Bad Days in Basra by Hilary Synnott

PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR THUS: "To Charmian With thanks for such pleasant company in Masse Marittima & best wishes Hilary [followed by 2 other words & an arrow of some sort?]"; 2008 I.B. Tauris 1st ed, 287pp., text generally sound with slight creasing to the bottom right hand/left hand corners of pages 163 thru' 180, bumping to top & bottom of spine, the dust jacket is rubbed & creased at top & bottom with a few small nicks at the bottom & scratches on the front & rear.

The phone call came from out of the blue, just when Sir Hilary Synnott was looking forward to retirement after helping steer India and Pakistan back from the verge of nuclear war. 'It's about Iraq. We need a King of the South...' Bad Days in Basra' is the story of Synnott's time as Britain's most senior representative in Southern Iraq, trying to keep the region together as the rest of the country descended into murderous violence. By turns wryly comic, revealing and heart-breaking, it offers a never seen before glimpse in to the high politics of the occupation. Shuttling between the gilded palaces of the Green Zone and the leaky outhouses which constituted Coalition HQ in Basra, Synnott had to negotiate his boss, Paul Bremer's brash indifference to what was going outside Baghdad, the indecisiveness of his London masters, and the brutal political realities of a country under occupation. Bearing witness for the first time to the chaotic fashion in which the coalition was run at the highest levels, Synnott's unique insider account is the most important primary source we yet have on how the South was lost. It offers new insights in to the style and motivations of key characters such as Bremer himself, US commander General David Petraeus and the then UK Foreign Minister Jack Straw. It provides an entertaining and witty portrait of the absurdities of life inside the the occupying coalition, a devastating critique of CPA policies and controversial revelations about the real relationship between the two occupying powers, Britain and America.

Sir Hilary Nicholas Hugh Synnott KCMG (20 March 1945 – 8 September 2011) was a British diplomat who was Regional Coordinator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Southern Iraq from 2003 to 2004, before retiring in 2005. He published a book about his time there called 'Bad Days In Basra'. In 1973, Synnott joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office as Second Secretary. He was posted as First Secretary to UKDEL OECD Paris in 1975 and was transferred to Bonn in 1978. He returned to the FCO in 1981. In November 1985, Synnott was appointed Counsellor, Consul-General and Head of Chancery in Amman. He was Deputy High Commissioner to India from 1993 to 1996. At the FCO, he served as Director for South and South East Asian Affairs from 1996 until 1998. He was appointed British High Commissioner to Pakistan from 2000 until 2003. In his final posting to Iraq, Sir Hilary replaced the Danish Ambassador Ole Wøhlers Olsen who had complained at the lack of support given to his reconstruction efforts. On 9 December 2009, Synnott gave evidence to The Iraq Inquiry in which he was critical of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

Will ship by Royal Mail 1st Class Signed for, well packaged.


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