Readers seek information in pro- and anti-war books

NEW YORK -- When a customer enters the Politics & Prose bookstore and wants to learn more about Iraq, store owner Carla Cohen has a number of suggestions.\nDavid Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace," a general history of the Middle East. "Republic of Fear," Kanan Makiya's analysis of contemporary Iraq. Bernard Lewis' "The Middle East: A Brief of History of the Last 2,000 Years."\n"I just lay out all the materials for them and let the customer decide," said Cohen, a leading independent bookseller whose store is based in Washington, D.C.\nReaders at Politics & Prose and elsewhere are also buying Kenneth Pollack's "The Threatening Storm," which calls for Saddam Hussein's overthrow. Others have sought out such anti-war books as "War on Iraq" featuring an interview with former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter.\n"The Threatening Storm," which has 105,000 copies in print, is considered highly credible because Pollack is a former intelligence official who served under both Democratic and Republican presidents. As a CIA analyst during the administration of George Bush, he predicted Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.\nThe title of Pollack's book refers to Winston Churchill's multivolume memoir, "The Gathering Storm," in which the British statesman chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany.\nPollack writes a detailed history of Saddam Hussein's rise to power, his human rights abuses and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, and concludes that overthrowing Saddam is the best solution -- the sooner the better.\nAnother anti-war book, Milan Rai's "War Plan Iraq," lists 10 reasons for not attacking. Norman Solomon's "Target Iraq" criticizes the media as biased in favor of government and corporate officials.