The CIA and the culture of failure : U.S. intelligence from the end of the Cold War to the invasion of Iraq / John Diamond.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 511-522) and index.

1. The CIA and the End of the Cold War -- 2. Intervention, Restraint, and Soviet Collapse -- 3. Intelligence and the Persian Gulf War -- 4. Iraq Is Ten Feet Tall -- 5. Aldrich Ames and the Decline of Human Intelligence -- 6. Known Unknowns -- 7. Targeting bin Laden -- 8. The Malaysia Meeting: Tracking the Hijackers -- 9. Desert Mirage.

"The 9/11 attacks and the War in Iraq sprang in no small part from massive intelligence failures, that much is well understood. How the CIA got to a point where it could fail so catastrophically is not." "According to John Diamond; this slippage results from the tendency to overlook the links between seemingly unrelated intelligence failures and to underestimate the impact of political pressure On the CIA: factors we need to examine to understand both the origin and magnitude of the 9/11 and Iraq intelligence failures." "To bring these links to light, Diamond analyzes the CIA's role in key events from the end of the Cold War (when the Soviet Union - and thus the CIA's main mission - came to an end) to the war in Iraq. His account explores both CIA successes and failures in the Soviet break-up, the Gulf War, the Ames spy case, the response to al-Qaeda's initial attacks, and the US/UN effort to contain and disarm Iraq." "By putting into historical perspective the intelligence failures - both real and perceived - surrounding these events, Diamond illuminates the links between lower-profile intelligence controversies in the early post-Cold War period and the high-profile failures that continue to define the War on Terrorism."-- BOOK JACKET.