IN TRO D UC TIO N US TROP TN ITILL IN Batumi ARMENTA READ zon Yerevan Baku 3 Erzurum leppo OS mS IR LE R E on Baghdad KUWA Tabriz n Sept 11 2001 in Lake the worst attack on Gaziantep Urmia aZV the United States since the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 terrorists RIA Hamada struck two major symbols of naSCUS U S commercial and mili BABYLON is tary strength The terrorists an O hijacked four commercial I a 1 339 airplanes crashing two of Basra them into the twin towers Sakakah of the World Trade Center ik An Nafud Kuwait complex in New York City Desert Hai and one into the Pentagon Buraydah Tayma O Dhar near Washington D C the fourth plane crashed n SAUDI ARABI in western Pennsylvania Medina Riyadh The crashes resulted in the destruction of the World Yanbu A BI F A R Trade Center towers and the Rabigh southwest side of the Pen P E IN 1 N Jiddah tagon In all about 2 750 oMecca Makkah people were killed in New At Taif York 184 at the Pentagon Qunfidha kin E Farasan J Sardah
INTRODUCTION 7 in a UEBEIAE Safarcane urkmenbashi RKMENISTAN Charjewabukhoro STA IK Ashgabat Mary NE Mashhad o Darya O Got lazar e Rasht Ora Babot GushgySharift H1N O Herat Qom Desert Kashmar I Mt Damavand 18 612 Dasht e Kagir Kabul Islamat eshawarO AFGHANISTAN R AN Farah Qandahar Lahore Osht SSS Faisalabat Birand fahan Shushtar Yazd Q EL es Ahwaz PERSEPOLIS 0 Abadan uetta ON a hiraz DAWKerman To nadian h Bandar e to Bushehr Bandar e Abbas OIranshahr S 3 Hyderabal ran BAHRAINO Jo UC oMat Ah Doha UF iwadar Karachi of Oman amn Gulf of Kutch N Nabi NITED ARAB Matra EMIRATES Muscat 2 Sur S U L A Porbandar Masira Gulf of The United States went to war in both Afghanistan and Iraq expecting swift successes but these wars turned out to be quite the opposite ty NELD BORDEARS AUNDEFINE MurIA is iro at A R A B 1 A 0
KEY FIGURES OF 8 THE WARS IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN and 40 in Pennsylvania All 19 terrorists died Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network were believed to be responsible for the attacks the deadliest terrorist attacks on American soil in U S history In response to the attacks U S President George W Bush announced that the country would fight terrorism as the first war of the 21st century The United States also called on other governments to join it in an alliance against terrorism by sharing information and supporting each other s efforts to combat terrorist organizations Soon thereafter the United Nations UN Security Council passed a bind ing resolution requiring its member nations to pursue terrorists and their political and financial supporters Within a month the United States declared war on Afghanistan whose Taliban government it accused of sheltering bin Laden and his terrorist group By the end of the year the Taliban government had col lapsed but the fighting there continued In 2002 President Bush turned the world s attention to Iraq He accused the government of Iraq of having ties to terrorists and of ignoring a weapons ban that had been imposed on Iraq at the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991 After the United States brought the matter before the UN in November 2002 Bush declared that Iraq was not cooperating with UN weapons inspectors While several member countries of the UN Security Council called for fur ther talks between the two sides the United States and Great Britain threatened to take military action against Iraq In March 2003 the talks came to an end and U S led troops invaded
INTRODUCTION 9 Although initially the United States believed it could produce quick victories in both Afghanistan and Iraq these wars are now among the longest wars in American history Public opinion from pri vate citizens to political leaders across the United States Europe and elsewhere has either steadfastly opposed or supported these wars Although at first there was little opposition to the war against Afghan istan strong voices have come out against the war in Iraq creating a global peace movement By June 2010 the United States had more troops in Afghanistan than in Iraq a trend that continued in 2011 when the U S military formally declared the end of its mission in Iraq and 2012 Events in 2014 however brought American forces back into Iraq to assist trapped refugees and to prevent the spread of insurgent attacks within and outside of Iraq The emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria ISIS and its brutal initiatives have stunned leaders and civil ians and pose significant threats Personalities and egos help shape conflict and the wars with Afghanistan and Iraq are no exception The biographies in this volume introduce some of the men and women charged with political and military leadership in these conflicts and describe their rise to power their specific roles leading up to or during the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and their support or opposition to them They also demonstrate the vola tile nature of political leadership in Afghanistan and Iraq and the importance of
