Rating: 
Summary: Robin Moore - a once great author - has lost it
Review: As a 20+ year career Army Special Operations officer, I have long known of and revered Robin Moore and his famous 1965 tome, "The Green Berets." Thirty-nine years, however, is a long time and Robin Moore has in those intervening years, if this work is any indication, lost all the writing skills he once so abundantly possessed. With sentences like, " . . . pilots flew . . . totally blacked out, with no lights at all, . . ." is it any wonder that I am under-whelmed?
The book is not only poor but poorly written. Save your money or spend it on another book, hopefully one that is well written, because you won't find much of value or interest here.
Hint to Robin: take it back to the hooch, pour yourself a toddy, put your feet up, sit for a spell, and contemplate retirement . . . 'cuz you sure can't write anymore!!!
Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: Had I read the reviews for this book I never would have bought it, but I liked his last book, so I took a chance. As other reviews mention my frustration level grew with every page and exponentially with every completely unrelated chapter. This book is called "Hunting Down Saddam" yet it spends very little time on that topic, instead it spends time on unrelated topics. At times it seems off-track chapters were added for no better reason then to give the book more pages. If you want info on Special Forces in the Iraq War I suggest you look elsewhere.
Stay away from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Keep on Hunting
Review: I can honestly say that with each page of the book my disappointment level increased. I read this authors book on the war in Afghanistan and found that it did provide some interesting, if disjointed stories. I picked this book up expecting the same. To be fair, the author of the book really only wrote about a third of it. For the other two thirds of the book he used diary entries of a FOX news reporter and letters from a solider he befriended along the way. I would say that probably the best parts of the book are these sections although they really do not hold that much meat. What I was looking for was a book that detailed out the search and capture / death of Saddam's two son's and Saddam himself. To my disappointment, the two areas of the book that held the least amount of detail covered the very items I wanted to read about. What probably upsets me the most is that the book, through its title and dust jacket description, claim to have the story of these captures. Newspaper articles about the events held more information.
Even with the book providing the good old bait and switch on the Saddam clan adventures, if the remaining 230 pages would have held some detailed and interesting stories about the war in Iraq I probably would not be so disappointed. The fact is the rest of the book is a jumbled mess that has less clear direction then a toddler roaming around a park. The plain truth of the matter is that the author is 78 years old and he made mention a number of times that he had difficultly getting around. With this being the case, he had to rely on others to gather information and frankly they did not deliver. This author has made a carrier about the access that he was able to obtain through his connection to the soldiers and that is the one area he physically could not muster at this time in his life. All he had left to offer was his skills as a writer and ability to put the story together and in this regard he fell short.
Overall I was very disappointed with the book. The only reason that I am not giving the book a one star rating is that I feel a bit bad beating up on a 78 year old author with Parkinson's disease. There were also some vaguely interesting stories about the day to day life in Iraq told by a solider, but just not enough to make the book interesting. I would suggest you continuing looking if you are after the story of Saddam's capture or general fighting in Iraq. I know I will.
Rating: 
Summary: A Surprisingly Balanced Account of the War in Iraq
Review: I enjoyed this book very much after being disappointed in Mr. Moore's previous book, THE HUNT FOR BIN LADEN. HUNTING DOWN SADDAM has less of the flag-waving, super-macho language of BIN LADEN, and presents a more balanced, insider account of the work of the soldiers in Iraq - from day to day preparations and disappointments to the actual capture of Saddam. Unlike BIN LADEN, SADDAM doesn't try to justify the war in Iraq as much as it simply tells us what has really been going on over there. Some of the stories are more intimate than might be expected (again, particularly after the supercharged rhetoric of BIN LADEN), beginning on the first page, where Mark Vargas tells of waiting on a cargo plane in Iraq that is preparing to take off for Kuwait. A chaplain appears to tell the passengers that the plane will be carrying the bodies of three soldiers killed in action. Immediately, the mood inside the plane changes, as the passengers snap to attention to salute the bodies being brought on board. The Publishers Weekly review is correct -- the structure is a bit jumbled, but I don't think this denies the appeal of the book: Instead of a single, highly-structured narrative, the book gives us multiple accounts by Mr. Moore and several other journalists and soldiers. Likewise, the immediacy of the stories tends to compensate for the occasional awkwardness in the prose. Overall, I consider HUNTING DOWN SADDAM a highly recommended read that will appeal to a broad audience of readers, whether for or against the war in Iraq.
Rating:
Summary: RM does it again!
Review: I thought Moore's 'Hunt for OBL' was an excellent book. I appreciated his documenting tactical and behind the scences aspects of the war on terror in Afghanistan. Above all, I appreciated how that book identified the character of the men and women who volunteer (again and again) to stand in harm's way in name of other's liberties and freedoms. On both accounts, 'Hunting Down Saddam' is just as good as 'The Hunt for OBL'. 'Hunting Down Saddam' covers SF operations in the North and West of Iraq, the 101 in Mosul, security contractors, war correspondents, and the 4ID in Tikrit. LTC Russell's journal of events leading up to the capture of Saddam does an outstanding job of describing the professionalism of America's armed services and the dangers they have and continue to face. Fantastic book!
Rating:
Summary: Poorly written with little action and zero inside info
Review: I'm sort of middle of the road. Almost didn't buy it when I saw Doris Kerns Goodwin (the woman involved in plagerism of a past book) reviewed it with such raves. But I did, and finished it just a hour ago. Gotta say, I agree with some of the other comments here, it is hard to believe Robin Moore wrote this, or that any real special ops forces were interviewed. I was a little misled by the Imus quote on Amazon, apparently Imus never said that about this book- I'm pretty sure he said it about the previous bin laden Afghanistan book. which sort of makes me think Amazon ought to give me my money back. If want to read about day to day drudgery and old news reports and letters home, buy it. If you want to read about the war, get 21 Days to Baghdad, or Boots on the Ground, which were excellant. This is just a rehash of what we already saw on CNN and FOX and literally no insight on what special ops did there, or how they are even set up there. The part about special ops in the north is all based on; "according to one operator," "as rumor has it," "as one SF soldier said," etc, etc. Moore needs to go back and interview some real guys and write it first hand. The half developed comparisions to Mad Max movies, the constant drone of name dropping of his "writing assistant," his "buddy" who dialed his satellite phone for him, the a**kissing of hollywood types in the hopes of getting invited to an a-list party, his reminiscing, etc, etc, gets old quick. Moore writes moore about his friends that helped him, then he does about the soldiers that fought. If this book was really the inside story, a green beret who actually fought and shot a gun in Iraq would have written the forward, instead of some retired guy working in an office in baghdad. Trust me, in spite of the advertising, this isn't The Green Berets, or The Hunt For Bin Laden, or Black Hawk Down, this is grist for the mill, and a boring mill at that. In a way, I sort of feel conned.
Rating: 
Summary: Great read, even though skimpy on Spec Ops
Review: Initially this book was somewhat dissapointed in that Moore barely mentions any of the operations carried out by Spec Op troops in IRAQI FREEDOM. IGoing in I expected the emphasis to be placed on the vast scope of spec op missions i Iraq, such as the SEALs and GROM taking down Oil rigs off Um Qasr, the raid on Haditha Dam by 75th Rangers etc. Sadly Moore only covrs the war in the North and West by Speial Forces of the 5th and 10th Groups, and surprisingly these were really not very good accounts. The level of you-are-there type of feeling so well depicted in The Hunt for Bin Laden is really missing from these accounts. I was excited that Moore got into the raid on Ansar Islam camps but really this section was sketchy and quite boring. What saves this book though is the about 70 page chapter written by LTC Steve Russell from 4th ID describing in highly intimate detail what the day to day life combatting the insurgency in Tikrit is like. LTC Russell gives a no BS account of the insurgency with honor, sadness, and sharp wit. THe chapter on the actual namesake of the book, specifically hunting Saddam is very good despite its short length, and it is surprisingly in depth for events that happened less than 3 months ago So if you are looking for an in depth account of Sec Ops in IRAQI FREEDOM look elsewhere, but check this book out to get an inside view of the post war insurgency.
Rating:
Summary: An outstanding book!
Review: It is truly amazing for Mr. Moore to have traveled to Iraq to capture the real stories of those soliders that fought and continue to fight in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A true non-fiction account of war.
Rating:
Summary: Real War Stories
Review: It is truly amazing for Mr. Moore to have traveled to Iraq to capture the real stories of those soliders that fought and continue to fight in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A true non-fiction account of war.
Rating:
Summary: Operation Iraqi Freedom from different viewpoints
Review: It seems Robin Moore has done it again. I heard on the radio that he's 78 now, and still writing. I haven't read all of his books, but of the ones I have read, they seem to vary from straight forward factual accounts to fantastical flights of fantasy, and awkward testosterone laden war stories. Hunting Down Saddam has to be one of his best ever. He presents a few different viewpoints of the war, including the voice of an embedded reporter who comes to care about "his" soldiers as if he were one himself, high ranking generals and commanders of different Army divisions - one who supplied poignant and honest pages from his letters back home, some words on and from private contractors who "grease the war machine", and Moore's own insight during the time he spent in Iraq interviewing the soldiers. My biggest complaint is that it wasn't chronological and some chapters felt misplaced. Other than that, I thought Hunting Down Saddam was one of the better and certainly broader books released about the war and our soldiers.
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