_________________________________________________________
Editorial Reviews
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.
From Booklist
As the subtitle suggests, Mylroie claims the CIA and the U.S. State Department (among other bureaucracies) systematically discredited vital intelligence about the threat of violence from Iraq and, in particular, about Saddam Hussein's own intentions. It seems, on the surface, an unusual claim, but the author, who advised Bill Clinton on Iraq during his 1992 presidential campaign, marshals a lot of persuasive evidence. She demonstrates how important proof of danger from Iraq was dismissed by the... 
read more
Book Description
As the postwar debate continues, a leading expert reveals the obstacles that stood between the United States and the fall of Saddam Hussein -- many of them within the U.S. government itself Laurie Mylroie's previous books, the number one New York Times bestseller Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf (coauthored with Judith Miller) and The War Against America, were influential in building the case against Iraq. Now Mylroie reveals the story behind the buildup to Operation Iraqi Freedom -- a story known to few outside of Washington.
Combining important new research with an insider's grasp of Beltway politics, Mylroie describes how the CIA and the State Department have systematically discredited critical intelligence about Saddam's regime, including indisputable evidence of its possession of weapons of mass destruction. She reveals how major elements of the case against Iraq -- including information about possible links to al Qaeda and evidence of potential Iraqi involvement in the fall 2001 anthrax attacks -- were prematurely dismissed by these agencies for cynical reasons. Mylroie traces how the very idea of state-sponsored terrorism was pronounced dead after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, giving states like Iraq an open ing to underwrite terrorism without being detected. And she demonstrates that the war with Iraq was not only justifiable -- but the necessary and moral course of action.
Bush vs. the Beltway also includes an authoritative essay by Professor Robert F. Turner of the University of Virginia School of Law, who makes the case that -- based on not only standing U.N. resolutions but the totality of circumstances surrounding Saddam's regime -- the war was justified on both legal and moral grounds. As the world enters a new era in international relations, one in which the new realities of terror mingle deceptively with eternal truths about war, intelligence, tyranny, and evil, Bush vs. the Beltway offers sobering lessons in the realities of twenty-first-century conflict.