Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein

Indispensable to anyone who wants to understand the Iraq crisis, the Cockburns' riveting report on Saddam Hussein's murderous regime and U.S.-backed attempts to overthrow it in the wake of the Gulf War is packed with revelations. The book is especially timely, given the recent U.S. announcement that it is going to step up covert operations aimed at ousting Saddam. Illuminating previous attempts to topple Saddam, the authors give readers thorough accounts of various failures, including the half-hearted American support of Kurdish and Shiite opposition groups immediately after the war and a botched 1996 CIA operation that the Cockburns liken to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. The Cockburns maintain that the U.S.-led sanctions policy is a big mistake, making the Iraqi people pay the price--malnutrition, soaring child mortality, deepening poverty--for an evil dictator whom the masses despise. The U.S., they conclude, can do little to oust Saddam, while the best course is to wait for Iraqis to take matters into their own hands--as the authors believe they inevitably will. The Cockburns are seasoned reporters (Andrew, author of One Point Safe with Leslie Cockburn, coproduced a 1991 PBS documentary on Iraq; Patrick, author of Getting Russia Wrong, is Middle East correspondent for the London Independent). In the process of explaining how Saddam clings to power, the authors also shed light on the history of the tyrant and his ruling clique, internal Iraqi politics and the evolution and transformation of American policy. (Mar.)