The Threatening Storm
The Case for Invading Iraq
Military Intelligence Reading List
| Title: The Threatening Storm | Author: Kenneth M. Pollack | Publisher: Random House | ||
| Date: Sept 2002 | ISBN: 0375509283 | ||
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Book Description: |
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From
the Publisher - In The Threatening
Storm, Kenneth M. Pollack, one of
the world's leading experts on Iraq, provides a masterly insider's
perspective on the crucial issues facing the United States as it moves
toward a new confrontation with Saddam Hussein. For the past fifteen years, as an analyst on Iraq for the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, Kenneth Pollack has studied Saddam as closely as anyone else in the United States. In 1990, he was one of only three CIA analysts to predict the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. As the principal author of the CIA's history of Iraqi military strategy and operations during the Gulf War, Pollack gained rare insight into the methods and workings of what he believes to be the most brutal regime since Stalinist Russia. Examining all sides of the debate and bringing a keen eye to the military and geopolitical forces at work, Pollack ultimately comes to this controversial conclusion: through our own mistakes, the perfidy of others, and Saddam's cunning, the United States is left with few good policy options regarding Iraq. Increasingly, the option that makes the most sense is for the United States to launch a full-scale invasion, eradicate Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, and rebuild Iraq as a prosperous and stable society--for the good of the United States, the Iraqi people, and the entire region. Pollack believed for many years that the United States could prevent Saddam from threatening the stability of the Persian Gulf and the world through containment--a combination of sanctions and limited military operations. Here, Pollack explains why containment is not longer effective, and why other policies intended to deter Saddam ultimately pose a greater risk than confronting him now, before he gains possession of nuclear weapons and returns to his stated goal of dominating the Gulf region. "It is often said that war should be employed only in the last resort," Pollack writes. "I reluctantly believe that in the case of the threat from Iraq, we have come to the last resort." Offering a view of the region that has the authority and force of an intelligence report, Pollack outlines what the leaders of neighboring Arab countries are thinking, what is necessary to gain their support for an invasion, how a successful U.S. operation would be mounted, what the likely costs would be, and how Saddam might react. He examines the state of Iraq today--its economy, its armed forces, its political system, the status of its weapons of mass destruction as best we understand them, and teh terrifying security apparatus that keeps Saddam in power. Pollack also analyzes the last twenty years of relations between the United States and Iraq to explain how the two countries reached the unhappy standoff that currently prevails. Commanding in its insights and full of detailed information about how leaders on both sides will make their decisions, The Threatening Storm is an essential guide to understanding what may be the crucial foreign policy challenge of our time. |
Contents Preface Part I: Iraq
and the United States Part II: Iraq
Today Part III: The
Options Conclusions:
Not Whether, but When
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Book Review: |
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| Reviewer: | Mark I. Vuletic from Phoenix, AZ (Amazon Reviewer) | |
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MAKES THE CASE FOR INVASION!,
February 9, 2003 There are two parts to this book: one historical, and one analytical. The first part gives us the history of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, concentrating especially on the activity of his armies and security forces. The second part examines the strategies currently available to the United States with respect to Iraq: containment, deterrence, covert action, assistance of Iraqi opposition groups with intelligence, logistical, and air support (but no major commitment of US ground troops), and full scale invasion. Pollack explains why deterrence and invasion are the only workable options in the short term, and why invasion turns out to be the only workable option in the long run. |
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| Personalities Referenced: | |||
| Kofi Annan | Yasir Arafat | Masud Barzani | |
| Prince Bandar bin Sultan | Hafiz al Asad | Tariq Aziz | |
| Usama bin Ladin | Tony Blair | George Bush | |
| General Tommy Franks | Qusayy Saddam | Udayy Saddam | |
| Saddam Hussein | Madeleine Albright | Bill Clinton | |
| Units/Organizations Referenced: | |||
| Al Qaeda | Arab Cooperation Council | Arab League | |
| Arab Liberation Front | Ba'th Party | Hizballah | |
| Iraqi Intelligence Service | Kurdish Democratic Party | Mossad | |
| Republican Guard | Patriotic Union of Kurdistan | Organization of the Islamic Conference | |
| Battles Referenced: | |||
| Afghanistan | Iran - Iraq War | Persian Gulf War | |
| Al-Anfal Campaign | Sinai - Suez War | Six - Day War | |
| October War | Iraqi Attack at Arbil | Operation Desert Shield | |
| Operation Desert Storm | Operation Praying Mantis | Operation Desert Fox | |
| Operation Vigilant Warrior | Operation Vigilant Sentinal | Operation Enduring Freedom | |
| Military Concepts Discussed: | |||
| Air Power | Biological Warfare | Chemical Warfare | |
| Covert Action | Terrorism | Special Operations | |
| Related Websites: | |||
| The Iraq Report | Middle East Economic Digest | Council on Foreign Relations | |
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Books Referenced by the Author: |
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| Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy | Sanctioning Saddam | A History of the Arab Peoples | |
| The Ottoman Centuries | A Peace to End All Peace | Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge | |
| Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography | The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq | The Modern History of Iraq | |
| Iraq Since 1958 | The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein | A History of Iraq | |
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And many more.... |
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