one of them was ziad cattan, an official in charge of military procurement.ttan in paris, he didn't seem terribly concerned about the charges against him. there is an arrest warrant out for you. >> yes, i hear about that. >> if you went back to baghdad you'd be arrested. >> uh, no. nobody will arrest me. they will kill me. [speaking arabic ] >> the son of a retired iraqi general, cattan had been living in poland until a few days before the u.s. invasion, running a pizza parlor in germany, and importing and exporting used cars. but his can-do attitude and ability to speak english impressed the americans, including ambassador bremer, who praised cattan in his memoir. after a few months working with the coalition on neighborhood councils, cattan was given a position in the new ministry of defense. so you were recruited for this job. >> yes. >> by the cpa. >> yes. >> by ambassador bremer and his aids. >> the staffs, yeah. >> did you have any experience in military procurement? >> no. >> to make up for this obvious deficiency, cattan was sent off to the national d

thank you, ziad, for invited me. indeed, it's been a pleasure. >> you are watching booktv, television for serious readers. you can watch any program you see online at booktv.org. >> as a part of booktv's recent visit to saint paul, minnesota, we stoppe stopped by the minnesa historical society library to learn about the impact st. paul has had on pop culture on a national scale. >> our library stacks and the like to think of it as a library of libraries. the native american material which is especially rich in the minnesota native americans. we have a nearly complete collection of books from the 19 century on the civil war and beating of that on the abolitionist movement. so this is a little bit of a glimpse. what i've done is pulled some of my favorites, the things that i consider treasures and love and i'm going to show those to you individually. a good place would be to start with our map collection. we've collection of 50,000 maps and they go from the mid-1500s to maps that were probably on the press yesterday. w

thank you, ziad, for invited me. indeed, it's been a pleasure. >> you are watching booktv, television for serious readers. you can watch