The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq by Patrick Cockburn (Verso, £15.99)
State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III by Bob Woodward (Simon and Schuster, £18.99)
Bob Woodward's third book on the Bush presidency's handling of overseas military intervention since 11th September 2001—a longer period than the second world war—is in the American tradition that all that matters happens in a square mile around the White House. Nothing and no one counts unless it is said and done in English, preferably over dinner in Woodward's Georgetown mansion.
Woodward never leaves the Beltway. Instead he pours into his book almost everything dictated to him by his interviewees. He finds space for junior officers who write haikus about the failure to keep the peace, but he does not appear ever to have been in the middle east, or Europe, or to have talked to any of the politicians who were faced with the terrible decision of how to deal with Saddam Hussein. No foreign source is cited, there is no selection of material, and as minor characters wander in and out of Woodward's chapters, the book at times reads like a transcript of a Waraholics Anonymous session—with everyone beating their breast about how wrong they got things.
Woodward has fallen victim to the great lie of 2006: that there was a big lie in 2002 on weapons of mass destruction. That was not how it appeared to Robin Cook, who as foreign secretary regaled the Commons with horrific tales of Saddam's hidden caches of lethal weapons. That was not how it appeared to every European leader in 2002, who said repeatedly that Saddam and WMD were a major problem. Those who opposed intervention—like Gerhard Schröder, who offered Jacques Chirac a secret deal on the EU common agricultural policy in exchange for French support—did not deny the existence of WMD; they simply argued that a full-scale invasion would make matters worse. As Europe minister I patrolled Europe's capitals, and even as concern mounted over the Bush approach, no one questioned Saddam's WMD ambitions. It was, after all, only the presence of 250,000 US and British troops camped on Iraq's borders that allowed Hans Blix and his team into Iraq late in 2002. And even he could not tell the world that Iraq was WMD-free. Hence the Bush-Blair dilemma. Should they keep a Normandy-style invasion force permanently on standby in the region? Or come home, leaving Saddam free to defy the UN resolutions asking him to comply with international law?
Patrick Cockburn's book on Iraq is a joy to read after plodding through Woodward. Less than half the length of Woodward, it distills a quarter of a century's worth of Cockburn's profound knowledge of Iraq and the middle east. Cockburn reports for the Independent, but unlike his more famous confrère, Robert Fisk, he does not go in for intemperate rants, nor does he blame everything on the efforts of the Jewish people to survive in their tiny state of Israel.
Instead, he reports that, "For years, people I knew well enough in Baghdad… were desperate for a normal life free of Saddam and sanctions." He writes that, late in 2002, the majority of Iraqis "wanted an end to the regime even if this involved an American-led attack." He quotes a young architect in Baghdad. "We are even ready to live under international tutelage. We have nothing to lose, and it cannot be worse than our present condition." This is deeply honest reporting from a writer who does not seek wisdom after the event. His book is the most excoriating exposé of the almost unbelievable catalogue of errors the Americans made in the running of Iraq after the fall of Saddam, and is made all the more powerful because he acknowledges that the fall of Saddam was a liberation for the Iraqis.
The Pentagon and Rumsfeld, who demanded full control over Iraq, made every mistake it was possible to make. If war is too important a matter to be left to the generals, than occupation should never be contracted to a defence ministry. Cockburn travelled all over Iraq in the postwar period. He carefully and unsentimentally describes the developing tragedy. The precision and brevity of his prose—which has in each chapter more wisdom and good judgement than all three of Woodward's bloated Washington-obsessed books—contributes to the strength of his indictment.
Cockburn has done international political writing a big service by demonstrating that big is not best. His short book is a model of how to tell a complex story with elegance and yet make powerful points. Woodward will sell more copies. But if Washington wants to do better, it should read Cockburn.
Bob Woodward's third book on the Bush presidency's handling of overseas military intervention since 11th September 2001—a longer period than the second world war—is in the American tradition that all that matters happens in a square mile around the White House. Nothing and no one counts unless it is said and done in English, preferably over dinner in Woodward's Georgetown mansion.
Woodward never leaves the Beltway. Instead he pours into his book almost everything dictated to him by his interviewees. He finds space for junior officers who write haikus about the failure to keep the peace, but he does not appear ever to have been in the middle east, or Europe, or to have talked to any of the politicians who were faced with the terrible decision of how to deal with Saddam Hussein. No foreign source is cited, there is no selection of material, and as minor characters wander in and out of Woodward's chapters, the book at times reads like a transcript of a Waraholics Anonymous session—with everyone beating their breast about how wrong they got things.
Woodward has fallen victim to the great lie of 2006: that there was a big lie in 2002 on weapons of mass destruction. That was not how it appeared to Robin Cook, who as foreign secretary regaled the Commons with horrific tales of Saddam's hidden caches of lethal weapons. That was not how it appeared to every European leader in 2002, who said repeatedly that Saddam and WMD were a major problem. Those who opposed intervention—like Gerhard Schröder, who offered Jacques Chirac a secret deal on the EU common agricultural policy in exchange for French support—did not deny the existence of WMD; they simply argued that a full-scale invasion would make matters worse. As Europe minister I patrolled Europe's capitals, and even as concern mounted over the Bush approach, no one questioned Saddam's WMD ambitions. It was, after all, only the presence of 250,000 US and British troops camped on Iraq's borders that allowed Hans Blix and his team into Iraq late in 2002. And even he could not tell the world that Iraq was WMD-free. Hence the Bush-Blair dilemma. Should they keep a Normandy-style invasion force permanently on standby in the region? Or come home, leaving Saddam free to defy the UN resolutions asking him to comply with international law?
Patrick Cockburn's book on Iraq is a joy to read after plodding through Woodward. Less than half the length of Woodward, it distills a quarter of a century's worth of Cockburn's profound knowledge of Iraq and the middle east. Cockburn reports for the Independent, but unlike his more famous confrère, Robert Fisk, he does not go in for intemperate rants, nor does he blame everything on the efforts of the Jewish people to survive in their tiny state of Israel.
Instead, he reports that, "For years, people I knew well enough in Baghdad… were desperate for a normal life free of Saddam and sanctions." He writes that, late in 2002, the majority of Iraqis "wanted an end to the regime even if this involved an American-led attack." He quotes a young architect in Baghdad. "We are even ready to live under international tutelage. We have nothing to lose, and it cannot be worse than our present condition." This is deeply honest reporting from a writer who does not seek wisdom after the event. His book is the most excoriating exposé of the almost unbelievable catalogue of errors the Americans made in the running of Iraq after the fall of Saddam, and is made all the more powerful because he acknowledges that the fall of Saddam was a liberation for the Iraqis.
The Pentagon and Rumsfeld, who demanded full control over Iraq, made every mistake it was possible to make. If war is too important a matter to be left to the generals, than occupation should never be contracted to a defence ministry. Cockburn travelled all over Iraq in the postwar period. He carefully and unsentimentally describes the developing tragedy. The precision and brevity of his prose—which has in each chapter more wisdom and good judgement than all three of Woodward's bloated Washington-obsessed books—contributes to the strength of his indictment.
Cockburn has done international political writing a big service by demonstrating that big is not best. His short book is a model of how to tell a complex story with elegance and yet make powerful points. Woodward will sell more copies. But if Washington wants to do better, it should read Cockburn.
