Disarming Iraq
Disarming Iraq

Author: Hans Blix

Publisher: Pantheon

Published: 2004-03-09

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0375423230

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The war against Iraq divided opinion throughout the world and generated a maelstrom of spin and counterspin. The man at the eye of the storm, and arguably the only key player to emerge from it with his integrity intact, was Hans Blix, head of the UN weapons inspection team. This is Dr. Blix’s account of what really happened during the months leading up to the declaration of war in March 2003. In riveting descriptions of his meetings with Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and Kofi Annan, he conveys the frustrations, the tensions, the pressure and the drama as the clock ticked toward the fateful hour. In the process, he asks the vital questions about the war: Was it inevitable? Why couldn’t the U.S. and UK get the backing of the other member states of the UN Security Council? Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? What does the situation in Iraq teach us about the propriety and efficacy of policies of preemptive attack and unilateral action? Free of the agendas of politicians and ideologues, Blix is the plainspoken, measured voice of reason in the cacophony of debate about Iraq. His assessment of what happened is invaluable in trying to understand both what brought us to the present state of affairs and what we can learn as we try to move toward peace and security in the world after Iraq.

Disarming Iraq
Disarming Iraq

Author: Michael V. Deaver

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2001-08-30

Total Pages: 167

ISBN-13: 0313016186

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The implementation of disarmament requirements imposed by the Security Council after the Second Gulf War established a strong and unequal power relationship between the United Nations and Iraq. Although the ensuing struggle over imposed disarmament has been a major issue in world politics, international relations theorists continue to ignore it. Deaver argues that this case has important theoretical implications. Using sociological insights and a behavioral approach, he examines the power relationship as well as Iraqi resistance from 1991 to 1998. Theorists are likely to find these analytic tools useful since they provide a ready means of studying the micro-foundations of power relations in generalized terms. Behavior such as supervision, surveillance, inspection, and monitoring are widespread and growing in world politics. A focus on tactics demonstrates the role of monitoring in maintaining and strengthening the relationship between the United Nations and Iraq. An analysis of dynamics makes comprehensible Iraqi losses of sovereignty and the eventual collapse of the relationship. Contrary to popular opinion, whoever escalated tensions hurt their own cause: Iraqi resistance contributed greatly to United Nations gains, while the United Nations successes led to the collapse of its relationship with Iraq.

Disarming Iraq
Disarming Iraq

Author: Hans Blix

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 9780747573548

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This is Dr Blix's account of what really happened in the run-up to the declaratin of war on Iraq in March 2003. In clear-eyed descriptions of his meetings with Tony Blair, George Bush, Jacques Chirac, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Kofi Annan, he conveys the frustrations, the tensions, the pressure and the drama as the clock ticked down. He asks key questions including: Could the war have been prevented or was it inevitable? Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? Why couldn't the US and the UK secure the backing of the member states of the UN Security Council? What can be learnt from the Iraq war for the prevention of the spread and use of WMDs in the future? His answers are thoughtful and authoritative.

The Iraq War
The Iraq War

Author: Anthony H. Cordesman

Publisher: CSIS

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 596

ISBN-13: 9780892064328

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"In April of 2003, a stunned world looked on as the armed forces of the United States and Britain conducted a lightning-fast military campaign against Iraq. Confounding predictions of failure, the Anglo-American victory brought down not just the Iraqi regime, but also much of the conventional wisdom about modern war. But even as U.S. and British forces occupied Basra, Tikrit, and Mosul, the Iraqi nation slipped into anarchy - and new military and security challenges emerged." "In this book, respected military analyst Anthony Cordesman provides the first in-depth examination of the key issues swirling around the most significant U.S. war since Vietnam. Finding answers is essential if we are to understand the United States' awesome power and its place in a new age of international terror and regional conflict. Finding answers is also essential if we are to draw the proper lessons and understand the new challenges of conflict termination, peacemaking, and nation building."--BOOK JACKET.

Endgame
Endgame

Author: Scott Ritter

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2002-11

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 0743247728

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As the United States heads toward confrontation with Iraq, former U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter updates his book about his experiences in Iraq to explain why he believes Saddam Hussein does not pose a threat to the U.S. and why we should not invade Iraq.

No End in Sight
No End in Sight

Author: Charles Ferguson

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2009-02-23

Total Pages: 674

ISBN-13: 0786732342

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The first book of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality, and anarchy, No End In Sight is a shocking story of wholesale incompetence, recklessness, and venality. Culled from over 200 hours of footage collected for the film, the book provides a candid and alarming retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials, Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts. Together, these voices reveal the principal errors of U.S. policy that largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today -- and what we could and should do about them now. No End In Sight marks the first time Americans will be allowed inside the White House, Pentagon, and Baghdad's Green Zone to understand for themselves the disintegration of Iraq -- and how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war.

Why Did the United States Invade Iraq?
Why Did the United States Invade Iraq?

Author: Jane K. Cramer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-03-01

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 1136641505

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This edited volume presents the foremost scholarly thinking on why the US invaded Iraq in 2003, a pivotal event in both modern US foreign policy and international politics. In the years since the US invasion of Iraq it has become clear that the threat of weapons of mass destruction was not as urgent as the Bush administration presented it and that Saddam Hussein was not involved with either Al Qaeda or 9/11. Many consider the war a mistake and question why Iraq was invaded. A majority of Americans now believe that the public were deliberately misled by the Bush administration in order to bolster support for the war. Public doubt has been strengthened by the growing number of critical scholarly analyses and in-depth journalistic investigations about the invasion that suggest the administration was not candid about its reasons for wanting to take action against Iraq. This volume begins with a survey of private scholarly views about the war’s origins, then assesses the current state of debate by organising the best recent thinking by foreign policy and international relations experts on why the US invaded Iraq. The book covers a broad range of approaches to explaining Iraq – the role of the uncertainty of intelligence, cognitive biases, ideas, Israel, and oil, highlighting areas of both agreement and disagreement. This book will be of much interest to students of the Iraq War, US foreign and security policy, strategic studies, Middle Eastern politics and IR/Security Studies in general.

The Long Walk
The Long Walk

Author: Brian Castner

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2012-07-10

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 0385536216

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In the tradition of Michael Herr’s Dispatches and works by such masters of the memoir as Mary Karr and Tobias Wolff, a powerful account of war and homecoming. Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team—his brothers—would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late. They relied on an army of remote-controlled cameras and robots, but if that technology failed, a technician would have to don the eighty-pound Kevlar suit, take the Long Walk up to the bomb, and disarm it by hand. This lethal game of cat and mouse was, and continues to be, the real war within America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But The Long Walk is not just about battle itself. It is also an unflinching portrayal of the toll war exacts on the men and women who are fighting it. When Castner returned home to his wife and family, he began a struggle with a no less insidious foe, an unshakable feeling of fear and confusion and survivor’s guilt that he terms The Crazy. His thrilling, heartbreaking, stunningly honest book immerses the reader in two harrowing and simultaneous realities: the terror and excitement and camaraderie of combat, and the lonely battle against the enemy within—the haunting memories that will not fade, the survival instincts that will not switch off. After enduring what he has endured, can there ever again be such a thing as “normal”? The Long Walk will hook you from the very first sentence, and it will stay with you long after its final gripping page has been turned.