Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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118 of 131 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Teachers Need This Book, December 3, 2003
I am a teacher. I am committed to honesty and free speech and an even-handed discussion of controversy. I am committed to the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In short, I am committed to education. Unfortunately, in times of national crisis, teaching about current issues can be both difficult and uncomfortable. For teachers and students, for anyone engaged in an ongoing discussion of current American policies in Iraq, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer and Lakshmi Chaudhry is an essential source. Despite the passage of more than two years, American educators teach under the growing shadow of 9/11, and in that shadow truth can be uncomfortable to tell. Repeatedly, this Administration, by having used transparently false justifications for war, has put all social studies teachers in a delicate situation. Over and over the truth of the matter stares us in the face daring us to tell it like it is. But, no matter how an individual teacher handles questions about Bush's reasons for war it is likely he or she will be challenged. So it is essential that we know what we are talking about. Certainly we have an obligation to read from a variety of sources, to investigate the facts, and to state them as clearly as we can. That is where this book can help. The authors, for example, write insightfully that, "one of the hallmarks of the long-running Iraq disinformation campaign led by the White House is to repeat things that aren't true until a great many people believe they are." And then in chapter after chapter they demonstrate how this technique was used over and over and over. As any good teacher knows, in the classroom, respect for evidence remains paramount, but the evidence, as made perfectly clear in this book, is overwhelmingly against this administration's pre-war justifications. Not sure that Hussein was deliberately linked, by Bush and company, to 9/11? You will be. Not sure that Bush wasn't just misled by "faulty intelligence?" You will be. Might you still be tempted to think that the Bush administration sincerely considered Iraq as the right place to establish a "democratic model" in the Middle East? Finish this book and you will abandon that bit of folklore too. On page after page the evidence is overwhelming. There were no Iraqi nukes, there was no fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles ready to spray the enemy with powerful chemicals, there was no continuing relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and, most importantly, there was no immediate danger from Weapons of Mass Destruction. In fact, usable Iraqi WMDs, by the time war began, simply did not exist. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator with a record of abuse that stretches back to his first day in office. Iraq, under Hussein, unquestionably had nuclear ambitions. Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons both before and after the first Gulf War and he repeatedly lied about this to anyone who would listen, especially to the various inspectors assigned to investigate. All of that is in this book, but, ultimately, Saddam's lies were unsuccessful and a great many of the banned weapons were discovered and destroyed during the pre-1998 inspections. That is in the book too. Importantly, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq places the war into the larger context of American Foreign Policy. You will understand how President Bush radically changed the rules of American military engagement with the release of his national security strategy on September 17, 2002. You will understand that with this new strategy Bush brought an end to the doctrines of deterrence and containment that had characterized United States foreign policy for more than half a century. Of course, there are other obstacles to effectively teaching about an ongoing war and there are other books to read, but this is a fine start. My only criticism is that there was not time or money to create an extensive index. But that is a minor complaint. In his carefully worded speech delivered on August 7, 2003 at New York University, former Vice President Al Gore clearly outlined the challenge we all face in the classroom: "...it is no longer possible to avoid the conclusion that what the country is dealing with in the Bush Presidency is...a systematic effort to manipulate facts in service to a totalistic ideology that is felt to be more important than the mandates of basic honesty." Buy more than one copy.
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69 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Convincing Portrayal of our Misleading Leader, January 3, 2004
After reading The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq, I was left baffled as to how the people in the most powerful country in the world could fall for such blatant lies. I found it very interesting how the Bush administration makes speeches leaving so much room for interpretation, to ultimately save themselves later when questioned. In the first section of this book called Bait and Switch, it describes how the Bush administration employed five key fake "facts" into the public's mind, so that when it came time to spend billions of dollars and risk thousands of lives, the public would support it. These five lies guides this book towards proving its point: Every major assertion that our government put forward to justify the conquest of Iraq has proved false. Christopher Scheer achieved his goal in convincing me of the ludicrousness of the situation in Iraq. His evidence was mostly primary sources, and therefore convincing. Speeches, quotes, and documents are utilized which make his argument very strong. The only times I got lost in this novel is when other liberally biased books are quoted without stated proof in this novel backing up their arguments. Still, this book places the war into the larger context of American Foreign Policy. It explains to the reader how President Bush radically shifted the rules of American military activity with the release of his national security strategy on September 17, 2002. This book also elaborates on how with this new security strategy Bush was able to bring an end to the doctrines of deterrence and containment that characterized United States foreign policy for more than half a century. Christopher Scheer along with the other authors state in this novel that, "One of the hallmarks of the long-running Iraq disinformation campaign led by the White House is to repeat things that aren't true until a great many people believe they are." (41). They drill this concept into the reader, until there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that this is factual. The first lie described is that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 and/or Al Qaeda. Bush was able to make the public believe this by repeatedly relating the tragedy of 9/11, terrorism, Iraq, and Saddam Hussein all in the same sentence as frequent as possible. I was blown away when this book quotes Colin Powell discussing an argument against the war with Iraq in 9/11 by saying they had nothing to do with it. He states, "Don't go with the Iraq option right away, or we'll lose the coalition we've been signing up. "They'll view it as bait and switch-it's not what they signed up to do.' If we weren't going after Iraq before September 11 why would we be going after then now when the current outrage is not directed at Iraq. Keep the Iraq options open if you get the linkages, maybe Syria, Iran, but I doubt you'll get the linkages." (41). It continues in proving how they never got the linkages and how instead of revealing the fakeness of their argument, they instead use words saying "this could be true," or an "educated guess." This book does an impeccable job explaining how the power of words can distort a country's belief and how a government can even create a false war. In another passage discussing this same thing, they quote Bush: "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists, Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints." (October 7, 2002). Okay, Bush. This could happen, but is it likely? Instead of focusing on the countries that could be a more realistic threat (if there is any), he chose Iraq. After making many speeches discussing how Iraq, Hussain, 9/11, and terrorism are all related, on September 17, 2003 Bush admitted that there was no evidence linking Iraq to 9/11. This book reiterates that there were no Iraqi nuclear weapons, there was no fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles ready to spray the enemy with powerful chemicals, there was no continuing relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda, and no immediate danger from Weapons of Mass Destruction. This is an example of the proof emphasized in the book, both convincing and effective. The style of this book is also easy to read. While other persuasive novels can be overdone and overly repetitive, this novel is broken down into manageable chapters and possesses comprehensive diction. I recommend this book to everyone who is unsure about the false motives and lack of evidence in the Iraq war, and what Bush has done to our country and foreign policy since he became president. This book delivers a call for help for a change in administration and simultaneously sends a message of truth to all who read it.
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22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
AN EXCELLENT SUMMARY OF BUSH'S LIES ABOUT IRAQ, March 10, 2004
This book provides a strong argument against the Bush Administrations arguments against going to war in Iraq. You can argue that the book is biased but the bottom line is that the facts speak for themselves. To date, the only probable FACTs we've been told about Saddam and Iraq are the ones related to his human rights abuses. This is not really touched on because, what's understood on this case does not need to be discuss. With that said, that book breaks down the following:Saddam's ties to Al Queda:
There never were any. These allegations were made on dubious intelligence claims that at most, proved that Saddam's officials may have had a meeting with Al Queda operative 10 years ago. Saying that Saddam has Al Queda ties is the equivalent of saying that someone you or I went on a date with 10 years ago is our boyfriend/girlfriend of 10 years. In short, it's a complete distortion of the truth/ Chem.. & Bio Weapons:
We know Saddam had and used these prior to Gulf war I. Why? WE gave him the means to make them. The claims that he still possessed them came from defectors who proved to be less than credible witnesses. The weapons inspectors and CIA reports have all stated the same thing.There's no evidence Saddam still possessed these weapons. Even if he had them prior to 1991 is irrelevant because chem.. & bio weapons only have a shelf life of 2-3 years. Saddam's Nuclear program:
What existed was dismantled after Gulf War I. Are we seeing a pattern here? The War would be a cakewalk:
I think it's safe to say most people believed this to be the case. Obviously it hasn't been, largely due to poor planning and other agenda's. Iraq as a model for Democracy:
The shabbiest and most overused since the WMD and Al Queda claims were proven to be bogus. The issue here is that there are many, many brutal dictatorship's in the word and to think that we would send 100,000 troops to a foreign land to "liberate" a nation is just plain gullible. If you want a good summary argument about the false pretenses used to launch the Iraq war, this book provides a readable 175 pg argument.
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