When Zainab Salbi was barely 19 years old, she experienced her first sense of betrayal. The young Iraqi woman had grown up in Baghdad, raised in part by a mother who supported her, protected her and encouraged her to marry for love. Yet, in the late 1980s, Salbi's mom sent her to the United States to enter into an arranged marriage. Salbi was confused and devastated.

"That's my first sensation of betrayal," she says. "It came from the person I love the most."

At the time, Salbi hadn't understood the reason behind her mother's seemingly sudden about-face on the issue of marriage, but years later, she realized that it came down to her mother's fear of one man: Saddam Hussein.

While many Iraqis feared Hussein from afar, Salbi's family had been a part of the violent dictator's inner circle . Her father was Hussein's personal pilot, and her mother knew that living so closely in Hussein's shadow was a dangerous place for a young woman. She was determined to protect her daughter.