Blood Money
by T. Christian Miller
Published by Little, Brown and Co.
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Reviewed by Lawrence Mc Micking
Blood Money is a dramatic, persuasive and meticulous work. It would be better without the biased innuendos found throughout, such as VP Chaney somehow benefiting through the government contracts with his old company, Haliburton Oil. No proof of this is offered.
According to Miller, the greatest error of the present administration--in its efforts to rebuild Iraq after the invasion--was their theory that the sale of Irag's oil could be used to fund the rebuilding. Unfortunately, oil production has never reached the pre-war level, because of sabotage, the deterioration of the drilling and refining equipment, and the U.N. sanctions.
As a result in this error in planning and others, the U.S. taxpayers are spending billions to rebuild and safeguard the country. He does note that there have been many success stories in Iraq, but dismisses them as not markedly improving the life of the average Iraqi.
After reading the book, there should be no doubt in the reader's mind that things are not going well in Iraq. All types of bungling are documented, from the government's general incompetence, to obvious contract corruption, to falling oil production, to the delivery of unsatisfactory arms and equipment to the Iraqis, to the lack of clean water and 24-hour electricity. The list goes on!
The message of the book is clear: the reconstruction effort was and is a complete fiasco.
Armchair Interviews says: Facts are presently clearly for the reader to make up their own mind.