Rating: 
Summary: Hope, Help, Hooray!
Review: Just when I thought it was time to move to another country here is a book that reminds me what it means to be American. I am so proud to be an American! I am ashamed of our present regime, and I am disgusted by our media--except for this book which proves the media is not completely rotten. Read this book and buy it for all the friends in your life who are dismissive of your peaceful ways. This is a short book they have time to read and it will change their minds. My contractor--a "sportsman for Bush and Cheney--read it and is now against the war. Need I say more?
Rating: 
Summary: This is a book?
Review: The first thing that stands out with this book is the price-per-content ratio (Very High). It's a small paperback, with large typeface. It's interview format, so add more whitespace between the "Q" and "A". This "book" should be an *article* in some actual book.As is predictable, lefties will love the book because it agrees with them; righties will hate it. I don't believe there's enough actual depth here to make a neutral reader very satisfied. It's two guys that agree with each other, having a conversation. I wouldn't characterize Ritter as "leftist", though Pitt's introduction surely is a leftist screed... but it's a very small part of, again, a very small "book". (Somehow Pitt thinks that Saddam is a "creation" of George W Bush...one of the weird bits of rhetoric that he doesn't bother to explain.) The bulk of the book isn't all that informative, but it does give an interesting window into some snippy in-fighting that apparently takes place behind the scenes in endeavors like UNSCOM inspections . Ritter often "refutes" assertions other people who were involved in inspections by alleging this or that personal motivation that caused them to misrepresent. Some people do the same against Ritter. In the final analysis, it sheds little light on the topic. There are little bits of information here and there, but you could easily get them online or in mainstream news magazines. ...
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, informed, and important
Review: Is there a better way to address the situation in Iraq than war? This 96-page book, mostly an interview with Scott Ritter, argues well for alternatives to war. Ritter is an ex-Marine who was a key UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He urges focusing on getting inspectors back in Iraq for disarmament, rather than for ousting Saddam Hussein, an extremely counterproductive goal. To get the inspectors back in, Iraq needs to be reassured that inspection won't again be abused to provoke military action or collect intelligence on Saddam Hussein. (Pages 71-2) Ritter warns that there's a good chance that a military campaign could fail, because it has "so many built-in assumptions: a) the Iraqi army won't fight b) the Iraqi population will rise up, and c) once we demonstrate our seriousness about removing Saddam, the international community will rally around us." (Page 62)Ritter makes other important statements I hope will be considered, along with his supporting explanations. For example,1. "... Since 1998, Iraq has been fundamentally disarmed." (Page 28).2. The proposed war on Iraq "is truly becoming the clash of cultures Osama bin Laden wanted." (Page 64)
Rating:
Summary: What the Bush Team doesn't want you to know.
Review: I couldn't think of a better title for this book. The resident wants to send hundreds of thousands of young people to die just to fulfill a family vendetta. This book debunks the lies spewed forth from the administration regarding Iraq, WMD's, and the reason the UNSCOM Weapons Inspectors left Iraq in 1998. A definite must read!
Rating: 
Summary: The moderate Republican case against war
Review: This book reviews a number of serious problems with the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq. Its chief claims are that U.N. weapons inspections worked effectively after 1991 to neutralize Saddam Hussein's potential threat to his neighbors and that inspections can continue to do so. (No serious analyst claims that Saddam threatens the United States homeland.) The claim by some amazon.com reviewers that the book is "socialist," "leftist," or "liberal" is ludicrous (as is the implication that the book would automatically be wrong if it actually were coming from any of these perspectives). Ritter is one of a group of moderate Republicans who believe that there are better ways of dealing with Iraq than by invading it. Some hardline, Cheney-Wolfowitz thinking does occasionally slip into the analysis. At one point, for example, Ritter opines, "We really don't want democracy in Iraq [and Ritter makes it plain that he is part of this "we"], because we don't want the Shi'a [i.e., the majority of Iraq's population] to have control. . . . And the truth is that we don't want the Kurds to have independence anymore than the Turks do. . . . The United States has no interest in democratically empowering that 23% of the population" (pp. 59-60). (Actually, Cheney and Wolfowitz would only admit this in private.) Still, this book is a good primer on the type of mess an invasion of Iraq will create for ordinary Iraqis, the region, and ourselves.
Rating:
Summary: I sent this to my Congressman
Review: I found this book to be a clear, concise, and reasoned counterpoint to the overwhelming amount of disinformation we get from our politicians and press. William Rivers Pitt is an excellent essayist - I've read quite a bit of his work over the last couple years - and Scott Ritter is a hardcore patriot who served his country with honor and integrity. As a veteran myself, I've had nothing but respect and admiration for Mr. Ritter, a man who cares deeply about America and the Constitution. When the Clinton administration abused the access Ritter's UNSCOM inspection team had by placing spies on the team, he spoke out against the President and Madeline Albright after operation Desert Fox - and became a darling of the right wing. Now that Ritter is speaking truth to the propaganda of the Bush administration, he is villified by the same people who once hailed him. I would equate this book to Tom Paine's "Common Sense", and I sent a copy to my congressman because he seems willing to invest himself in the rhetoric of George W. Bush. If you're interested in the facts regarding international law, the capabilities of Saddam's military, and the reality of our history with Iraq, then buy this book and share it with others. If you don't want to be confused by facts, then by all means keep watching TV...
Rating:
Summary: WOW! Short and sweet, gives us the facts
Review: A very concise and easy to read summary of what is going on in Iraq. The interview with UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter is a real eye-opener. The book is priced inexpensively enough to get extra copies to pass around to friends who are concerned about this issue. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Not a book, it's an interview.
Review: This book is an interview not unlike the numerous television interviews that Scott Ritter has made in recent weeks. What Ritter never explains throughly is why he changed his mind from his own 1998 new Republic editorial and Congressional hearings where he claimed Saddam Hussein was a "real and meaningful threat." Ritter also claimed that "Once effective inspection regimes have been terminated," he testified, "Iraq will be able to reconstitute the entirety of its former nuclear, chemical, and ballistic missile delivery system capabilities within a period of six months". Ritter went on to say "Even today, Iraq is not nearly disarmed," he declared. "Based on highly credible intelligence, UNSCOM suspects that Iraq still has biological agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, and clostridium perfringens in sufficient quantity to fill several dozen bombs and ballistic missile warheads, as well as the means to continue manufacturing these deadly agents. Iraq probably retains several tons of the highly toxic VX substance, as well as sarin nerve gas and mustard gas. These agents are stored in artillery shells, bombs, and ballistic missile warheads. And Iraq retains significant dual-use industrial infrastructure that can be used to rapidly reconstitute large-scale chemical weapons production." And Tony Blair's recent Dossier on Iraq disclosed that UNSCOM and Iraq itself admiited that any weapons not found during the inspections are likely still deadly, contradicting Ritter's current claims that any leftover weapons would have decomposed. "When confronted with questions about the unaccounted stocks, Iraq has claimed repeatedly that if it had retained any chemical agents from before the Gulf War they would have deteriorated sufficiently to render them harmless. But Iraq has admitted to UNSCOM to having the knowledge and capability to add stabilizer to nerve agent and other chemical warfare agents which would prevent such decomposition. In 1997 UNSCOM also examined some munitions which had been filled with mustard gas prior to 1991 and found that they remained very toxic with little sign of deterioration." In the end, Ritter offer nothing new except political opinions based not on facts, but some other agenda which remains a mystery to Scott Ritter followers today.
Rating:
Summary: BUY THIS BOOK!
Review: Buy this book. It tells the truth about what Bush is planning and time is short to stop this ill-planned adventure in the Middle East. Ritter is a conservative Republican but he was on the ground in Iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction for seven years and he is outraged by the neo-conservatives' lies to the American public about the administration's plans for controlling the region. It's a little book but it may stop a BIG war. Buy it, get your friends to buy it and pass it on. It may be our only chance.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book about what's going on
Review: There's not much to say other than BUY THIS BOOK and then GIVE IT TO SOMEONE anyone YOU KNOW (or don't know). Having read this, I am horrified by what the Bush administration is proposing. William Rivers Pitt and Ritter set this out pretty clearly, and it's not a pretty picture. The book is not, however, shock journalism, and it's not biased liberalism either. I wondered about Ritter, because he's been attacked as a traitor--this sets that accusation to rest and also outlines precisely, and in great technical detail, what Iraq can do--and it's not much unless you count a Republican coup during the November elections. Whatever happened to Team Bush's problems here in the good old USA? This war has a lot to do with that, but not as much as you might think. It's a complicated situation, and here is a very concise book that unravels it. And just to let you know how much I mean what I say here: I'm writing this review after having come back to buy more for my colleagues at work.
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