And Then All Hell Broke Loose

In his memoir, And Then All Hell Broke Loose: Two Decades in the Middle East (2016), NBC Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel tells the story of his up-close look at the revolutions, war, and terrorism of the Middle East. More than two decades of reporting on the Middle East has put Engel in several life-threatening situations, from being under fire to being taken hostage. From the Lebanese war to the toppling of Gaddafi and from the Taliban in Afghanistan to ISIS in Iraq, Engel’s experiences during his reporting make for a thrilling adventure and an informative portrait of a region riddled with troubles.

Thirteen-year-old Engel dreamed of becoming a reporter. He envisioned himself working at the International Herald Tribune and having an apartment in Paris that overlooked the Champs-Élysées. He saw himself dressed in white suits, holding a bone cigarette holder, and writing dispatches about the exciting events going on in the world.

At his college graduation from Stanford, Engels knew that he did not want to be a typical reporter, so in 1996, he moved to the Middle East. At this time, men like Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Hosni Mubarak ruled the region. The area was oppressed, corrupt, and angry during their rule.



Engels takes a moment to talk about the origins and traditions of Islam and provides an overview of the history of the region, including its centuries-old conflict with the West. After World War I, he says, the promises and treaties made by the Europeans left the area arbitrarily divided as the nation-states were carved from the former Ottoman Empire without any regard given to ethnic or religious concerns. After World War II, the United States was largely the guardian of stability for the Middle East. Then came George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, the consequences of which are still being felt to this day.

The author notes the censorship he had to work under while writing for the Middle East Times, as well as how different the region is from the United States. The first attack Engel witnessed was in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, where he watched as people were shot, and fire melted them into their bus seats. He touches on the tragic trajectories of the revolutions that occurred in Egypt, Syria, and Libya, which began with high hopes and devolved into a fiasco.

Realizing that effective reporting meant moving around the Middle East, Engels then moved to Jerusalem, where he reported on the relations between the Israelis and the Palestinians dictated by the Oslo II Accord, which split the Palestinian land into three areas and gave governing power to the Israelis.



After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Engels turned to Iraq. Not able to obtain a visa to travel to the country because he was a journalist, he volunteered to be a “human shield” for a peace organization. He made a deal with ABC News that he would become the last American television reporter remaining in Baghdad.

There, he covered the conflict between Sunni and Shiite Muslims as well as the United States’ invasion and its consequences. He discusses how the toppling of Saddam Hussein, combined with a mismanaged occupation and poor choices—such as Paul Bremer III’s decision to dissolve the Iraq Army, which angered the scores of men who were left without jobs and fueled the insurgency—exacerbated the hatred between Sunni and Shiite Muslims and contributed to the rise of the Islamic State.

Life there became increasingly chaotic. He describes mortar attacks at the crack of dawn and car bombings by 11 a.m., followed by drive-by shootings and more mortar attacks at dusk. He also describes a time in 2005 when his hotel was badly shaken by a truck bomb that exploded across the street.



Saddam Hussein’s fall was the first of what Engels refers to as the Middle East’s “big men.” As the Arab Spring spread from country to country, President Zine el-Abidine ben Ali of Tunisia, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi of Libya would have the same fate. The regimes of these men were corrupt and repressive, described by the author as “rotten to the core.”

Through his invasion and occupation of Iraq, says Engels, the Bush administration changed a status quo in the region that had existed since 1967. Furthermore, the author feels that Barack Obama changed the status quo even further through his inconsistent action, which included encouraging uprisings in Egypt in the name of democracy, supporting the rebels in Libya, and wavering when it came to Syria.

Providing a first-person perspective on the calamities that have unfolded in the area over the last two decades, And Then All Hell Broke Loose takes a sobering look at a troubled region through the eyes of a man who experienced it personally and lived to tell the tale.