Saddam

Needs updating and better research:
Someone must be suffering from cold feet. The Iraqi army has dissolved and disintegrated and regrouped into small widely separated divisions, up to now incapable of organized performances, least of all policing Baghdad. The world ridiculed the idea that Saddam had amassed weapons of mass destruction (now ironically referred to as `had the potential capability of possessing WMD' - you see! the legend `potential' was simply added to give an evasive answer to the question `why has the UN decided to remove Saddam?' Now we listen to bits and pieces of a so-called `Saddam's court martial', where Saddam has been exhausting the court but never exhausted, engaging everyone in heated arguments, until the judge was on the verge of losing his temper. Indeed he lost it and dismissed Saddam. Saddam won the day!!!! It was a great personal victory for Saddam. Of course no one has any means of knowing who's really speaking the truth. The coalition forces believed they had at last a revealing insight into the state of Saddam's mind after his dishonourable capture, but the way the ex-president is treated in court leaves a lot to be desired. Many responsible officials after Saddam were about to commiserate on their heavy responsibilities despite the support they have been getting from the `strongest power on this planet' I saw the look of dismay in the eyes of those who read this prematurely written book; perhaps the author thought that Saddam would be a dead corpse by the time this epistle had been published. Who knows! And Iraq, in the absence of as strong a government, is still in terrible predicament. The battle for Saddam Hussein is virtually beginning. To many laypersons in the Arab world, the `story' does not seem to be finishing soon, and the author will have to revisit the last four years brimful with additional important material for his readers.

Excellent Biography Of Saddam:
Some reviewers are judging this book based on their personal opinions about the Iraq War. But this book was originally written in 2002 and the Iraq War is only briefly discussed in a short epilogue. Of course, the situation there is even worse today, though Coughlin does mention the difficulties that lie ahead. The fact is that this book is that not a political treatise. But is instead a well written biography that begins with Saddam's birth around 70 years ago in a small, poverty stricken village near Tikrit. He experienced what was apparently a horrific childhood with an abusive step-father. Around age 10 he was sent off to live with his Nazi sympathizer uncle, Tulfah Khairallah. As a young adult Saddam began to rise through the Baath Party ranks, considered an effective thug and hitman who was willing to do the party's "dirty work" against potential enemies. Eventually Saddam's ruthless brutality enabled him to become the dictator of Iraq. Of course, from there his atrocities only grew worse, including the gassing of the Kurds and over a million left dead during his bloody 8 year war against Iran. Meanwhile the United States, the Soviet Union, France and Germany all supported Iraq with military supplies and assistance during this time, apparently considering him the "lesser of two evils" compared to Iran. Coughlin does an excellent job in presenting the psychological and cultural background that produced Saddam. Still it remains hard to fathom the type of mentality that could lead someone to order the horrific number of murders and torture cases that occurred during his reign. Saddam was a vicious tyrant. But this book also presents a realistically bleak portrait of Iraq's political environment that offers no easy solutions for a better future without him. I think Bush and the neo-cons were incredibly naive going into this war believing that they could turn Iraq into a Western style democracy. As a result the situation there is a disaster. But regardless of your political opinions on the war, this is an excellent biography of Saddam that will increase the knowledge of anyone that reads it.

Dont waste your time:
I would have givin this book a 0 star but that option wasnt availabe.This author really needs to do his research all over again.For instace on page 7 he talks about the "7 pillars of islam"when actually there only is 5 PILLARs in Islam.This might not seem like a big deal but througout this book you find little lies here and there.And by the time you finish the book it turns into one big lie.The author mentions that Saddam gassed his people but FAILS to mention that it was our government of the USA that supplied it to him.He protrays Bush and his administration as heros bet he feels dumb now after we found no WMDs and that we screwed the whole nation up.For some truth read "forbidden truth".And also read the PNAC doctrine.Dont waste your time with this book.

Mostly very good book that makes Saddam out to be the murderer he is:
I love the way Saddam's dreaded Anfal Campaign where he murdered over 100,000 Iraqi Kurds in just one year in the 1980's is given depth by the author. As for why the US did not stop Saddam during this time; well the Cold War with the Soviet Union was still going on at this time and the US was still slightly paarlyzed by the pacifist movement of 1970. Back to this book it would be 5 stars without the homosexual reference Coughlin put in.

A "hands on " Stalin/Hitler -- Saddam himself did some of the dirty work (killing):
A good detailed account of how Saddam used brutal stalinist methods to take control of Iraq. His control of Iraq was so complete that it took a strong outside force to bring him down.