On July 10, 2002, more than eight months before the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, eight American CIA operatives slipped into northern Iraq. They endured almost a year of being denied vital supplies by a NATO ally, Turkey, as they pursued a covert operation with profound consequences for both the War on Terror and the Iraq War: Operation Hotel California.

Operation Hotel California tells the inside story of the dangerous mission that paved the way for the Iraq invasion—and delivers the most blistering indictment to date by any American counterterrorism officer of the Bush administration’s blunders vis-à-vis Iraq and al Qaeda. Drawing on exclusive interviews with Charles Faddis, the operation’s leader, and other team members, Operation Hotel California is a riveting work that will shake Washington to the core.