The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN EDITOR OF BOOKOKLEASURES.COM

Since the war on Iraq, we have been bombarded with all kinds of theories as to its moral and legal rationality. Some of these hot button issues that have been expanded upon in book length books deserve merit with their well thought out arguments and research that supports them, even if you don’t necessarily agree with their authors. Some, however, fall within the category of “schlock” literature, where the author hastily puts together a series of arguments in order to either defend the actions of the United States or to repudiate them. James Bamford’s A Pretext For War probably falls somewhere in between.

When I picked up this book, I had expected to read something fresh and original; however, I was quickly disappointed with the first one third of the book that consisted of a rehashing of several media articles pertaining to the events of 9/11. Was I missing something? I admit a short chapter or two may have been required to have the reader better understand why the USA went to war in the first place, but give me a break, do we really need to have all of this ink to explain the author’s belief that his theory is somewhat novel or unique?

The middle part of the book dealing with Isama bin Laden is not what I would call and eye opener, and from time to time I was not quite certain what Bamford was trying to tell us. Bill Gertz’s How America’s Intelligence Failures Led to September 11th, is only one of the many books, let alone newspaper articles, dealing with the shortcomings of the American intelligence community in their monumental screw up in preventing 9/11. I guess if you had your ears blocked and eyes shut you would be not familiar with these shortcomings and Bamford’s supposedly revelations would come as a great surprise! A better suggestion for anyone who wishes to get a good handle on events leading up to the miscalculations would be to read in its entirety the 9/11 Commission Report or Bill Gertz’s above-mentioned book.

As for the last part of the book, here is where we separate the thinkers from the pseudo intellectuals. Although Bamford has done some research into the subject matter, it would have been nice to see him provide his readers with some well-developed explanations and detail rather than speculations as to why the administration’s reasons for invading Iraq were misguided. Bamford’s contention that Israel was quite content to see the USA go to war with Iraq, I would have to concur. However, which nation would not have been content if the leader of a country was paying suicide bombers to blow up your citizens? Did Israel play a major role in the American decision to go after Saddam Hussein? “I am from Missouri and as the saying goes, I believes it when I sees it!” To presume that the principal reasoning for going to war with Iraq can be traced to the overwhelming concern of Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle pertaining to Israel’s security, as if they were practically on the payroll of the Israelis, is stretching the truth a trifle too far. Did this trio together with Rumsfield plan a war on Iraq prior to 9/11, as Bamford would have us believe? Can we blame them for the manipulation of the various agencies of the intelligence communities in order to justify the war on Iraq? Where is the beef Mr. Bamford or should we presume that you were in on the private conversations between George Bush and Ariel Sharon? If we were flies on the wall when these conversations had taken place, we would be able to come to all kinds of conclusions, otherwise we are merely dealing in speculations.

The mixture of some facts mixed with speculation makes for an interesting read, however in the end too many queries remain unanswered.