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Tired of books that explain "what America screwed up in Iraq" but still feel compelled to read up on the subject? Here's a slightly more promising twist on the subject: a biography of one of the key figures involved in building the "Iraq WMD" case. Investigative reporter Aram Roston has a new book on Ahmad Chalabi, called The Man Who Pushed America to War, offering details on the convicted felon who was able to convince Washington leaders to go to war with Iraq.
The book's major contention is that Chalabi knew he was feeding bad intel to the Americans, a point that Chalabi and his supporters certainly deny.In response to the book, Chalabi told MSNBC: “The INC never provided information to the U.S. that the INC knew or suspected to be false. None of my top advisors, current or former, said to Mr. Roston that they knew that key defectors were giving information to the US, which was, in some cases, untrue or embellished.”
In the book Roston asks: "So who was he really? A corrupt businessman or a somewhat deluded visionary? A brilliant con man or perhaps, as some still see him, a persecuted genius?" I'm not sure that question is ever fully answered, but perhaps that's the point. At its heart, the book is less a biography about Chalabi, and more about the fallibility of U.S. politicians and journalists who eagerly bought into his agenda.
