cover image THE FIVE BIGGEST LIES BUSH TOLD US ABOUT IRAQ

THE FIVE BIGGEST LIES BUSH TOLD US ABOUT IRAQ

Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer, Lakshmi Chaudry, . . Seven Stories/Akashic, $9.95 (128pp) ISBN 978-1-58322-644-5

Setting out to prove that "every major assertion that our government put forward to justify the conquest of Iraq has proved false," this broadside (more akin to a long article than a short book) reviews the evidence (or lack thereof) for linking Iraq to al-Qaida and 9/11, and reveals what the authors say is the inflation of Iraq's weapons capabilities and the erroneous assumptions about how long the war would take. Even sympathetic liberals may find the description of "the losing end of a long war of attrition" to be overstating the case. The concise account by veteran journalist Robert Scheer, his son and Chaudhry, editors of AlterNet.org, deftly incorporates dozens of other media sources, including very recent materials like Gerald Posner's Why America Slept. (Dec. 1)