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

by Dilip Hiro

Book Overview

The Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, masterminded by U.S. President George W. Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, is the single most important event since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Just as that break-up ushered in a new era in international relations following the end of a bipolar world system, this war has given a new twist to the present global order. Secrets and Lies tells in detail how Operation Iraqi Freedom came about, what...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560255560
• ISBN13: 9781560255567
• Release Date: December 2003
• Publisher: Bold Type Books
• Length: 496 Pages
• Weight: 1.68 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

The best book on the topic

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.

Essential reading - one year on

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.

A Fabulous Masterpiece!

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! :)

WOW! One of the most surprising books of the year

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.

Prescient, Incisive, Expert Analysis

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.