@article{433001,
      recid = {433001},
      author = {Bayātī, Ḥāmid.},
      title = {From dictatorship to democracy : an insider's account of  the Iraqi opposition to Saddam /},
      publisher = {University of Pennsylvania Press,},
      address = {Philadelphia :},
      pages = {ix, 347 p. :},
      year = {2011},
      abstract = {Today, Hamid al-Bayati serves as Iraqi ambassador to the  United Nations. But for many years he lived in exile in  London, where he worked with other opponents of Saddam  Hussein's regime to make a democratic and pluralistic Iraq  a reality. As former Western spokesman for the Supreme  Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and as  a member of the executive council of the Iraqi National  Congress, two of the main groups opposing Saddam's regime,  he led campaigns to alert the world to human rights  violations in Iraq and win support from the international  community for the removal of Saddam. An important Iraqi  diplomat and member of Iraq's majority Shia community, he  offers firsthand accounts of the meetings and discussions  he and other Iraqi opponents to Saddam held with American  and British diplomats from 1991 to 2004. Drawn from  al-Bayati's personal archives of meeting minutes and  correspondence, "From Dictatorship to Democracy" takes  readers through the history of the opposition. We learn the  views and actions of principal figures, such as SCIRI head  Sayyid Mohammed Baqir Al-Hakeem and the other leaders of  the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi and his Kurdish  counterparts, Masound Barzani and Jalal Talabani. Al-Bayati  vividly captures their struggle to unify in the face of not  only Saddam's harsh and bloody repression but also an  unresponsive and unmotivated international community.  Al-Bayati's efforts in the months before and after the U.S.  invasion also put him in direct contact with key U.S.  figures such as Zalmay Khalilzad and L. Paul Bremer and at  the center of the debates over returning Iraq to  self-government quickly and creating the foundation for a  secure and stable state. Al-Bayati was both eyewitness to  and actor in the dramatic struggle to remove Saddam from  power. In this unique historical document, he provides  detailed recollections of his work on behalf of a  democratic Iraq that reflect the hopes and frustrations of  the Iraqi people. -- Book jacket.},
      url = {http://library.usi.edu/record/433001},
}