together the Anfal story from captured Iraqi documents, declassified U.S. reports and testimonies of survivors. Hard as it tried in those years, the nongovernmental organization could not mobilize the international community to bring a charge of genocide against the Iraqi regime at the International Court of Justice. 'A Poisonous Affair' explains that, having recovered territories lost to Iraq in the early 1980s, Ayatollah Khomeini, then Iran's supreme leader, went on the offensive against his nemesis, Saddam Hussein. Khomeini sent vast numbers of barely trained young infantrymen against Iraqi lines, and the Iraqi leadership saw poison gases — first mustard gas and later more potent, insecticide-related formulas — as the most efficient way to stop the human-wave attacks. According to a CIA analysis cited by Hiltermann, Iraq employed chemical weapons 'on a scale not seen since World War I' and became the first nation ever to use nerve agents in battle. Still, the United States sided with Saddam Hussein. Though officially neutral, Washington began sharing intelligence data on Iran's battle plans and provided Baghdad with economic aid. Arms poured into Iraq from the West as well as from the Soviet Union. And the Reagan administration opposed a U.N. investigation of Iran's allegations that Iraq had used chemical weapons. Hiltermann explores America's multiple motives. U.S. officials were still angered by the Iranians' seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and determined to prevent Khomeini from exporting his Islamic revolution. But then, as now, there were other factors: The Reagan administration hoped to co-opt Iraq, through 'constructive engagement,' into backing Arab-Israeli peacemaking and ending its assistance to radical groups, particularly Palestinians. Oil supplies and business opportunities for U.S. companies also loomed large, Hiltermann notes. To reassure Iraq of U.S. support, the administration's most influential messenger, Donald Rumsfeld, made two trips to Baghdad in the early 1980s and presented the Iraqi dictator with a gift of golden spurs. Thus, in Hiltermann's account, the die was cast for Iraq's expanded use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and its own Kurdish citizens, whom the regime accused of collusion with the enemy. The main chemical offensive came in the spring of 1988 — first against a Kurdish rebel headquarters in the Jafati valley, then at Halabja, then on the first day of every stage of the six-month Anfal campaign. Instead of condemning the gassing, the Reagan administration labored to get Saddam Hussein off the hook. 'A Poisonous Affair' shows clearly that U.S. policymakers knew Iraq had gassed Halabja but instructed American diplomats to cast partial blame on Iran. By Hiltermann's persuasive account, the United States sacrificed universal norms at the altar of Cold War calculations and short-term gain, a choice that set the stage for America's current deadly embrace with Iraq as well as for Iran's quest to develop weapons of mass destruction. The possibility of blowback also looms large in 'Merchant of Death,' a riveting investigation of the world's most notorious weapons dealer, Viktor Bout, whose post-Cold War arms network has stoked violence worldwide. Although U.S. intelligence officers have tried for years to shut down Bout's operation, Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun reveal that the United States paid firms linked to him as much as $60 million to ferry weapons to the U.S. military and private contractors in Iraq in 2003 and 2004. Senior U.S. policymakers may have been unaware that Bout was among the war profiteers. But even after newspaper reports about his activities in Iraq, mid-level U.S. officials in Baghdad allowed his suspected airplanes to continue to land at U.S. air bases and even to fill up on military fuel for free, rationalizing their decision on the need to get supplies to Iraq quickly. 'We have an old saying in the Marine Corps,' one officer says in 'Merchant of Death.' 'If you want it bad, you get it bad.' Farah, a former Washington Post reporter, and Braun, a Los Angeles Times correspondent, call the episode 'a textbook case of shoddy postwar planning and bureaucratic blindness.' But after reading 'Suicide Bombers in Iraq' and 'A Poisonous Affair,' it's hard not to see it as more than that. Like Washington's support for Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, dealing with Viktor Bout is a decision that the United States may regret for years to come. Fawaz A. Gerges is professor of international affairs at Sarah Lawrence College and the author of 'Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy' and 'The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global.'" Reviewed by Fawaz A. Gerges, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group) (hide most of this review)
Synopsis:
The fast-paced true story of the man who changed the face of modern war- and the international quest to stop him
In Merchant of Death, two respected journalists tell the incredible story of Viktor Bout, the Russian weapons supplier whose global network has changed the way modern warfare is fought. Bout's vast enterprise of guns, planes, and money has fueled internecine slaughter in Africa and aided both militant Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan and the American military in Iraq. While the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Bout- and those like him- quietly built up a new, complex, and deadly international war system. The West has done little to dismantle this incredible, transnational empire that has provided essential support to despots, insurgents, and terrorists around the world. This book details how a small circle of U.S. officials and international investigators worked doggedly to shut down Bout's arms pipelines, only to be trumped by Bout's ingenuity and by their own inability- and, in some cases, unwillingness- to confront the dark side of the new world order. From the moment Bout appeared in the 1990s, the question has been, how will his unparalleled career end? With his arrest, or his retirement to a lavish, guarded estate in some remote African nation? Compelling and timely, Merchant of Death combines spy thrills with crucial insights on the shortcomings of a U.S. foreign policy that fails to confront the lucrative and lethal arms trade that erodes global security.
Douglas Farah (Takoma Park, MD) is the former West African bureau chief of the Washington Post, and the author of Blood From Stones: The SecretFinancial Network of Terror (0-7679-1562-3). Stephen Braun (Washington, DC) is a Pulitzer Prize-- winning national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, based in Washington.
Synopsis:
Praise for Merchant of Death
"A riveting investigation of the world's most notorious arms dealer--a page-turner that digs deep into the amazing, murky story of Viktor Bout. Farah and Braun have exposed the inner workings of one of the world's most secretive businesses--the international arms trade."
—Peter L. Bergen, author of The Osama bin Laden I Know
"Viktor Bout is like Osama bin Laden: a major target of U.S. intelligence officials who time and again gets away. Farah and Braun have skillfully documented how this notorious arms dealer has stoked violence around the world and thwarted international sanctions. Even more appalling, they show how Bout ended up getting millions of dollars in U.S. government money to assist the war in Iraq. A truly impressive piece of investigative reporting."
—Michael Isikoff, coauthor of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War
"Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun are two of the toughest investigative reporters in the country. This is an important book about a hidden world of gunrunning and profiteering in some of the world's poorest countries."
—Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
"In Merchant of Death, two of America's finest reporters have performed a major public service, turning over the right rocks that reveal the brutal international arms business at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Viktor Bout, they have given us a new Lord of War, a man who knows no side but his own, and who has a knack for turning up in every war zone just in time to turn a profit. As Farah and Braun uncover and document his troubling role in the Bush Administration's Global War on Terror, his ties to Washington almost seem inevitable."
—James Risen, author of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
"An extraordinary and timely piece of investigative reporting, Merchant of Death is also a vividly compelling read. The true story of Viktor Bout, a sociopathic Russian gunrunner who has supplied weapons for use in some of the most gruesome conflicts of modern times--and who can count amongst his clients both the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the U.S. military in Iraq--is a stomach-churning indictment of the policy failures and moral contradictions of the world's most powerful governments, including that of the United States."
—Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad
Two respected journalists tell the incredible story of Viktor Bout, the Russian weapons supplier whose global network has changed the way modern warfare is fought. Bout’s vast enterprise of guns, planes, and money has fueled internecine slaughter in Africa and aided both militant Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan and the American military in Iraq. This book combines spy thrills with crucial insights on the shortcomings of a U.S. foreign policy that fails to confront the lucrative and lethal arms trade that erodes global security.
Synopsis:
What do the Taliban, indicted Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor, and the United States government have in common? They have all done business with the man who put the "blood" in blood diamonds—a little-known but immensely wealthy and powerful arms dealer who has flooded Africa and Southwest Asia with weapons of war.
In Merchant of Death, two respected journalists tell the incredible story of Viktor Bout, the Russian weapons supplier whose global network has changed the way modern warfare is fought. Bout's vast enterprise of guns, planes, and money has fueled internecine slaughter in Africa and aided both militant Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan and the American military in Iraq.
This fast-paced and terrifying true story reveals that, as the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Bout emerged from a murky post-Soviet intelligence background and quietly amassed a huge fleet of aging Russian cargo planes. His intelligence contacts, aircraft, and access to sophisticated weapons helped him forge lethal alliances across the Third World. Before long, he sat atop an immense and complex empire: a relentless international war machine able to deliver anything from AK-47s and missile launchers to artillery and attack helicopters, along with millions of rounds of ammunition, to anyone willing to pay. And pay they did, in Rwanda and the Congo, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in Sudan and Afghanistan, and many stops in between.
Merchant of Death also reveals that, despite the efforts of a small circle of U.S. officials and international investigators who worked doggedly to shut down Bout's arms pipelines, the West has done little to dismantle this incredible transnational empire. In fact, far from attacking this provider of essential support to despots, insurgents, and terrorists around the world, the United States paid him millions of dollars to fly weapons and supplies to the U.S. military and private contractors in Iraq.
Authors Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun detail how, through his own ingenuity and a staggering lack of resolve in the international community, Bout has successfully skirted every attempt to undo his enterprise and flourishes, while the world's premier intelligence services have largely given up the chase. The only question that remains is how will his unparalleled career end? With his arrest, or his retirement to a lavish, guarded estate in some remote African nation?
Compelling and timely, Merchant of Death combines the technical precision of a Tom Clancy epic with the insights and ironies of a John LeCarré novel to tell a thrilling and appalling real-life tale of relentless greed, devastating warfare, and breathtaking international intrigue.
Douglas Farah is the former West African bureau chief of the Washington Post, and the author of Blood from Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror.
Stephen Braun is a Pulitzer Prize–winning national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.
Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible
Used Hardcover
Douglas Farah
0 stars -
0 reviews
$11.95
In Stock
Product details
320 pages
John Wiley & Sons -
English9780470048665
Reviews:
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
The fast-paced true story of the man who changed the face of modern war- and the international quest to stop him
In Merchant of Death, two respected journalists tell the incredible story of Viktor Bout, the Russian weapons supplier whose global network has changed the way modern warfare is fought. Bout's vast enterprise of guns, planes, and money has fueled internecine slaughter in Africa and aided both militant Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan and the American military in Iraq. While the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Bout- and those like him- quietly built up a new, complex, and deadly international war system. The West has done little to dismantle this incredible, transnational empire that has provided essential support to despots, insurgents, and terrorists around the world. This book details how a small circle of U.S. officials and international investigators worked doggedly to shut down Bout's arms pipelines, only to be trumped by Bout's ingenuity and by their own inability- and, in some cases, unwillingness- to confront the dark side of the new world order. From the moment Bout appeared in the 1990s, the question has been, how will his unparalleled career end? With his arrest, or his retirement to a lavish, guarded estate in some remote African nation? Compelling and timely, Merchant of Death combines spy thrills with crucial insights on the shortcomings of a U.S. foreign policy that fails to confront the lucrative and lethal arms trade that erodes global security.
Douglas Farah (Takoma Park, MD) is the former West African bureau chief of the Washington Post, and the author of Blood From Stones: The SecretFinancial Network of Terror (0-7679-1562-3). Stephen Braun (Washington, DC) is a Pulitzer Prize-- winning national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, based in Washington.
"Synopsis"
by Wiley,
Praise for Merchant of Death
"A riveting investigation of the world's most notorious arms dealer--a page-turner that digs deep into the amazing, murky story of Viktor Bout. Farah and Braun have exposed the inner workings of one of the world's most secretive businesses--the international arms trade."
—Peter L. Bergen, author of The Osama bin Laden I Know
"Viktor Bout is like Osama bin Laden: a major target of U.S. intelligence officials who time and again gets away. Farah and Braun have skillfully documented how this notorious arms dealer has stoked violence around the world and thwarted international sanctions. Even more appalling, they show how Bout ended up getting millions of dollars in U.S. government money to assist the war in Iraq. A truly impressive piece of investigative reporting."
—Michael Isikoff, coauthor of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War
"Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun are two of the toughest investigative reporters in the country. This is an important book about a hidden world of gunrunning and profiteering in some of the world's poorest countries."
—Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
"In Merchant of Death, two of America's finest reporters have performed a major public service, turning over the right rocks that reveal the brutal international arms business at the dawn of the twenty-first century. In Viktor Bout, they have given us a new Lord of War, a man who knows no side but his own, and who has a knack for turning up in every war zone just in time to turn a profit. As Farah and Braun uncover and document his troubling role in the Bush Administration's Global War on Terror, his ties to Washington almost seem inevitable."
—James Risen, author of State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration
"An extraordinary and timely piece of investigative reporting, Merchant of Death is also a vividly compelling read. The true story of Viktor Bout, a sociopathic Russian gunrunner who has supplied weapons for use in some of the most gruesome conflicts of modern times--and who can count amongst his clients both the former Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the U.S. military in Iraq--is a stomach-churning indictment of the policy failures and moral contradictions of the world's most powerful governments, including that of the United States."
—Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Fall of Baghdad
Two respected journalists tell the incredible story of Viktor Bout, the Russian weapons supplier whose global network has changed the way modern warfare is fought. Bout’s vast enterprise of guns, planes, and money has fueled internecine slaughter in Africa and aided both militant Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan and the American military in Iraq. This book combines spy thrills with crucial insights on the shortcomings of a U.S. foreign policy that fails to confront the lucrative and lethal arms trade that erodes global security.
"Synopsis"
by Wiley,
What do the Taliban, indicted Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor, and the United States government have in common? They have all done business with the man who put the "blood" in blood diamonds—a little-known but immensely wealthy and powerful arms dealer who has flooded Africa and Southwest Asia with weapons of war.
In Merchant of Death, two respected journalists tell the incredible story of Viktor Bout, the Russian weapons supplier whose global network has changed the way modern warfare is fought. Bout's vast enterprise of guns, planes, and money has fueled internecine slaughter in Africa and aided both militant Islamic fanatics in Afghanistan and the American military in Iraq.
This fast-paced and terrifying true story reveals that, as the world celebrated the end of the Cold War, Bout emerged from a murky post-Soviet intelligence background and quietly amassed a huge fleet of aging Russian cargo planes. His intelligence contacts, aircraft, and access to sophisticated weapons helped him forge lethal alliances across the Third World. Before long, he sat atop an immense and complex empire: a relentless international war machine able to deliver anything from AK-47s and missile launchers to artillery and attack helicopters, along with millions of rounds of ammunition, to anyone willing to pay. And pay they did, in Rwanda and the Congo, in Liberia and Sierra Leone, in Sudan and Afghanistan, and many stops in between.
Merchant of Death also reveals that, despite the efforts of a small circle of U.S. officials and international investigators who worked doggedly to shut down Bout's arms pipelines, the West has done little to dismantle this incredible transnational empire. In fact, far from attacking this provider of essential support to despots, insurgents, and terrorists around the world, the United States paid him millions of dollars to fly weapons and supplies to the U.S. military and private contractors in Iraq.
Authors Douglas Farah and Stephen Braun detail how, through his own ingenuity and a staggering lack of resolve in the international community, Bout has successfully skirted every attempt to undo his enterprise and flourishes, while the world's premier intelligence services have largely given up the chase. The only question that remains is how will his unparalleled career end? With his arrest, or his retirement to a lavish, guarded estate in some remote African nation?
Compelling and timely, Merchant of Death combines the technical precision of a Tom Clancy epic with the insights and ironies of a John LeCarré novel to tell a thrilling and appalling real-life tale of relentless greed, devastating warfare, and breathtaking international intrigue.
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