Customer Reviews:
 Thought provoking June 27, 2008
Vincent Wooll
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Vince Bugliosi's book is a passionate argument for why GWB should be prosecuted for the crime of murder. It's articulate, intelligent and based firmly on the facts and if you've had any doubts that calls for his prosecution are just sour grapes, this book will remove them.
Read it and weep for the hundreds of thousands of lives destroyed. Maybe, after GWB's brought to task for what he's done, we'll be able to prosecute Blair too.
Coherent Truth from a Masterful Legal Mind May 25, 2008
David Pabian (Los Angeles, CA USA)
7 out of 9 found this review helpful
I had seen a pre-published version of this book and will now be buying it, as anyone with a sense of morality, ethics or patriotism MUST support its message, its conclusion and its brave author. I have all of Bugliosi's books, as he's one of the very few non-cowards writing in America today. He makes his case here, and to any rational mind (as opposed to the majority of the U.S. decision makers who pander to the marketplace of uninformed emotionalism), his conclusion is the only one possible or permissible in any civilized society -- which we in the U.S.A. (I don't say America, as Canada and the south Americas are generally more informed than we are on political matters), are every day becoming less qualified to call ourselves. This is an amazing book, full of unemotional wisdom, truth and common sense, and cannot be ignored by anyone interested in or passionate about the U.S. government.
 Fascinating but flawed July 16, 2008
John Joss (Los Altos, CA USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Though of American origin, this book deserves readership in the UK because of this country's involvement in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.
Bugliosi's primal scream of rage and grief, documented with lawyerly precision, deserves attention for the revelations he assembles and documents. Whether a nation or a world in an already fragile and fragmented state could tolerate the divisive effects of his proposal is another matter, and this is perhaps why the mainstream media have ignored the book and failed to review it. The blue/red division in America is already unpleasant enough without the trial he proposes. Sensible men and women on both sides of the political aisle, indeed in most civilized nations, have already assessed George W. Bush, and the world will not (as Bush has claimed) have to wait for history to judge him for what he is. He has made himself known clearly and unequivocally by his actions and his pronouncements.
Beyond the imperfect nature of intelligence gathering and analysis underlying the entire matter of terrorism and the war in Iraq, Bugliosi has woven a credible tapestry of the deliberate lies and consistent incompetence on the part of key individuals named in the book that have cost America dearly in many ways and will do so for decades. He describes, in context, the infamouse Whitehall memorandum that clearly indicts Blair as a co-conspirator with Bush. Bugliosi's description, alone, of the outsourced (yes!) search for Osama Bin Laden and the failure to close on the known, identified and located source of 9/11, vs. the Iraq digression, is chillingly effective.
Despite its power and passion, and the orderly and systematic way in which the author presents his evidence and arguments, the book rants where it should speak with cold logic and comes from the pen of a man with limited literary skills. If only the author and his editors (if any) had clarified some of the convoluted language and had confined themselves to investigative reporting, which would have carried the case prima facie. Bugliosi's repeated over-the-top polemics and hyperbole belong on Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, not in print. Or do today's audiences pay attention only when screamed at?
Three significant omissions would have strengthened Bugliosi's arguments. The first: referring to the nonexistent yellowcake (crudely processed uranium ore) `purchase' from Niger, used as a pretext for war, the author does not explain that even if Hussein had purchased yellowcake it would not have brought him close to a nuclear (or `nucular') weapon. Having yellowcake and building a weapon are poles apart. It would be like having a barrel of oil and thinking that this would enable one to create a car industry. A nuclear weapon is one of the most difficult and complex devices on earth to design and build. Why was this question not asked nor answered? It is equally true of Iran today, though Iran is clearly advanced in refining uranium via centrifuges.
The second: a deliverable weapon able to be carried by an aicraft or mounted in a missile warhead is even harder. How could Hussein have been a credible threat, as the administrations on both sides of the Atlantic claimed, when he had neither long-range missiles nor long-range aircraft to deliver WMD of any kind. He could harm his Middle East neighbors, including Israel, at some future time, but hardly the United States or the UK, yet all the Iraq war buildup falsely claimed this `imminent threat.' The same goes for Iran. So is Israel the forcing factor?
The third: the failure to consider an exit strategy, not to mention the sorry state of readiness vs. the IED war that should have been predicted and has cost an estimated 70% of British and American casualties. Almost a century ago, Lord Clive and T.E. Lawrence, discussing Iraq, recommended not trying to impose order on a region that has for millennia been riven with tribal, ethnic, religious, geographic and other strife that has made it one of the most turbulent and ungovernable on earth. Didn't anyone consider history?
Bugliosi has posed a fascinating scenario. What now?
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