The Secret History of the Iraq War

Rating:
Summary: Good book, read it and change your paradigm
Review: This book is extremely good, however the author should use more bookmarks on his sources and resources. I was able to validate many of his assertions through nexis and the internet, however it would of been nice to have. That being said, I can see why he didn't, it would of been another 150 pages of footnotes. The big takeaway I got from the author's book was that we tend to think of developing countries through a paradigm of that countries in this area act like our country. He clearly shows how countries like Iran, Egypt, Syria, etc have many,many automous intelligence agencies that have zero oversight. Add in the tribal/religious factions all over the region, and much of the population have no "national identity." So our country's media that report the news clearly don't understand this reality. Mr Bodansky shows in great detail how our fixation on "nation blaming" is so near-sighted. These networks of terrorists have two common enemies. The U.S. and Israel. Their "jihad" is no different than Hitler's "jihad" against jews and his version of "infidels." He shows so well how Libya/Sudan and other countries with these networks have become weapons warehouses of WMD and conventional weapons for Saddam and other anti-jewish jihadists.
People that write off the author's detailed work as "conspiracy theory" obviously think that every country in the world has checks and balances and other democratic self-checks like the United States. We are so self-critical of our country and our policies, yet if you check Transparency International's website, you'll see how openly corrupt 100s of countries are and how they really have no concern or regard for their people. These nations turn a blind eye to their internal "goings on", allowing the countless offenses the author described so well in his book to go on unchecked (ie, covertly.)

Rating:
Summary: Exahustive Study of the War with All the Players
Review: This book weaves an amazing amount of analysis into a single volume concerning the Iraq War. The author does implicate Saddam with WMD and indicates that he not only has a realtionship with terrorists but he is prepared to launch them not just in Israel but Europe and the US. The book has extraordinary detail on Saddam's plans, his plan of insurgency after the fall of Bagdad and his reliance on Syria to spirit away his weapons, materials, money and providing a hiding place for his familiy and sons. Besides the role of Syria providing cover for Saddamm and his forces, Iran is a major player in the sponsor of terrorism and the three countries along with Arafat plan a massive attack against Israel. The attack would include pentrating Jordan to intiate an attack that they hoped would spark a major attack by Israel that would inflame the Arab world causing a coordinated strike at Israel. With a blow by blow account of the US attack on Iraq covertly before the start of the war and after, the author captures the details of the fighting including inside Saddams command virtually ruined buy his son Qusay. The most interesting part of the book is Iran's role in fueling Islamist terrorists to Iraq to lead to a Shiite sympathetic Iraq government and Iran's role in hosting terrorists such as Osoma Bin Laden and al-Zarqawi to plan and supply terroriists into both Iraq and Saudia Arabia. Chalabi is also implicated in secret meetings in Terhan. The book is depressing in the fact that even Murbarak is covertly involved in resisting the US, although propped up by billions of US dollars, and he is also involved with Arafat who creates a face of peace while planning violent terrorist acts. At the end, the author is critical of the US's foray into Iraq and its failure to recognize the power of Islamist extremists but his alternative does not ring very clear because the extremists seem beyond rational negotiations. The entire middle east comes across as a complicated maze of strong arm leadership by a few combined in areas of mutual distrust and hatred. Kurds hate Saddam but hate the Turks more and vice versa. The only criticism is a lack of maps, I would recommend downloading a map that will fit into the book and there is a need for a quick reference page for all the charcters. There are so many players that an easy reference page would help keep the average reader up on who all the parties are. I do have to agree with an earlier reviewer that footnotes would provide more creditability particularly when referencing such episodes such as Saddam's being drugged and virtually held capative by his own disillusioned supporters when discovered by US troops based on a tip.

Rating:
Summary: Facts and Fiction
Review: Two things:

1) Mr Bodansky seems to have a good understanding of the Middle East and how politics cum religion is shaping the actions of politicians, religious leaders, terrorists etc. Viewing Operation Iraqi Freedom through the lens of history (i.e. past invasions of the region) is an interesting way to interprete and understand what happened in Iraq during the past ten years.

2) Mr Bodansky mingles facts and fiction in way that doesn't suit a scientific researcher. I do not expect him to quote every single intelligence source he may or may not have. Being a defense editor myself I know how difficult it is to deal with such sources. But it shouldn't have been too difficult to get officials corrobate at least some of the claims he makes. The question of Iraq's WMD is a good example: At a time where US and foreigs experts assert that no WMD - not even signs for an active military WMD research program - have been discovered despite intensive searching by UN and US inspectors, Mr Bodansky makes no reference at all to this. Bizarre. This obvious omission right at the beginning of the book makes any following assertion of the author dubious.

In the end I got the impression that Mr Bodansky wrote just one more book trying to justify the war on Iraq and disguised that aim by attacking how the war and the ensuing occupation was implemented.