THE GREATEST THREAT

An unnerving, first-hand glimpse at how thwarted UN policies failed to disarm dangerous Iraqi weapons.

Butler has been the Australian ambassador, led United Nations efforts for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, and chaired the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) to inspect Iraqi weapons after the Persian Gulf War. While many know that Saddam Hussein played a sucker's shell game with UNSCOM weapons inspectors, readers learn inside information as they relive Butler's high anxieties in the treacherous world of international politics. When the French want to do business with the Iraqi dictatorship, or when the Russian Foreign Minister takes influence bribes, the author faces extraordinary foreign-policy intrigue. Given UNSCOM and Butler's 1991 UN mandate (to render harmless all of Iraq's nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons and long-range missiles before allowing the resumption of international trade), the world's security is clearly at stake. Not only, Butler claims, were the weapons inspections foiled by dirty tricks, the economic sanctions backfired as well. Butler dislikes the Iraqi suffering, and he reports on a nation in disrepair. The hardships induced by trade embargos makes revolution impossible, and it becomes powerful propaganda against Iraq's enemies: Butler faces this in withering confrontations with Tariq Aziz, fresh from his hotel suite by stretch limousine. Meanwhile, with black market exports of oil, the Iraqi military and leadership are awash with money. Instead of sanctions, the author prefers freezing foreign assets as Saddam is the world's sixth richest man. As an expert on pacts like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Butler deems Saddam far more dangerous for signing the treaty but "cheating from within."

Butler writes more like a diplomat than a spy novelist, but his nightmarish scenarios are all too real.