Customer Reviews

Secrets and Lies: Operation "Iraqi Freedom" and After: A Prelude to the Fall of U.S. Power in the Middle East?

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This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know why the US military invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Dilip Hiro has compiled a very detailed history of the lead-up to the invasion, the first four weeks, and the aftermath.

He starts with the post-9/11 White House, where the neoconservative Bush administration shifted their focus from fighting terrorism (and fundamentalism in south central Asia and the Middle East) to Iraq. The neocons were dedicated to removing Saddam Hussein, but no one else was. They had to convince Colin Powell, the US population, and the rest of the world. Dilip Hiro shows how the upcoming invasion was marketed using carefully-selected intelligence reports, creating a false crisis. From the yellowcake from Africa to the lies about ongoing inspections by the UN, Dilip Hiro documents it all.

But the invasion takes place anyway. He shifts his focus to the war, using detailed maps and newspaper sources to describe the battles, the setbacks, and the strategies the US military used. He covers the first month of the invasion, ending with the occupation and Bush claiming 'mission accomplished.'

This is a devastating critique of a US foreign policy completely divorced from democracy and world opinion. Every fact in this book, stacked up in page after page, creates a chilling picture of the wrong war for the wrong reasons. If you are only going to read one book on the invasion (and occupation) of Iraq, make it this one. You'll end up referring to it over and over in the next few years, reminding yourself of how we got into this mess.

Who would have thought a book about a war so fresh in our minds from the around the clock TV coverage would be so surprising, refreshing and revealing? I'd bet that half the things that HIro discloses in Secrets and LIes the average reader who takes an interest in world politics would find new and shocking. Hiro details stuff about the covert war leading up to the "hot" war that I'd never heard of. Hiro, a meticulous and elegant historian, is also at times prosecutorial in his method, revealing Operation Iraqi Freedom to be a shabby dirty little war, predicting that post war Iraq aint going to be as easy for the Anglo-American coalition.

In some ways, this book is a great deal more distressing than the various pundit books slamming Bush (Moore, Hightower, Frankel, Krugman, Carville, etc.) because there is not a single caustic turn of phrase, not a single line of satire, not a single double entendre in the entire work. This is a brutally straight-forward, earnestly researched, ably footnoted, totally credible review of all of the secrets and lies that led to the war in Iraq.

It did not quite bring me to tears, it did very nearly make me want to throw a chair through the garden window.

According to this book, and its incontrovertible documentation, we were lied to. We were deceived. Untold fighting men and women, not just from the US but also from other countries, have died and been wounded and according to this book the number of wounded is CLASSIFIED. It is a secret, an official secret from the American public, how many of their sons and daughters have died to support this ideological conquest, this extremist religious crusade. We must also acknowledge the thousands of dead Iraqis and the hundreds of thousands of displaced and impoverished Iraqis.

Another official secret from the American public are the results of the open survey by the Department of State of how the Iraqis feels about the US invasion and occupation--classified AFTER we discovered that Chalabi had lied to Cheney and there were no hearts and flowers, only hostility.

Yet another official secret from the American public is the estimate of the damage done by US forces to the Iraqi infrastructure, and how much it will cost the US taxpayer to pay for this mindless destruction in the heart of the Middle East.

Not discussed by the author, but very much on my mind, is the jungle drum word from the retired veterans with access to Bethesda and other military hospitals---on the basis of the 250,000 disabled veterans from Gulf 1, and the "word" filtering out from the wards, we are looking at upwards of 25,000, perhaps as many as 100,000 disabled veterans from this war--all from depleted uranium, a killer of our own making. Worse, this disability is multi-generational and will lead to blind and maimed children among those veterans who are able to have children.

This book is a cold-hearted look--so cold-hearted it ignites a flame of righteous anger in any careful reader--at how America has destroyed its credibility and its ability to have a positive influence in the Middle East.

If I have one small criticism, it is that the author, a stellar authority with solid sources to call upon, did not do an appendix that laid out an entire timeline of what Bush and Blair said that was false, and then the counter-vailing truth. Although the author makes a number of these points clear throughout the book, for example, the UN never passed a resolution calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power, an opportunity has been lost here.

Truth matters. Paul O'Neil is correct to speculate that we will heal ourselves, and equally correct to point out that this will happen only if we speak and hear the truth about these grievous circumstances in which great evil was done "in our name." This book, more so than the others that I cited above, is perhaps the first serious building block toward righting our ship of state.

Historian and journalist Dilip Hiro has written a detailed account of the continuing Bush/Blair attack on Iraq. He examines the preparations for the invasion, the attack itself and the continuing war since Bush declared victory in May 2003. Hiro shows how the attack on Iraq has diverted us from defeating Al Qa'ida, and how it has increased the terrorist threat.

He details the Bush and Blair governments' systematic lies to the UN, to Parliament and Congress, to the British and American peoples, and to the Hutton and other inquiries. Almost everything that we are told about the war comes from `embedded' reporters, who are required by contract to agree to obey Bush's instructions.

The occupation is causing chaos - 60% unemployment, worsening health and education, an estimated 100,000 killed, shortages of water, fuel and electricity, and minimal rebuilding. The occupying forces are not seeking, and will never achieve, a friendly, stable or democratic Iraq.

The US and British forces are using cluster bombs, heavy artillery and napalm, real weapons of mass destruction, just like in Vietnam. So, as in Vietnam, they are losing hearts and minds, and losing the war.

The January election will not improve security or `change the atmosphere', as Blair claims. Their aim is not election but dereliction. In years to come, if we let it happen, they will sigh, `to save Iraq we had to destroy it'.

Not surprisingly, the occupation is generating popular hatred of the occupier, fuelling the national resistance. The vast majority of the Iraqi people want the occupying forces out as soon as possible, as do the majority of the British and American peoples.

But Blair says that the troops will stay to oversee the 30 January election, then that they will stay till December 2005. The US commanders say that they will leave in 2006, if the security situation allows. Chief of the General Staff Sir Michael Walker says that British troops will stay indefinitely, `depending on the security threat to the Iraqi authorities'. But we can all see that the occupation itself causes the insecurity and chaos.

Dilip Hiro has been studying Iraq and military affairs in the Middle East for decades, and is among the world's top experts in this field.

Most of what he predicted in his previous book, "In The Eye of the Storm," has, as he points out in this new and exciting work, come to pass.

Not that the neocons in the Bush-Cheney administration - who wage war, in our name, just because they can and just because they think America is their messianic empire with which they may run roughshod all over the world - would care.

But the American people should, and do care, especially when they are lied to, repeatedly, and loudly, and to this day, about the reality behind the illegal conquest and occupation of a sovereign nation that posed no grave or immediate threat to the USA.

This war has been a defeat for America's arrogant and imperial, military and political goals in the Middle East, and in November of 2004, the Bush administration will taste what it hath wrought.

We're coming up to the anniversary of this illegal and shabby war. What do we have? Al Qaeda and other jihadis running rampant in Iraq; our troops being shipped back dead. And what for? Illusory WMDs? Dilip HIro sounded the alarm about this last year. Thank god we have him and this fascinating, provocative and upsetting book.
The reviewer below who dismisses HIro as a "conspiracy" nut doesn't realize that the joke is on him. If its beyond the reviewer why people take Hiro seriously, then why did the reviewer buy the book or read it, knowing the author is a nut? The answer is that the reviewer hasn't been near the covers of the book, let alone inside. The reviewer says - by the way - why is that Libya gave up their nukes if US power is declining? Assuming of course that this is HIro's thesis. Well, if he had bothered to read the book, he'd see that Hiro's thesis is speculative, based on important variables. Do you yourself a big favor: read this book, protest the Bush adminstration, and turn them out of office.

It is difficult for people who have grown up on today's mainstream media to deal with the fact that we are living in a world where the puppets of CNN, NBC, and most especially FOX are in the pockets of today's politicians. I feel this book is a must-read for that very reason. It's important to stand back and take an objective look at our situation from other perspectives and with a little luck maybe we'll realize that America should not be number one in the world but that the world should be number one to America. Dilip Hiro provides just that. Not only is it an objective view about today's administration, but it is one that you can tell is thoroughly researched exhausting both main stream media, foreign media and personal contacts of the author. After all, when seaking an honest opinion of ones beauty, one should not seek out the opinion of a friend or family member. They will be biased. An honest opinion comes from someone who will be straight forward and that is just what Dilip offers to his readers. It's sad to think that some will judge this book as anti-American instead of applying its lesson to their political views and rising above thinking only of OUR economy, OUR losses, and OUR wins. Please read this book with an open mind. Afterall, if we keep going where we're going, we might just end up where we're headed! :)

This book is good background to the current unraveling going on in Iraq and essentially prophesies what is happening. The equivalent of compressed news coverage with editorial critique it takes up a year's worth of file copy minus the noise factor and disinformation that makes it hard to see what is going on. Tonic for the propaganda barrage.

The Administration revealed for its deceitful ways. It is a delightful read, informative as well as sheerly entertaining for the power of its revelations. Read only if you are willing to look at the truth and consider its validity, not if you plan to regain your composure by looking at your Bush-draped-in-an-American-flag poster.

Middle East expert Dilip Hiro chronicles the runup and impact of the Bush crusade to "liberate" Iraq. He typifies the link the Bush adminstration made between the events of 2001-09-11 as a "phantom". There was no association between the Saddam Hussein government and the lawless attackers known as Al Qaida. Nor were there indications that Iraq clandestinely developed nuclear or chemical weapons that could be brought to bear on neighbouring countries, let alone Britain or the US. In sum, Hiro's depiction of the formation of the "coalition of the willing" is shown as a tissue of misleading information based on a strategy of fear - a "monumental confidence trick" with endless ramifications.

Hiro assembles a cast of flawed characters, giving a biographical sketch of such people as George Walker Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Anthony Blair. From this background, he then describes the various utterances each has produced to justify the crusade. From the beginning, he makes clear that the Iraq invasion would take place. All that was needed was justification. This was provided by various forms of "evidence", all of which was either false or flawed. Tubing for "nuclear centrifuges" turned out to be engine cases. A quest for uranium proved false. And nuclear and chemical weapons claimed by the Bush administration proved elusive - they have yet to be found. With such faulty information at his disposal, even after some of the lies were exposed, Bush gained authority to launch the crusade from a supine US Congress. The US media, once considered a bastion of investigative journalism, remained silent or compliant as the fallacies were revealed.

From the preparations for invasion, which included a eight-month illegal air assault on a sovereign nation, code-named "Southern Focus", Hiro moves on to the actual conflict. The lies and deceptions didn't end with the launching of Tomahawk missiles. In battles where the invaders were to have destroyed only military resistance, the "coalition" dropped updated napalm and used "cluster" weapons. The impact of these devices on the civilian population remains to be assessed, but by the fall of the Hussein government, more than three times the number of civilians killed by the attack on the World Trade Centre had been inflicted. And that's the conservative estimate. Hiro tracks the journal of one young Baghdad woman as the barrage of bombs and missiles rains down on the city. The Bush administration's contention that the Iraqi population would welcome the Yanks with "flowers and cheers" proved as flawed as his reasons for the invasion.

Bush didn't launch a pre-emptive war, but a preventive one. A pre-emptive war is an action to curtail a visible threat. No such threat, especially against the US, existed in Iraq. Bush's imperialist declaration of 2002, which stipulated the US had abrogated unto itself the sole privilege of determining what threatened that nation, obliterated the distinction between pre-emptive and preventive, writes Hiro. This action overturned a precedent set in 1648 in the Treaty of Westphalia, a model for all international relations ever since. Bush also sought to overturn any cooperative mechanisms in his unilateral actions. His method to garner small nations into joining the "coalition of the willing" was by browbeating them with threats of withholding future aid. The populations of even those nations joining the crusade were overwhelmingly opposed to involvement and said so in massive demonstrations, Hiro notes.

In his Summary and Conclusion, Hiro notes the resentment evidenced by Iraqis to the invasion. Even those gleeful at the toppling of Saddam Hussein have no desire for retention of foreign occupiers. The vaunted technology that guided missiles to government facilities has yet to ensure water or electrical supplies to the population of Baghdad and other cities. The mantra of "remnants of the old regime" leading the resistance to the invaders has been repeatedly refuted, Hiro demonstrates. Bremer's "Interim Governing Council" even lacked a ministry for religious affairs - in a nation rent by sectarian differences. The occupying forces, especially those of the US, lacked fundamental understanding of the Arab culture present in Iraq. With much of that culture evident in the Middle East and transported to other Muslim nations, is there any mystery in why resentment against Bush's unilateral adventurism remains in force?

The core of Bush's policies toward Iraq were false and/or misleading, according to Hiro. After reading his summation of declarations and events, it's impossible to refute his thesis. His deceptive administration has demonstrated a mastery of "spin", perhaps only exceeded by that of his flunky, Tony Blair. Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Projects", set well apart from the established departments for intelligence, provided the grounds for invasion. Their information is shown to be either unreliable or long outdated. Yet this was the basis for conning the US Congress into accepting Bush's request for war. Hiro goes on to note how the Bush government edited reports on environmental and health questions in order to sustain his policies. Real information has been shelved, ignored or rebutted to quell dissenters. In sum, it's clear that this book is a mandatory read for all in the USA. Read it for its wealth of information and clarity of presentation. It's a rewarding and insightful summary of adminstration with a tenuous hold on truth. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]