Yet despite the best efforts of the Bush administration and the sporadic and fitful efforts of the Clinton administration, Saddam Hussein has remained in power, surviving external attacks, internal dissent, coup attempts, rebellions and diplomatic sanctions. He has exploited loopholes in U.N. economic sanctions and allowed enough smuggling to keep the rich happy. In fact, many of those sanctions have become increasingly ineffectual, to the point where they, especially air travel, are being violated with impunity. Many countries are starting to reinitiate diplomatic relations with Iraq for its oil reserves; and the pro-Saddam propaganda machine works better now than ever before. And despite years of hard work by the U.N. Special Commission (UNSCOM), there is serious doubt as to whether all of the Iraqi capability for manufacturing nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, weapons of mass destruction (WMD), has been destroyed.

In short, Saddam Hussein outlasted President Bush and, in the view of many, has been thumbing his nose at him. Hussein is, in effect, the Energizer Bunny of Middle East despots. He just keeps going and going and going.

Yet given that many of Governor Bush’s advisers, prospective cabinet picks and running mate – for example Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Dick Cheney, former secretary of defense – are the same ones deeply involved in coordinating and planning Desert Storm, many expect that one of Bush’s first foreign policy orders will be settling the Bush family’s unfinished business with Saddam Hussein. Indeed, The New York Times editorialized on December 4 that seeing “Gov. George W. Bush flanked recently at his ranch by two architects of the war effort, Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin Powell, was a piquant reminder that Washington has unfinished business in Iraq.”

Since that goal has been continued by the Clinton administration, due to such congressional initiatives as the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which states, “It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime,” one might think there actually is a greater chance of doing just that. Of course, talking and wanting are easier than achieving and doing. For about 10 years the United States has been trying and dramatically failing to change the Iraqi regime. How do we know this? Because of the book by the brothers Cockburn, which thus far is the single best work on the twists and turns of increasingly ineffectual American attempts to “create the conditions for the removal of Saddam Hussein from power,” as President Bush wrote in a formal finding authorizing the CIA to undertake a covert operation.

The Cockburns are two relatively well-known Irish-born writers. Patrick has been a senior Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times and the London Independent since 1979, and Andrew is the author of several books on defense and international affairs. They are both veteran Middle East journalists. In their book they have done a masterful job of collecting and distilling an enormous amount of information and history into an eminently readable work.

While some of their conclusions are not new – the 1991 post-Desert Storm uprising of southern Shiites and northern Kurds failed at least partly due to American ambivalence, and the economic sanctions have accomplished little – the strength of the book lies in the details they have amassed. To name just a few, these include the attempted assassination of Saddam’s eldest son Uday in December 1996, the intrigue in northern Iraq as the CIA tried to mobilize opposition using the Iraqi National Congress (INC) as an umbrella coordinating group, the infighting between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the betrayal of Saddam by his son-in-law Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel and his subsequent return to Iraq, where he was killed in a ritualistic feud.

These revelations alone are worth the price of the book. But perhaps its greatest strength is in the authors’ ability to put Saddam’s life into historical context. In order to understand how he has managed to survive so many external and internal threats one needs to understand the forces and experiences that have shaped him. As the authors note, Iraq is not a country where getting along comes naturally or easily: “In Iraq, Islam does not unify, it divides.” Sunni Arabs are one-fifth of the population but have always dominated Iraqi governments. Shia Muslims make up over half the population. In the north, the Kurds are another fifth of the population. At the turn of the century, Iraq was not a single political community or people. It was divided into tribal federations and near- autonomous cities, each with its own complex politics. The Iraqi countryside was a violent place where everybody carried firearms. When you add in the history of the control of the Ottoman Turks, the British interventions and attendant revolts, the Faisal monarchy, subsequent coups, countercoups and conspiracies, which the authors ably document, you begin to appreciate how Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti was molded when he came into the world in 1937. It is worth bearing in mind that in 1968, when he was only 31, ten years after he fled Baghad in fear of his life, he helped engineer the two coups, within two weeks of each other, in which the Arab nationalist Baath party, led largely by men from his home district of Tikrit, seized power. As a result, he was the second most powerful man in Iraq. In 1979, just 11 years later, in a bloody Baath party purge, he became president.

Because Iraq is often viewed as a relatively modern and secular state, at least in contrast to its neighbors, it is easy to forget that it is a tribal society. The Cockburns remind us that Saddam has maintained many of its characteristics throughout his life. It is a world of intense loyalties within the clan but cruel and hostile to outsiders. Early on, Saddam learned how to use violence to achieve his personal and political ambitions.

Another interesting section (though now somewhat dated given the myriad of information published by academics and former UNSCOM personnel such as Scott Ritter, Richard Butler and Tim Trevan) concerns Saddam’s search for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and his efforts to conceal them from UNSCOM after Desert Storm. The chapter dealing with the effect of the economic sanctions on the Iraqi population and their total inability to affect Saddam seems almost prescient in light of the recent documentation of their impact on Iraqi civilians and the increasing willingness of other countries to ignore them.

Altogether, this is a solid, well-written, painstakingly researched book that will stand for some years as the one to read when trying to understand Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Bush administration officials who come to office with any thoughts of renewing efforts to get rid of Saddam via covert means or organizing the opposition through such programs as the Iraq Liberation Act should, as their number one order of business, read the Cockburns’ book.