Iraq : A Report from the Inside

George W. Bush could succeed where Osama bin Laden failed in provoking a clash of civilisations between Islam and the West by launching a "pre-emptive" attack on Iraq. This is one of the disturbing conclusions to "Iraq: A Report from the Inside", a wide-ranging and thought provoking book by Middle East expert Dilip Hiro. Hiro looks beyond the spin of the Bush administration and Saddam's Baathist regime to explore Iraq in all its complexity - from the daily life of its people to its turbulent history and complex regional relations. Dilip Hiro provides an objective account of the performance of the UN inspectors and emphasises the importance of the Gulf War of 1991 and the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, and the duplicitous role of the United States, revealing how a toxic combination of US oil interests and Bush administration hawks are fuelling the drive to invade Iraq.