Saddaming It

We have, very casually, written about 6,000 words or so of World War 1990: Saddam's War. Were this our primary project we'd be thinking about hitting 20,000 by the end of the month.

So here's what we have so far. A lot of meetings. We've expressed concern over the meeting issue before, and even tried to cut down on those in World War 1990: Castro's Folly. We later received complaints that readers didn't quite know what was going on without that birds eye view. It's clear you people do like tense cabinet meetings. Still, in the back of our mind we worry that there's some plumber or electrician reading one of our books over lunch and thinking, 'You professional types would think a bloody lot of meetings were interesting; bloody tossers.

So we have a meeting where Iraqis discuss ongoing events in Iraq, we have a Pentagon meeting where Wolfowitz and the Neocons talk about how to get into the Persian Gulf, a White House meeting where Colin Powell asks a reluctant President Bush to sign off on deployment plans. We also have a couple of scenes where people watch the news. Riveting.

We worry that a Will Stroock book is formulaic. Set up, lots of meetings, deployments, and then...Bam! Stuff 'splodes. But as we've noted before, Neil Gaiman declared that when someone reads the thing of yours they really liked they want to read another thing of yours just like it. So here goes nothing*. 

Idea, just to make things a little different, why not a blockbuster closing where the Israelis take out Arafat? We did this in Israel Strikes: Ware of the Red Sea, actually. Na, that should be in the opener and helps convince Saddam, if the Jews, then Saddam.

*Lando

World War 1990: Saddam's War

We read up on the Iran-Iraq War everyday and tool around with World War 1990: Saddam's War at our leisure. Two scenes are written and we'd like to get everything ship-shape before moving on. As we research and ponder we get ideas. This novel will probably open with an Israeli commando raid on a high value PLO target, probably Arafat*. Anyone know where PLO headquarters was in 1991? No way Arafat would be in Beirut. At one point PLO HQ was in Tunis. This will be our opening blockbuster.

Saddam will be beating the war drums for Saudi Arabia. This will give him the excuse he needs to move a lot of divisions south. We're thinking the Republican Guard of six divisions will handle the invasion of Khuzestan, with several indy brigades assigned occupation and logistics duty. There will also be a special bridging brigade commanded by a foreign military contractor. There are lots of rivers to cross in Khuzestan.

But before lighting off the war with Iran, Saddam will launch multiple chemical weapons attacks on the Kurds, making the international community believe that the Saudi thing was a distraction and the Kurds were the real target. The do-gooders will rage  impotently from New York to Geneva. Then Saddam will attack Iran.

From there we'll have political tumult as Washington debates intervention. A task force of three carriers and a Marine division will gather in the Gulf while President Bush sends the 101st and 82nd to Saudi Arabia. A couple of National Guard divisions still in Europe are rerouted to Saudi Arabia. The Neocons will be asking allies for help. Might Britain send the 7th Armoured Brigade? What about he Australians, couldn't they send an armoured brigade? By the middle of the book, President Bush will have to order American troops into battle again, or accept Saddam's dominance in the Persian Gulf.

What will he do?

*Died of AIDS

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 11/22/20

We've been doing lots of research for World War 1990: Saddam's War. We've got two good books, one on the Iran-Iraq War, one about Iraq at the time. We have a third book about Saddam's Iraq, but  it's academic gobbledygook. There's a fourth book on the war, and we'll be saving it for a refresher. Finding a book about the Iraqi side during Desert Storm would be useful.

Saddam's Iraq was like a communist state, but with oil revenues bringing up everyone's standard of living. Saddam's Ba'atthism was Pan-Arab Socialism, and he sought to unite the Arab world under his leadership. Saddam had big plans.

Remember that during the events of Castro's Folly, Saddam invades Kuwait and the West can't do anything about it. In Saddam's War he attacks Iran to seize the Shat al Arab and oil rich Khuzestan. There's a furious row in Washington over the new Iran-Iraq war and the carriers are dispatched. We'll see.

It is entirely possible that by the year 2000 Saddam controls Kuwait, Khuzestan and is the undisputed leader of the Arab World. Saudi Arabia has either gone along with the new order or Saddam has taken their oilfields as well. That might be a step too far for the US, but we'll be extremely war weary and neo-isolationist.

In this world there's no peace-process. Heck, if Saddam is taking advantage of all the World War Three chaos, why not Israel? Maybe the Israeli's settle scores with Arafat and clear out Lebanon. Maybe that's what they decide to do during Saddam's War? Hmmmmm. By 1992 we may assume that Yitzak Rabin is the PM, but is he PM in 2000? Arial Sharon, the greatest Jew since Charlton Heston? Netanyahu? Sharon as PM with Bibi as his foreign minister? The two hated each other's guts in real life. This would be a great opportunity to slam the Quisling Shimon Peres, that alone could make this novel worth while.

A colossal war with Israel could be interesting and in the offing.

Saddam's War, the First Volley

And so, for the first time in...a while, we weren't board at night. With the Stroocklettes put to bed, last night at about 9:15 we hobbled down to the kitchen, sat down in front of the computer and began World War 1990: Saddam's War. We had a nice, easy hour which produced 749 words. This was a good start. 

Saddam's War begins with a trio of Israeli military intel types going over sat photos of Iraqi military deployments around the Kurdish city of Irbil, against which the Iraqi Air Force has just launched a chemical weapons attack. Footage provided by the Iraqi government shows they used Mirage F-1s, they're best aircraft. Meanwhile, sat photos show the Iraqis have deployed only a couple of crappy regular army brigades around Irbil. Why not units of the Republican Guard? Where are they?

Saddam's chemical weapons attack is just the first phase of a general offensive against Iraqi Kurdistan. Unusually, Saddam has granted the media full access to Irbil and its environs. The international community is outraged. All eyes turn to Irbil, and away from the Iran/Iraq border.

Alright, let's settle down now. We won't be rocketing ahead, cranking out scene after scene. Tonight we're going to go back over this opener and make it better, add detail and context and edit the hell out of it. The goal is to move slowly, ever slowly and write it right so we don't have to go over it 20 times.

Oh but we have the ju-ju. We have the ju-ju....

A decade ago we wrote a magazine article about the Iran/Iraq war, which Strategy and Tactics never got around to publishing because they're a mess when it comes to stuff like that, one of the reasons why we don't write for them anymore. The other reason being we designed their Meuse/Argonne Folio Game and they stiffed us. So we're in a pretty good place, research wise. We ordered two books about the Iran/Iraq War and two books about Saddam's regime to supplement that. That'll keep us busy at night too.