22 December 2006
	MORE BOOKS Hot type By Richard Steyn

Washington Post defence correspondent Thomas E Ricks's Fiasco (Allen Lane/Penguin, R200) is a searing indictment of the American military venture in Iraq. Ricks has interviewed dozens of key figures in the armed forces, most of whom are scathing about the lack of planning for the invasion's aftermath and the misguided tactics used to fight the insurgency. Eyewitness accounts of the mayhem in Baghdad and surrounds make nonsense of the optimistic assessments put out periodically by the authorities and lay bare the plight of the ordinary GI, hopelessly unprepared to fight counterinsurgency in a strange land, where the inhabitants have become increasingly hostile. Ricks regards George W Bush's decision to invade Iraq as one of the most reckless in US history and puts the blame squarely on its protagonists in the Pentagon, notably Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld, who knew little about Iraq and were not going to let any awkward facts interfere with their preconceptions. As to where Iraq goes from here, Ricks outlines a number of possible scenarios, none of which provides any comfort for the White House. While the chances of democracy undercutting the insurgency become slimmer by the day, other possibilities become more likely: prolonged military containment by US forces, a civil war that leads to the break-up of the country into three constituent parts, or even a regional war between Shia and Sunni which drags in Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and deepens anti-American sentiment across the Middle East. Any of these outcomes, it goes without saying, will offer inspiration to a new generation of jihadist terrorists, intent on settling a score with the West. Instant history, at its most compelling. The inspirational memoir of a Kenyan environmentalist and Nobel laureate, Wangari Maathai's Unbowed (Random House, R205) is about how, against all odds, this woman born of peasant stock in a rural Kenyan village became the first female in the country to study for a PhD. Encountering tribalism and sexism whenever she tried to put her abilities and education to good use, she stood up bravely to an authoritarian and repressive government - often at risk to life and limb. When thwarted by obstacles, she merely channelled her energies elsewhere. In 2004, she received the Nobel peace prize - the world's most celebrated award - for her work with the Green Belt Movement. She was the first African woman to receive it. Though this story of her life is the stuff of which movies are made, it addresses the reader on several levels. It speaks not only to the failures of colonialism, the corruption, cruelty and ultimate failure of one-party states in Africa and the plundering of the natural resources of the world's poorest continent, but also to the human condition around the globe. Maathai's Green Belt Movement has evolved from a huge tree-planting exercise to reclaim indigenous forests, into a campaign for basic human rights and democracy. Now a member of parliament and assistant minister for the environment & natural resources in Kenya, Maathai is a shining example of what one humble yet determined individual can achieve against even the greatest odds.