Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq: The Experts Speak

Even if you have no interest in the War in Iraq, you owe it to yourself to read this book. Here the inmates, in their own words, reveal the the extent and depth of their delusions. Never right, yet never uncertain, they happily lead the country into a disastrous war with nothing but their vivid imaginations to back them up. The justifications change, but not the need, first to go, and then to remain. No news discourages them. No facts upset them. They are right and they know it. In a sense the press bears ultimate responsibility for allowing this madness to go on unchallenged year after year. As the authors make clear, the next six months will be critical in determining the outcome of this adventure (after all, the experts have been saying that for years...). I wonder what else the inmates have been up to?

what a sad book. It shows how gullible people are. no memory of history in their own lifetime.

The Institute of Expertology has done it again! This timely book is clever, informative and highly entertaining, in spite of the subject matter. Cerf & Navasky have managed to capture every single absurd word uttered by this highly quotable group of "experts" running our nation and influencing our people. With the election right around the corner, buy a copy for yourself and get one for a friend. Let the words of the so called "experts" remind you that it's time for a change!

If I wasn't laughing so hard, I would be crying.

As our burgeoning economic woes overshadow the war in Iraq in the minds of prospective voters, the imperial hubris that has been the mainstay of the Bush administration's rhetoric seems to get less airplay these days. Even though people continue to die, the cable networks apparently feel that their viewers have grown tired of the war. That's why there is great value in picking up this piercing collection of direct quotes from the so-called experts on the Iraqi conflict by Christopher Cerf and Columbia professor Victor Navasky, satirists who pose as co-founders of the Institute of Expertology, the nation's leading purveyor of expertise on expertise. The breadth of the public statements presented here is astonishing in their deceit, ignorance and utterly blind ambition.

All the classic assertions are included here starting with George W. Bush's claim of success that provides the book's title. Donald Rumsfeld chimed in with recycled catchphrases like "Stuff happens" and "Freedom is untidy". Convinced that the Iraqis would greet U.S. soldiers as liberators, Dick Cheney confidently proclaimed that "The streets of Baghdad are sure to erupt with joy". Even though he expresses regret now, policy analyst Kenneth Adelman originally stated that he felt the war would be a "walk in the park", while political pundit Bill O'Reilly echoed similar feelings of invalid self-assurance ("Military action will not last more than a week"). More evasive statements have an insidious sense of gloom, such as Condoleezza Rice's declaration that "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud", or former White House speechwriter David Frum's covert remark that "This 'rush to war' should really be seen as the ultimate 'rush to peace'".

Reading all these together provide a strong reminder of the power of the propaganda machine at work with the current administration. The co-authors make note of the gradual shift occurring in placing more of the blame now on Iran for helping the al-Qaeda. There is a pervasive sense of black comedy over the entire tome, not surprisingly given the co-authors' previous collaboration, 1984's The Experts Speak : The Definitive Compendium of Authoritative Misinformation. Intriguingly, Cerf, the son of Random House publishing co-founder and "What's My Line?" panelist Bennett Cerf, wrote many of the early sing-along tunes on Sesame Street and produced Marlo Thomas' classic 1974 children's program, Free to Be You and Me.

It's truly a joy to see all these utterly depressing quotes gathered in one place for easy reference...