Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror - Hardcover

Mylroie, Laurie

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9780060580124: Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060580127 ISBN 13: 9780060580124

Publisher: William Morrow, 2003

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As the dust settles over Baghdad, a leading expert on Iraq tells the story of the obstacles that stood between the US and the fall of Saddam – and reveals that many of them came from within the US Government itself.

Combining groundbreaking new research with an insider's understanding of the workings of Washington, Mylroie describes how forces within the CIA and the State Department have conspired to ly discredit crucial intelligence about Saddam Hussein's regime, from his links to al Qaeda to his development of chemical, biological, and nuclear weaponry. She charges the bureaucrats within these agencies with cynical, self–serving behaviour, designed to help them save face even at the expense of our national security. She describes how major elements of the case against Iraq––from new information about the al–Qaeda terrorists' possible links to Iraq, to potential Iraq involvement in the fall 2001 anthrax attacks––were suppressed or prematurely dismissed by these agencies.

She reveals how the very idea of state–sponsored terrorism had been pronounced dead after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing––thereby giving states like Iraq the perfect cover to carry out well–orchestrated terrorist acts without ever being detected.

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About the Author:

Laurie Mylroie is the co-author, with New York Times journalist Judith Miller, of Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf, a #1 New York Times Bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A well-known expert on terrorism and Iraqi affairs, she has written articles for the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Newsweek, and many other publications. She lives in Washington, D.C.

From Publishers Weekly:

American Enterprise Institute adjunct fellow Mylroie (coauthor, with Judith Miller, of Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf) here contends that the CIA and State Department, motivated by bureaucratic self-interest and a wrong-headed theory of terrorism that focuses on independent terrorist networks rather than terrorist states, have obstructed the investigation into the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime. Fortunately, President Bush is "an actual hero" who pushed ahead with the invasion of Iraq despite the intelligence bureaucrats' efforts to undermine him with nay-saying leaks. Mylroie's thesis hinges on her demonstration of a compelling case pointing to Saddam's possession of weapons of mass destruction and sponsorship of Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, this mainly amounts to a rehash of the Bush Administration rationale for war that has generated so much skepticism. What new information she does offer is usually a matter of suppositions, probabilities and "suggestive leads." Particularly weak is her attempt to link Saddam to the 2001 anthrax attacks, which rests on a few cryptic Iraqi media statements and a process of elimination. As for the failure to find any WMDs in Iraq, she can only speculate that they were hidden, sent abroad or "destroyed in a final, cunning act of revenge." Ostensibly an expose of intelligence failures in the war on terrorism, the book itself offers mostly murky intelligence.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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