Includes detailed and edited transcripts of interviews with General Hamdani as well as a summary of insights as interpreted by the interviewers.

From a Western perspective, the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 largely fulfilled the first President Bush's objective: "In, out, do it, do it right, get gone. That's the message." But in the Arab world, the causes and consequences of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and his subsequent defeat by a U.S.-led coalition were never so clear-cut. The potent blend of Islam and Arab nationalism that Saddam forged to justify the unjustifiable—his invasion of a Muslim state—gained remarkable support among both Muslims and Arabs and continued to resonate in the Middle East long after the fighting ended. Indeed, as this study argues in passing, it became a significant strand in the tangled web of ideologies and actions that led to the attacks of 9/11. This landmark book offers the first in-depth investigation of how Saddam Hussein used Islam and Arab nationalism to legitimate his invasion of Kuwait in the eyes of fellow Muslims and Arabs, while delegitimating the actions of the U.S.-led coalition and its Arab members. Jerry M. Long addresses three fundamental issues: how extensively and in what specific ways Iraq appealed to Islam during the Kuwait crisis; how elites, Islamists, and the elusive Arab "street," both in and out of the coalition, responded to that appeal and why they responded as they did; and the longer-term effects that resulted from Saddam's strategy.

It took the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein less that a quarter century to turn the slow march of history in the Middle East upside down. In this short space of time he had twice invaded neighboring countries and cold-bloodedly killed thousands of his own people, let alone those of his enemies, with chemical and biological weapons. Not even concerted action by the forces of more than twenty countries in 'Operation Desert Storm' followed by years of not-always-successful UN-imposed arms inspections, prevented him from developing an arsenal of illegal weapons. Today, just about everybody is vulnerable to fatal airborne infection. For several years, chemical and biological warfare was the first of a two-pronged threat to the Middle East and world peace. The other was Iraq's nuclear program, which Venter covers here in great detail. There is nothing new about these disclosures; a lot of it has been in the public domain for a decade. Indeed, UNSCOM, the United Nations Special Commission (on Iraq) uncovered good evidence that Baghdad had three atom bombs almost built before 1998. All that Saddam needed to arm the devices was fissile material - highly enriched uranium - which, as this book reveals, he was doing his utmost to acquire. The author also touches on some of the other countries now involved in acquiring weapons of mass destruction of their own: among them Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea. The Iraqi War Debrief is not an 'instant' book. As Africa and Middle East correspondent for Jane's International Defense Review for the past quarter century, author Al J. Venter has covered these and related events for decades. For Britain's 'Jane's Information Group' and a host of other publications on both sides of the Atlantic, he has visited most of the countries involved in this gathering storm since first traveling overland from Khartoum to Cairo in 1967. Al J. Venter is the author of twenty books. For several years he contributed to, among others, BBC, NBC News (New York) and Britain's Daily Express and Sunday Express.

Includes detailed and edited transcripts of interviews with General Hamdani as well as a summary of insights as interpreted by the interviewers.

This is the first and only book to provide a moral analysis of the war in Iraq and its implications for the future of the war and peacemaking. The War to Oust Saddam hussein addresses the key questions most people are asking today: What should be the standard for pre-emptive uses of military force? What of the other arguments offered for the need to remove Saddam Hussein and restructure Iraq? What is to be said for the furture of fruitful relations between the cultures of the West and of Islam?

Events in this story of the "Mother of All Battles," as Saddam designated the 1991 war, are drawn from primary Iraqi sources, including government documents, video and audiotapes, maps, and photographs captured by U.S. forces in 2003 from the regime's archives and never intended for outsiders' eyes. The book is part of an official U.S. Joint Forces Command research project to examine contemporary warfare from the point of view of the adversary's archives and senior leader interviews. Its purpose is to stimulate thoughtful analyses of currently accepted lessons of the first Gulf War. While not a comprehensive history, the author's balanced Iraqi perspective of events between 1990 and 1991 takes full advantage of his unique access to material. The result is a completely unknown but fully documented view from the other side.