Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart

Scott Anderson, Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart. The New York Times Magazine, 11 August 2016. “Beginning in April 2015, the photographer Paolo Pellegrin and I embarked on a series of extended trips to the Middle East. Separately and as a writer-photographer team, we had covered an array of conflicts in the region over the previous 20 years, and our hope on this new set of journeys was to gain a greater understanding of the so-called Arab Spring and its generally grim aftermath. As the situation continued to deteriorate through 2015 and 2016, our travels expanded: to those islands in Greece bearing the brunt of the migrant exodus from Iraq and Syria; to the front lines in northern Iraq where the battle against ISIS was being most vigorously waged.

We have presented the results of this 16-month project in the form of six individual narratives, which, woven within the larger strands of history, aim to provide a tapestry of an Arab World in revolt.”

[Read more…]

Billions Over Baghdad: The Spoils of War

Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Billions Over Baghdad: The Spoils of War. Vanity Fair, October 2007. “Between April 2003 and June 2004, $12 billion in U.S. currency–much of it belonging to the Iraqi people–was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed. Following a trail that leads from a safe in one of Saddam’s palaces to a house near San Diego, to a P.O. box in the Bahamas, the authors discover just how little anyone cared about how the money was handled.”

[Read more…]