Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq by Alan Friedman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Have you ever seen that now infamous picture from the early 1980's of Donald Rumsfeld shaking Saddam Hussein's hand during a visit to Baghdad? As Alan Friedman so deftly shows, that meeting was just the beginning of an ill-fated embrace of the Iraqi dictator that would ultimately cost the United States dearly. Friedman details the political and commercial deals that would help Saddam expand his nuclear, biological, chemical, and ballistic missile capabilities--a deadly arsenal that America and a coalition of nations would have to destroy at great cost. A classic cautionary tale about the price and consequences of America sacrificing its principles for the sake of short term political expediency.



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