Ala Bashir, former Professor of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Baghdad University and Iraq’s most highly decorated doctor, was Saddam Hussein’s personal physician from 1983 to 2003. From his vantage point as a reluctant “Saddam favorite,” Bashir observed and tracked political events in Baghdad. He also witnessed and recorded the hidden life of Saddam’s regime and family—the fear and the killings, the partying and profligacy, and the total disregard for human life and dignity. When Bashir left Iraq in 2003, he brought his diaries with him. Based on these secret documents, The Insider is the astonishing testimony of a man who found himself an unwilling confidant to one of the most infamous dictators in history.