Secret Dossier: The Hidden Agenda Behind The Gulf War
This secret history of the diplomacy leading up to the war does not diverge radically from the known history and it is suspect in one respect: it quotes verbatim from hundreds of conversations and meetings at which the authors were not present with notebooks and tape recorders. But they have the policies and personalities right and they present a good deal of material from interviews and documents not previously published. Newsy, dramatic and crisply written in Hemingway style, the book makes good reading if not the last word as history.
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During Richard Nixon's first term, when I served as secretary of defense, we withdrew most U.S. forces from Vietnam while building up the South's ability to defend itself. The result was a success -- until Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding for our ally in 1975. Washington should follow a similar strategy now, but this time finish the job properly.
Two postmortems on the Iraq occupation lambaste Washington for handling the job poorly. But doing much better would be so difficult that perhaps the bar should be raised for going to war in the first place.
The best strategy for the United States now in Iraq is disengagement. In a reversal of the usual sequence, the U.S. hand will be strengthened by withdrawal, and Washington might actually be able to lay the groundwork for a reasonably stable Iraq. Why? Because geography ensures that all other parties are far more exposed to the dangers of an anarchical Iraq than is the United States itself.
