Overview

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.

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Al J. Venter is a specialist military writer and has had 50 books published. He started his career with Geneva's Interavia Group, then owners of International Defence Review, to cover military developments in the Middle East and Africa. Venter has been writing on these and related issues such as guerrilla warfare, insurgency, the Middle East and conflict in general for half a century. He was involved with Jane's Information Group for more than 30 years and was a stringer for the BBC, NBC News (New York) as well as London's _Daily Express_ and _Sunday Express_. He branched into television work in the early 1980s and produced more than 100 documentaries, many of which were internationally flighted. His one-hour film, _Africa's Killing Fields_ (on the Ugandan civil war), was shown nationwide in the United States on the PBS network. Other films include an hour-long programme on the fifth anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as well as _AIDS: The African Connection_, nominated for China's Pink Magnolia Award. His last major book was _Portugal's Guerrilla Wars in Africa_, nominated in 2013 for New York's Arthur Goodzeit military history book award. It has gone into three editions, including translation into Portuguese.

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