TERRORIST by Steven A. Emerson and...

TERRORIST by Steven A. Emerson and Cristina Del Sesto (Villard: $5.95). Emerson and Del Sesto don’t quite deliver the sensational “inside story of the highest-ranking Iraqi terrorist ever to defect to the West” promised on the gaudy cover. The man they refer to as Adnan Awad was never a dedicated saboteur or political activist but rather a corrupt entrepreneur who blundered into the orbit of one Abu Ibrahim, whom he describes as the quasi-official head of terrorism in Iraq. Recruited against his will to plant a bomb at the Noga Hilton in Geneva in 1982, Awad turned himself over to the Swiss and American authorities. The authors use his story to launch a lengthy diatribe against the Reagan Administration’s policy of supporting Saddam Hussein, despite Awad’s testimony that the Iraqi government was supporting terrorist attacks on civilian targets. “Terrorist” is a difficult book to assess because the authors are so coy about documenting their claims. They don’t give Awad’s real name, citing the need to protect family members who remain in Iraq, but they state it was published throughout Europe and the Middle East during the trial of Mohammed Rashid in 1990. They accept every statement Awad makes, although he is obviously venal and might not be the most credible witness. Emerson and Del Sesto fail to substantiate some of Awad’s key assertions, including Ibrahim’s alleged link to the Iraqi government, nor do they include sources, a bibliography or even an index. This lack of documentation reduces a potentially significant critique of U.S. foreign policy to a potboiler that reads like a bad Robert Ludlum novel.