[I wrote this book review in 2003.  Saddam Hussein was executed in 2006. The worsening of the situation in Iraq after that and the present ISIS violence show that this book is still relevant and readable. Hence, I am posting the review here.]

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The End of Saddam Hussein: History through the Eyes of the Victims.
Prem Shankar Jha
222 pp. New Delhi: Rupa.
Rs. 295.  ISBN:81-291-0362-1

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The 21^st century is not even a decade old and it has already witnessed three events that have stirred our world. Its first year saw the 9/11 attacks, the second, saw the consequent retaliation in Afghanistan and the third has witnessed the Second Gulf War. Of these three, the recently concluded Second Gulf War is the event of supreme significance and is undoubtedly, going to leave the most profound impact on subsequent course of history.

Throughout the US-led campaign to oust Saddam Hussein, which had been on a high particularly in last year and a half, the Iraqi perspective was seldom presented. The world listened in awe to the relentless pounding of propaganda by the US and its allies, but Iraq’s voice either remained unheard or was deliberately suppressed. Now that the dust setting, we finally have a book that fills the ‘gaps’ in the story to make it complete. Prem Shankar Jha’s book ‘The End of Saddam Hussein: History through the Eyes of the Victims’ is a brilliant attempt – and a successful one- to present the other side of the coin. It is always the Victors who have written history. To present the perspective of the losing side has always been a challenge for impartial historians. However, Prem Shankar Jha, – a former UN civil servant and an eminent political analyst has done remarkably well to meet this challenge. The whole burden of blame for Iraq’s destruction has been laid on Saddam’s shoulders, but this book tells us a completely different story. It shows us how Iraq’s downfall was brought about by three crucial factors: Iraq’s large oil reserves, the hypocrisy of successive American administrators and the cunning role which Israel played from behind the certain. This downfall was quickened by the sudden rise of mass media which first criticized the US stand on Iraq and later became a mouthpiece of the US and its allies.

The author begins by giving us an account of Iraq’s birth and the subsequent turmoil in the country. A nation of ethnic diversity, Iraq had long been known for violent politics and totalitarian regimes. Jha narrates dexterously, how Iraq became ‘A Pawn in the Cold War’ and how the US used young Saddam to topple the regime of General Abdel Karim Al Kassem which finally brought Saddam to the helm of affairs in Iraq. A detailed discussion of the Iran-Iraq War and the close strategic co-operation extended to Iraq by the US during this war, brings out how US used Saddam’s Iraq as a weapon against Iran. Devastated with this war and entangled in a deep economic crisis, Iraq attacked Kuwait in frustration and this ended the US-Iraq honeymoon and culminated in the First Gulf War. In the following decade, there was an increasing paranoia in the US about Iraq and its Weapons of Mass Destruction. The US dilemma on the Iraq issue was visible throughout ‘The Clinton Years’ which led the US to a clever manipulation UN to keep the sanctions on Iraq always in place. This dilemma ended when the power finally shifted to the neo-conservatives under George W. Bush. They were for military action against Iraq and 9/11 served as an impetus for this. What followed then was a systematic, but relentless pounding of false propaganda, crafting of fake evidences and finally the use of brute military power. The UN was reduced to a helpless spectator watching solemnly, its charter being crushed under Boots.

This is the story that Jha unfolds before us leaving no stone unturned to unveil the truth. Though he presents the Iraqi perspective, he is no partisan, and maintains the objectivity of an impartial historian whose business is, to bring truth to surface. He draws upon history as also upon various official documents released by the US, UK and Iraqi governments, intelligence reports, reports in electronic and print media, UN documents etc., to fill the ‘gaps’ between unfolding of the events to bring before our eyes, the real story. All in all, he tells us with concrete evidences, illumination the dark side of picture with his insightful commentary, as to how Iraq’s destruction was a planned enterprise guided by naked self-interest and neocolonial desires. Mass media was also used as a tool to ‘manufacture consent’ for the destruction of a nation which had been home to one of the oldest civilizations in the world.

Painstakingly written, this book is indeed, a commendable effort because the loser’s perspective has rarely been put forth in history. Iraq is now a burning nation…. dangerously unstable. Its story, as Jha tells us concluding his preface, is indeed-“not a pretty story”.