Which book to read?

House of Bush, House of Saud, Craig Unger
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
The Bush administration is in the dock for allegedly ignoring the threat of Islamic radicalism before Sept. 11 and then retaliating in the wrong place, Iraq. That is the complaint of Richard A. Clarke, who resigned in disgust as coordinator of counter-terrorism for the administration in February 2003, and of former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

Craig Unger repeats the charge and suggests an explanation. He says that President George W. Bush's circle and the ruling family of Saudi Arabia are way too close. Business deals with Saudis and friendship with the formidable Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, blinded Bush father and son to the deadly threat of Islamic radicalism in Saudi Arabia. Iraq is at best a "dangerous and costly diversion," he says, and at worst a trap. "Never before," Unger concludes, "has an American president been so closely tied to a foreign power that harbors and supports our country's mortal enemies."

Allowing for investigative hyperbole, that's quite an indictment of the Bushes and such political and business associates as former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and Vice President Cheney. The U.S.-Saudi alliance has survived against the odds since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ibn Saud. In return for American protection from Israel and Arab radicals, the Sauds pursued an expansionary oil policy and opened their markets to U.S. business. But with one ally espousing missionary Islam and the other democracy, the relationship had to be discreet. Deep divisions over Israel were swept under the carpet. Desert Shield in 1991 and the attacks of Sept. 11 a decade later applied intolerable stresses: A Western army invaded the sanctuary of Islam, and 15 of the airline hijackers were Saudis. Discreet alliance has given way to mutual suspicion, of which Unger's book is an American symptom.

Unger tells a story well and has a flair for describing the affinities (horses, aviation) between rich Saudis and rich Americans. As he portrays it, the Saudis were drawn to Texas as another oil-rich province. Khalid bin Mahfouz, the leading Saudi banker later implicated in the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), helped finance the Houston skyscraper built for James Baker's family bank in 1982. A Saudi investor bailed out Harken Energy, George W. Bush's less than stellar oil company.

Saudis, led by Prince Bandar, donated millions of dollars to Bush family charities. Mahfouzes and bin Ladens bought into the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm that counted George Bush Sr. and James Baker as paid-up advisers in the 1990s. For Unger, all this is evidence at the least of a "strategy the Saudis had of investing in U.S. companies that were connected to powerful politicians." Unger claims that Saudi interests have paid not less than $1.477 billion to persons and entities in the Bush circle. Yet the largest portion, $819 million, involved contract payments to Vinnell Corp. of Fairfax, Va., which has been training the Saudi National Guard on behalf of the U.S. military since the early 1970s and was owned by Carlyle only for a period in the 1990s. Halliburton companies received contracts to develop oil fields and built process plants in Saudi Arabia long before Dick Cheney was the corporation's chief executive.

Unger's best pages tell how, in the days of panic and recrimination after Sept. 11, Prince Bandar managed to spirit prominent members of the Saud and bin Laden families out of the United States on chartered aircraft. Beginning on Sept. 13, when private aviation was still restricted, some 140 Saudis, including about two dozen of the bin Ladens, were flown to Europe. "Didn't it make sense," asks Unger rhetorically, "to at least interview Osama bin Laden 's relatives?"
Yet Unger's charge that Prince Ahmed bin Salman, who was evacuated from the racehorse sales at Lexington, Ky., was a bin Laden agent in the Saudi royal family is based on double hearsay. By invading Iraq, George W. Bush may have done a great service to Islamic radicalism, but the Sauds opposed the invasion as folly and are not to blame. In reality, the Sauds misread bin Ladenism as comprehensively as the United States. Because bin Laden appealed to the same fierce sectarian impulses that brought the Al Saud themselves to power, senior princes and high-ranking commoners thought they could exploit him for the Arab cause. When that failed, they tried to wish the Islamic radicals out of existence or buy them off.

According to well-informed people in Saudi Arabia, everything changed on May 12, 2003, when near-simultaneous attacks on three residential compounds in Riyadh killed 34 people, including nine Americans. The militants had declared war on the House of Saud. Since that day, Prince Naif, the Saudi interior minister, has stopped denying the existence of an Islamic opposition. The Saudi security forces have been pursuing Islamic militants with a vigor that has impressed some American observers. If this is a change of Saudi heart, it doesn't square with Unger's argument, and he ignores it. --Reviewed by James Buchan

The Choice, Zbigniew Brzezinski
Brzezinski, President Carter's national security adviser and the author of The Grand Chessboard, has written a perceptive overview of the disorienting new strategic challenges America faces. Though couched in the sober, nuanced language of policymaking, the book amounts to a point-by-point rebuttal of the Bush doctrine. Brzezinski criticizes what he casts as the administration's rejection of a binding alliance system in favor of ad hoc coalitions, its advocacy of preemptive war, and its refusal to address terrorism's root causes. The underlying problem, says Brzezinski, is turmoil in the "Greater Balkans," the largely Muslim southern rim of central Eurasia. While not ruling out unilateral action by America, Brzezinski believes the ultimate solution to the region's problems involves the slow expansion of the trans-Atlantic zone of prosperity and cooperative institutions. Al-Qaeda's brand of Islamic fundamentalism is in decline, he says, but "Islamist populism," its more pragmatic relation, could cause localized instability. To promote a modernizing impulse in the Muslim world, Brzezinski recommends engagement with Iran, peacemaking in the Middle East and Kashmir, and a regional nuclear nonproliferation pact. In his survey of other security threats, Brzezinski says that as China's economy grows and Japan drifts toward remilitarization, America should help build an equivalent to NATO for the Pacific. Brzezinski warns that globalization's reputation as disruptive, undemocratic and unfair could provoke a virulent anti-American ideology. To avoid becoming a "garrison state," America must establish a "co-optive hegemony," leading a "global community of shared interests." This book makes an exemplary argument for the proposition that idealistic internationalism is "the common-sense dictate of hard-nosed realism." - From Publishers Weekly

Disarming Iraq, Hans Blix
Blix reluctantly came out of retirement in 2000 to lead the U.N. weapons inspections team in Iraq because he was the only man everyone could agree on for the job. Three years later, those clamoring for military intervention grumbled at his inability (or, as they saw it, refusal) to present evidence of weapons of mass destruction, but he reminds readers that his assignment was to assess and report on the available evidence. Although his instincts told him Saddam was probably "still engaged in prohibited activities and retained prohibited items," as he dryly puts it, hard evidence never materialized. This play-by-play account of the months of diplomacy and inspection efforts leading up to the war is almost always strictly professional in tone, and though it does take us behind closed doors for meetings with world leaders, nothing here will radically transform the historical record or the ongoing debate. Blix doesn't have any scores to settle; while noting that Condoleezza Rice was never bashful about expressing her opinion, for example, he notes that she never tried to exert undue influence over him. He even laughs off some of the sharpest barbs from the conservative press (though not the New York Post's unflattering comparison to Mister Magoo). When he does, near the end, shift emphasis from facts to opinions, he suggests the American-led drive to war was led at least in part by "a deficit of critical thinking," and that the much-ballyhooed WMD threat probably doesn't existâ€"but he doesn't lament Hussein's overthrow. His sober account probably won't sway hardline critics, but it offers insightful perspective on how the Iraq situation snowballed into a geopolitical crisis. - From Publishers Weekly

Hegemony of Survival, Noam Chomsky
In this highly readable, heavily footnoted critique of American foreign policy from the late 1950s to the present, Chomsky (whose 9-11 was a bestseller last year) argues that current U.S. policies in Afghanistan and Iraq are not a specific response to September 11, but simply the continuation of a consistent half-century of foreign policy-an "imperial grand strategy"-in which the United States has attempted to "maintain its hegemony through the threat or use of military force." Such an analysis is bound to be met with skepticism or antagonism in post-September 11 America, but Chomsky builds his arguments carefully, substantiates claims with appropriate documentation and answers expected counterclaims. Chomsky is also deeply critical of inconsistency in making the charge of "terrorism." Using the official U.S. legal code definition of terrorism, he argues that it is an exact description of U.S. foreign policy (especially regarding Cuba, Central America, Vietnam and much of the Middle East), although the term is rarely used in this way in the U.S. media, he notes, even when the World Court in 1986 condemned Washington for "unlawful use of force" ("international terrorism, in lay terms" Chomsky argues) in Nicaragua. Claiming that the U.S. is a rogue nation in its foreign policies and its "contempt for international law," Chomsky brings together many themes he has mined in the past, making this cogent and provocative book an important addition to an ongoing public discussion about U.S. policy.

Thirty Days (about Tony Blair), Peter Stothard
Tony Blair was America's closest ally in the war against Saddam Hussein. It was a powerful yet precarious position for the British Prime Minister, as he fought for his own future in backing George W. Bush and sending Britain's forces into Iraq. In this gripping day-by-day chronicle, Peter Stothard takes us behind the scenes as no one has before to reveal a unique portrait of a political leader under fire at the center of the world stage.
Over a period of four weeks in March and April of 2003, Tony Blair risked his status as the United Kingdom's most successful Labour Prime Minister for the chance of an unknowable place in history. Before Britain could help the United States, Blair faced a battle against his own voters, his own party, and his own allies in Europe. These were among the most tense and tumultuous weeks the world had seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall. In thirty days, Blair took on his opponents and won.

Through it all, Peter Stothard had unprecedented access to Blair, from Ten Downing Street and the House of Commons through the war summits in the Azores, Brussels, Belfast, and Camp David. No writer has ever been so close to a world head of state for so long at such a critical moment. Stothard brings us inside the corridors of power during this extraordinary time, offering a vivid, up-close view of an enormously popular leader facingthe challenge of his life. How Blair spent those thirty days, how he fought for his own future as well as his vision of the civilized world, how he changed, and why he survived are at the heart of this riveting inside account.

Price of Loyalty, Paul O'Neill
The George W. Bush White House, as described by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, is a world out of kilter. Policy decisions are determined not by careful weighing of an issue's complexities; rather, they're dictated by a cabal of ideologues and political advisors operating outside the view of top cabinet officials. The President is not a fully engaged administrator but an enigma who is, at best, guarded and poker-faced but at worst, uncurious, unintelligent, and a puppet of larger forces. O'Neill provided extensive documentation to journalist and author Suskind, including schedules with 7,630 entries and a set of 19,000 documents that featured memoranda to the President, thank-you notes, meeting minutes, and voluminous reports. The result, The Price of Loyalty, is a gripping look inside the meeting rooms, the in-boxes, and the minds of a famously guarded administration. Much of the book, as one might expect from the story of a Treasury Secretary, revolves around economics, but even those not normally enthused by tax code intricacies will be fascinated by the rapid-fire intellects of O'Neill and Fed chairman Alan Greenspan as they gather for regular power breakfasts. A good deal of the book is about the things that O'Neill never figures out. He knows there's something creepy going on with the administration's power structure, but he's never inside enough to know quite what it is. But while those sections are intriguing, other passages are simply revelatory: O'Neill asserts that Saddam Hussein was targeted for removal not in the 9/11 aftermath but soon after Bush took office. Paul O'Neill makes for an interesting protagonist. A vaunted economist from the days of Nixon and Ford, he returns to a Washington that's immeasurably more cutthroat. And while he appears almost naïvely academic initially, he emerges as someone determined to speak his mind even when it becomes apparent that such an approach spells his political doom. --John Moe

Why America Slept, Gerald Posner
As a detailed, carefully documented exposé of ignorance, complacency, shortsightedness and negligence, WHY AMERICA SLEPT is perhaps the most important of the recent books addressing various aspects of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

A similar case could be made for James Bovard's TERRORISM AND TYRANNY, which examines not causes but effects, specifically the government's response to 9/11, which has consisted largely of an unprecedented assault on the Bill of Rights, especially in the areas of privacy and due process. It is a vastly important book that every American ought to read.

Gerald Posner's concern, however, is with life-and-death issues, primarily the question of why the intelligence community failed to discover the al-Qaeda plot to hijack civilian airliners and crash them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Although Posner's approach is generally detached and restrained, he has conceded that he was "infuriated" by some of his discoveries and "disgusted" in particular by President Clinton's failure to neutralize the threat posed by the al-Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden. Posner provides details of opportunities to capture bin Laden, opportunities that he says Clinton either ignored or rejected. Moreover, he says, Clinton declined offers by both Sudan and Qatar to arrest bin Laden and deliver him to the United States. Perhaps for purposes of comic relief, Posner also quotes Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, as saying that as early as 1996 the administration was "trying to get bin Laden with everything we had."

In this carnival of boneheadedness and floundering incompetence, Posner recounts one outrage after another. Among the worst, in terms of consequences, was the unwillingness of the FBI and CIA to cooperate and share information. Each had information of vital importance to the other, but the rules of their long-standing rivalry prohibited mature behavior. An FBI agent who asked the CIA for information about Zacarias Moussaoui received an official reprimand for doing so. Moussaoui was one of those aviation students who wanted to learn how to steer large airliners but had no interest in learning how to take off or land. The FBI agent was Coleen Rowley, one of the very few figures in this bleak history who behaved intelligently and honorably.

WHY AMERICA SLEPT is filled with evidentiary specifics that attest to the thoroughness of Posner's research, and one suspects that this former Wall Street lawyer might have been happier as a prosecutor. But having turned to investigative reporting --- he is now the author or co-author of ten books --- Posner apparently finds sufficient satisfaction in fulfilling the imperative of the people's right to know, and in this book, most decisively, the people's need to know.

He has pinpointed individual anomalies and systemic weaknesses that made America vulnerable to attack. This much and no more lies within the bounds of investigative reporting; readers have a shared responsibility to press for the necessary corrections to the problems he has identified.

--- Reviewed by Harold V. Cordry

Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke
From Publishers Weekly
From the first thrilling chapter, which takes readers into the White House center of operations on September 11, through his final negative assessment of George W. Bush’s post-9/11 war on terror, Clarke, the U.S.’s former terrorism czar, offers a complex and illuminating look into the successes and failures of the nation’s security apparatus. He offers charged (and, one must note, for himself triumphant) insider scenes, such as when he scared the devil out of Clinton’s Cabinet to motivate them to fight terrorism. The media has understandably focused on Clarke’s charge that Bush neglected terrorism before the attacks on New York and Washington; but Clarke also offers a longer perspective on the issue, going back to the first Gulf War (when he was an assistant secretary of state) and makes some stunning revelations. One of the latter is that the U.S. came close to war with Iran over that country’s role in the terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. An important aspect of Clarke’s book is that it is only one man’s account—and an account moreover that casts its author as hero and others (FBI, CIA, the military) as screw-ups; as has been seen in recent congressional hearings, administration officials (notably, Condoleezza Rice) have challenged its veracity. But those inclined to believe Clarke will find that he makes a devastating case about the Bush administration’s failure from the beginning (when Clarke’s position was downgraded and he was taken off the top-level Principals Committee) to make terrorism as high a priority as Clinton’s did. In the face of the Bush team’s claim that they didn’t know about a threat to the homeland, readers will be haunted by two small words: after mobilizing to confront the Millennium terror threat, Clarke reached what seemed to him the obvious conclusion regarding al-Qaeda: "They’re here."

The Rise of the Vulcans, Mann and Mann
The New York Times
… lucid, shrewd and, after so many high-decibel screeds from both the right and left, blessedly level-headed. It is necessary reading for anyone interested in understanding the back story of how and why America came to deal with the rest of the world the way it is doing under the Bush administration. — Michiko Kakutani

The Washington Post
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again," Ronald Reagan liked to say, quoting Thomas Paine. But the efforts of the Vulcans to create a new world order today, Mann persuasively argues, are at heart not new at all. They are an effort to repeal the inhibitions and restrictions that have constrained American power in the last 30 years and to revive an earlier moment when the unapologetic and unbridled pursuit of global primacy was a widely accepted national goal. — Alan Brinkley