This sounds like a helluva book - Pretext For War

[Jane Austin]

A This is from a book review by Steve Weinberg in the San Jose Mercury Times on Sun, Jun. 13, 2004

It's titled What went wrong?

As the claims and counterclaims about Sept. 11 and its aftermath continue to resound, close your eyes for a moment and dream about a book that would pull together the strands, making sense of the cataclysmic occurrence, doing so with on-the-record sources in clear, compelling prose.

Imagine that book of your dreams would open with a section called ``Destruction'': 90 pages showing how civilian and military leaders reacted poorly to the strikes against the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. Next would appear a section called ``Detection'' (though it might be more accurate to call it ``Lack of Detection''), 160 pages explaining in lay terms, without oversimplification, the signals missed by the so-called ``intelligence agencies'' of the U.S. government. Finally, the book would close with 150 pages demonstrating how President George W. Bush used the Sept. 11 attacks to mislead the world's populace about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction before invading Iraq.

The book of your dreams is now available.

<snip>

James Bamford, one of the most talented but unsung investigative reporters of the past 25 years, has accomplished the difficult. ``A Pretext for War'' not only contains significant new information, but it also combines that information with previously known material to make better sense of Sept. 11, its lead-up and aftermath than any other book I have read.