Insider Accounts from Afghanistan and Iraq
The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan**** By Jon Lee Anderson Grove Atlantic Ltd., 2002 Jon Lee Anderson was one of the first American journalists to enter Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of September 11. A foreign correspondent for over 20 years in such countries as Chile, Colombia, Liberia and Iraq, Anderson had spent time in Afghanistan during the Soviet regime in the 1980s. The Lion’s Grave is an excellent compilation of the eight articles he wrote for the New Yorker during his four-month stay in Afghanistan, one of which was previously unpublished. Chapters are interspersed with emails he wrote to his editor at the magazine in New York, as well as correspondence between Anderson, his photographer and a fellow correspondent in Moscow. The emails offer an informal look into the lives of Afghans as well as the daily experiences of Anderson himself, including the nitty gritty logistical problems that arise in a country with intermittent electricity and limited supplies of everything from food to clean water. The official dispatches give a more formal, penetrating account of the lives and thoughts of Afghans during the US bombing campaign and the perilous search for Osama bin Laden in the snowy Tora Bora mountains. Readers are given an intimate description of Afghanistan’s past, present and future. Upon arrival in Dasht-i-Qala, in the Takhar province, Anderson emails his observations of the refugee housing situation: “They live beside crude cemeteries—just mounds of earth decorated with poles and flags—and, here and there, Northern Alliance gun emplacements. There is dust everywhere, and the meandering tracks that serve as roads (less for cars than for donkeys, camels and flocks of sheep and goats) are spongy with dirt that is powder-fine and that billows up in great, blinding spumes whenever a vehicle drives through it.” In late April he comments on the changed streets of Kabul: “There are women on the streets now without burkhas. The city seems cleaner. You see patrols of German and British troops here and there.” Anderson’s informative prose is a pleasure to read. In it he eloquently combines lucid narratives, gives vivid descriptions of people and places, and presents clearly drawn historical facts to give a thorough account of warfare, power and the struggle of a people with more than 5,000 years of history. His perspicacity in capturing the “real” story in an honest, detached manner is a change from more biased interpretations of the American bombing campaign—Anderson writes it as it is, and readers will be all the wiser for it. War On Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know *** By Scott Ritter and William Rivers Pitt Profile Books Ltd., 2002 Former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq, Scott Ritter has frequently been seen and heard in the news as a staunch opponent of the imminent war on Iraq. Himself a Republican who voted for Bush, Ritter vigorously contests the reasoning used by the White House to justify going to war. This short, 73-page interview with William Rivers Pitt starts with a condensed history of 20th-century Iraq and goes on to review the Bush administration’s premises for war and why these arguments do not vindicate such drastic action. Ritter handles each point in a concise, informative, step-by-step manner. As an insider, he provides a thorough analysis of the US-imposed sanctions on Iraq, the futile notion of “regime-change,” Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities, America’s past involvement and interference with Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, the moral and ethical reasons not to attack Iraq and the consequences of waging or not waging war. In addition, possible solutions to the dilemma are proposed, and top government officials, the Biden hearings and Ritter’s recent run-ins with the FBI and the CIA are discussed. Questions range from the general (“Does Iraq have weapons of mass destruction?”) to the specific (“What would be the immediate human cost of a war in Iraq?” and “Do we have the ability to detect if Iraq attempts to reacquire equipment necessary to make chemical weapons?”). Ritter explains clearly, from first-hand knowledge, how it is impossible for Iraq to have weapons of mass destruction, and gives reasons why America’s military campaign has a good chance of failing anyway on account of too many built-in assumptions, such as that the Iraqi population will rise up against Saddam and that the Iraqi army will refuse to fight. He outlines Saddam Hussein’s rise to power, explains that, for all intents and purposes, he is America’s “Frankenstein’s monster” and he traces the US government’s support of Saddam’s regime during the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War to their active arming of Iraq during Reagan’s presidency. War on Iraq, packed with valuable, eye-opening information, is a quick yet engaging read. The arguments are clearly stated and well thought out, delivered by a person who spent seven years in Iraq conducting weapons inspections and who therefore knows first-hand how pronounced a threat Iraq actually is. It is a must for all Americans, and certainly all politicians and politically involved persons. A pricey book, granted, but unless you want to surf the Web and piece together various interviews with Ritter yourself, you’d be best advised to fork out the dough. What you read will be well worth it.