Books About The Iraq War

If this government ever became a tyranny … the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government … is within the reach of the government to know.
~ Frank Church, senator

1. An inability to protect its citizens.
2. The belief that it is above the law.
3. A lack of democracy.

And here we are as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and fight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
~ Matthew Arnold — Dover Beach

As the United States has become a belligerent and lawless force under George W. Bush, the Canadian government has followed in close step. Attempting to please our powerful neighbour, Ottawa has abandoned Canada’s traditional role as a leading peacekeeping nation, and instead adopted a more militaristic, warlike stance, battling insurgents in Afghanistan as a junior partner in the U.S. “war on terror” Ottawa has also abandoned Canada’s traditional attempt to be a fair-minded mediator, most notably in the Middle East. And it has joined the United States as a leading obstructionist in worldwide efforts to tackle global warming. Altogether, there’s been a dramatic shift in the way Canada operates in the world, as our country has been transformed into a helpful assistant to an aggressive U.S. power, increasingly out of sync with our European allies and with the rest of the world.

This new role has been actively encouraged by powerful members of our elite who want to incorporate us more deeply into America’s military and economic empire. As Washington runs roughshod over international law, with its imperial wars, illegal prisons and torture, they want Canada to stand by helpfully, holding the bully’s coat.

McQuaig points out that for decades Washington has been intensely focused on gaining control of the oil reserves of the Middle East. That focus took on new urgency under the Bush administration, with its close ties to Big Oil, including a vice-president who’s gotten rich going back and forth between Big Oil and the top echelons of the U.S. government. The urgency was driven by the fact that the vast oil reserves of Iraq — the last unharvested oil bonanza left on earth — were in the process of being parceled off to foreign competitors.

Iraq represented the alluring prospect of future energy security for the United States, even as America’s own oil reserves were dwindling. And, with potential profits in the range of $100 billion a year, Iraq also represented the future of the oil industry. In the words of Wall Street oil analyst Fadel Gheit, Iraq “is the big dance. Everyone wants to be there.”

But the U.S. oil giants hadn’t been invited to the big dance. Instead, Saddam Hussein had been busy making deals with oil companies from other nations, including America’s arch-rivals: China, Russia and France.

All this was on the minds of top executives of the big U.S. oil companies when they met, amid great secrecy, with Dick Cheney and his task force on energy, which had been set up within days of the new administration taking office. Although the administration has fought fiercely to prevent information about the deliberations of the task force being released, task force documents obtained under court order reveal an intense focus on Iraq and the question of how to gain control of its massive reserves — even as the administration was drawing up plans for toppling Saddam.

All this was underway, months before the attacks of 9/11.

Greg Palast made his mark exposing the fraud in the 2000 US presidential election.

Here he shoots buckshot into the Bush administration. One of the most interesting salvos is his discovered of government documents proving the Iraq war was fought for price fixing — to limit the flow of oil to raise oil prices and deliver the highest profit of any corporation in world history to Exxon.

To get a sampling of what the book is about, watch this Amy Goodman NPR interview with Palast.

1. reckless dependency on shrinking oil supplies
2. milieu of radicalized religion (the Christian right)
3. reliance on borrowed money (domestic and international debt)

Documents the lies behind purported motives for invading Afghanistan. It had nothing to do with bin Laden. It was about securing an oil pipeline route.

Under the Taliban, Afghans were subjected to brutal Islamist law. Women, banned from holding jobs, rarely ventured outside. Punishment was medieval, adulterers were stoned to death and thieves had their limbs amputated in the local soccer stadium. But if nothing else, these strictures eliminated the banditry and rape gangs that terrorized the nation before 1996.

Post-Taliban Afghanistan is essentially the Taliban Afghanistan minus law and order. Stonings continue and women remain under burqas, but now thugs and rapists roam the streets unchecked.

Republican Scott Ritter spent seven years in Iraq as an arms inspector for the United Nations. His 1998 resignation as the U.N. chief weapons inspector there made front-page headlines around the world. In Endgame, Ritter draws on his experiences to take us inside Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and to explain where U.S. policy in Iraq went wrong.

According to the blurb, Ritter describes in detail the ways that Saddam tried to foil inspectors by concealing his weapons programs. He brings readers with him inside some of Iraq’s most carefully guarded sites and shows us dramatic face-offs between U.N. inspectors and hostile Iraqi guards and officials. But Ritter criticizes the U.S. for squandering an international consensus on Iraq and trying to use the inspections process for uniquely American goals. He argues strongly against the proposed American military strike against Iraq, suggesting instead a bold and innovative solution to the long-standing crisis.

But in reality, Ritter is a bit like Wile E. Coyote going after Saddam as the Road Runner. The more Ritter can’t find any weapons the more convinced he became that Saddam had them. He admits one time his for sure nuclear facility turned out to be a pump house for luxury fountains at a compound for the Iraqi elite. Ritter is a superhawk. Even back in the 1990s he desperately itched for war on Iraq if even so much as a can of poison gas could be found to justify it. Most of the book is primarily about events prior in the 1990s. He leaves out some key facts, e.g. the sanction bombings or that his hero Chalabi was a convicted embezzler. He has absolutely no understanding of or curiosity about the motives of the USA. He takes the official statements completely at face value with the dedication of a high school drop out Republican. However, he does admit that Iraq had at most 100 weapons, and was not a military threat at the time the USA invaded.