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Sunday, April 27, 2003
Since a few people have asked, here's an offline reading list for those who want to have a little more background on Iraq. These are all books I've personally read, and I can recommend them without reservation.
The Threatening Storm is a very good, unbiased look at the factors leading to the current conflict. The author was a senior member of the Clinton national security team whose responsibilities included Iraq. His writing is very accessible - part of his job function was making things understandable to those not in the intelligence community - and he presents a number of different perspectives on each issue. A very good book overall.
Saddam's Bombmaker is the story of one of the senior physicists in Iraq's nuclear program, who had been with it from it's inception over a coffee table discussion to when he and his family escaped Iraq. This is his first person account of the Iraqi WMD program and the people and personalities involved, and gives a good look at Iraq under the rule of the Ba'ath party and later living under the UN sanctions. Well worth reading.
Every Man a Tiger is the account of Gen. Chuck Horner, the man in charge of the air campaign for Desert Storm in 1991. There is a lot of good material on how targets were selected, how the war was executed, how the US forces viewed their Iraqi counterparts, and the day to day operations of a US force stationed inside a "friendly" Muslim nation.
Plague Wars is a broader look at a number of covert biological weapons programs, with a lot of material devoted to South Africa's PROJECT COAST, as well as a very good look at the UN biological weapons inspections inside Iraq.
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