Rating: 
Summary: Bamboozled in Baghdad
Review: When Bush said get rid of your weapons of mass destruction to "the axis of evil" in countries in his State of the Union Address to Congress in January 2002 he named the countries in the "axis of evil". These three "evil" countries all reacted in different ways to Bush's address to Congress. Iran lied and kept on making weapons. North Korea huffed and puffed, and our friend Saddam obfuscated. To check on Iraq the UN hired Hans Blix later in 2002. Dr. Blix is not the most dynamic guy but he is solid. He was a Swedish diplomat, US educated at Columbia where his son goes now, low key, highly competent, and he was the IAEA chief for twenty years - now just retired. Blix was subject to a lot of criticism in some US media and by Vice President Cheney who called the inspectors "useless" and Blix was portrayed as a bungling fool like the famous French detective in a Peter Sellers movie. This book is Blix's chance to answer his critics all in his own words, no media translation, and it retrospect it seems fairly clear he was right. As a book it is an easy to read and fast moving. It covers the inspectors, Resolution 1441, talks with the US and others, the spring deadline of 2003 and the start of the Iraq invasion - all from his perspective. I thought it might be a bit plodding but it is not. It is a quick light read of about 275 pages and very well written. In short it is a good book and deserves four or five stars, probably five because it is an inside story. He gives his personal view, i.e.: no proof of WMD's and probably none in Iraq since 1992 or ten years prior. He thinks all the WMD talk by the Bush administration and Blair was just speculation and hype prior to the invasion. He cites the old saying that "truth is the first casualty in a war". He gives many insights both political and technical from his work and his meetings with Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Annan, David Kay and others. The book is excellent but probably not as good as the book by Craig Unger "House of Bush, House of Saud". That is the best read of the current crop of books. Also the Richard Clarke book is better, but the Blix book is up near the top of the list and I think that it is a must read. I made a 25 book "listmania" list of the best books on the subject or closely related. But a book review is no substitute for reading the book. Worth the buy and the read. Jack in Toronto
Rating: 
Summary: bland
Review: While informative to the political science novice or a student of international relations....the book contains little news...and proves to be a tedious read at points....for a journalist who has covered Dr Blix one might have thought a more personal perspective
would have been offered.....book's release timed to coincide with
US election season...would have been better to have delayed release and added more details....one example: details of private meetings with WH adviser Condolezza Rice only glosesd over, Ms Rice made several secret trips to NYC to "confer" with Dr Blix...yet the book reveals little....the book is not a "tell all" in the tradition of Bob Woodward
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