The reckoning:Iraq and the legacy of Saddam Hussein

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Mackey Sandra, 1937-
Published: Norton,
Publisher Address: New York
Publication Dates: c2002.
Literature type: Book
Language: English
Subjects:
Carrier Form: 415 p.: ill., maps ; 25 cm.
ISBN: 0393051412
Index Number: D737
CLC: D737.72
K377.53
Call Number: D737.72/M157
Contents: Includes bibliographical references (p. 397-401) and index.
The reckoning is an account of the forces--historical, religious, ethnic, and political--that produced Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. Iraq was forged after World War I from the Mesopotamian region of the collapsed Ottoman Empire, and its people have never had a national identity or a sense of a common purpose. Hussein, ruling by terror, pitted the various ethnic groups, religious interests, and tribes against one another, and in so doing achieved the destruction of Iraq's middle class and civilized society. After he goes, the country could be the site of conflict even more vicious than the Balkan wars.