A book review from The Movie Snob.

William Shawcross, Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe, and the War in Iraq (Perseus 2004). This short book (234 pp.) presents the case in favor of the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003. The author bases his argument predominately on Iraq's noncompliance with a series of U.N. resolutions dating back to the end of the first Gulf War. According to Shawcross, even America's opponents on the U.N. Security Council never denied that Saddam was in violation of those resolutions; they simply refused to agree that those resolutions should be enforced by war. Against those who argue that other means of pressure should have been employed, Shawcross argues (1) that the sanctions regime that lasted some 12 years showed no signs of bringing Saddam into compliance with the resolutions, (2) that the U.N. inspections regime completely fell apart in the face of Saddam's obstinacy, and (3) that the U.N.'s failure to enforce its resolutions was bringing the U.N. itself into disrepute. He acknowledges that intelligence regarding WMD was apparently faulty, but reminds the reader that no one possessed any information to the contrary (or France, Germany, et al., certainly would have deployed it), and that, according to the last round of U.N. inspections, 6500 chemical bombs and material sufficient to create 5000 liters of anthrax were not accounted for. And he provides some useful reminders of the brutal, Stalinist quality of Saddam's regime. Not a bad brief for those who believe the war was both just and prudent.