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The War on Truth

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The War on Truth
AuthorNeil Mackay
LanguageEnglish
Genrenon-fiction
Published30 October 2006
PublisherSunday Herald Books
ISBN978-1904684152

The War on Truth is a 2006 book that investigates the circumstances of the British involvement in the Iraq War, written by Herald journalist Neil Mackay.[1]

The book's subtitle is Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Invasion of Iraq but Your Government Wouldn't Tell You.[2]

Summary

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The book investigates the circumstances that led to the war in Iraq, the war itself and its aftermath.[1] It focusses on disinformation from the British government and questions the existence of democracy in the UK.[1]

The Chapter: How the Lies were Told focusses on Operation Rockingham, which is described as a government effort to cherry pick data that would support the government's villainous characterization of Saddam Hussein, his ownership of weapons of mass destruction, and the justification for the war.[2] The book reports that United Nations staff in Iraq constantly fed information to Operation Rockingham.[2] The operation ignored vast quantities of data about the weaknesses of Iraqi troops, Iraqi compliance with international rules, and instead only presented information that justified the British government's pro-war stance.[2] The cherry-picking approach was described to have been undertaken at the direction of the British government and led to the production of the infamous "Dodgy Dossier".[2] Mackay credits Michael Meacher for his critique of Operation Rockingham[2] and documents how the events damaged the reputation of Tony Blair.[3]

The book also documents how the British government manipulated the press by planting poorly-substantiated stories in overseas newspapers, then encouraging UK press to report on the foreign reporting.[2]

The book describes how Republican American efforts to push for the war made a military intervention a foregone conclusion.[4]

Research

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Neil Mackay was supported by Scott Ritter in the production of the book.[2]

Critical reception

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The book drew substantive praise from Ken Coates in his book Surging for Oil.[2] Coats calls the book "splendid" several times and celebrates that Mackay has combined his years of reporting into a "highly lethal single volume".[2]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c [citation needed]
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Coates, Ken (2007). Surging for Oil (PDF). pp. 79–81. ISBN 978-0851247434.
  3. ^ Nineham, C. (2013). Making the news: the media and the movement against the Iraq war (doctoral thesis). University of Westminster. p115
  4. ^ Hamm, B. (2015), "The end of democracy as we knew it", Foresight, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 161–193. doi:10.1108/FS-04-2014-0024