Thriller writer nails the iniquity of the Iraq adventure

Novel hints that Lloyd’s assisted sanctions-busters

James Brewer - Friday 12 October 2007

The novel examines what goes on inside some of Baghdad's premier addresses The novel examines what goes on inside some of Baghdad's premier addresses

POOR Iraq: its mineral riches have long made it the plaything of the superpowers.

In the abstract, it might be difficult in this harsh world to be especially sympathetic, but it is moving even unto anger to be given an insight into how the power game has wrecked and ruined families and whole communities.

This is what Corinne Souza has achieved mercilessly in her forceful ‘faction’ novel Jasmine’s Tortoise, which weaves the unfolding political crisis of Iraq into the warp of world politics (warp, in both senses, being just the right word).

Her book shows how intelligence-gathering combined with personal greed reached deep into political life in the UK and in the other major powers, and has continued to do so well after the Cold War ended.

In her book, establishment dirty tricks and cover-ups are threaded skilfully through all 400 pages, which span 37 years, as the author scatters clues that eventually lead to an Agatha Christie-style denouement.

The book begins with the deep involvement of British, American, Soviet, French and other intelligence agencies in Iraq, a country that used to be a fairly amicable melting pot even under the ruthless rule of Saddam Hussein.

The better-off families from many ethnicities, including the Jewish and Christian communities, and Sunnis and Shias, lived in friendship at least, and often in harmony, enjoying trips to the races together and grand balls by the Tigris.

As Souza writes of one spooky protagonist: “His job was to involve others. And betray them if necessary. Even those to whom he was profoundly attached.” Thus even children are cruelly groomed as ‘sleepers’ for activation, and sometimes blackmail, later in their lives.

Into the whole network feed the freemasons and the Vatican, right up to the Holy Father himself. Everyone is informing on, and deceiving, everyone.

Some shrewd remarks escape the lips of this devious crew. At a socialite ‘spies’ party’ in 1965 in Baghdad, the French ambassador forewarns: “America is out of its depth in Iraq.”

Lloyd’s underwriters of old could be trusted, it is suggested, to agree readily to give cover for shipments of arms to Iraq, for other dubious deals laundered through an international construction contractor, and for sanctions-busting.

Spies consort with spies and — James Bond-style — shamelessly use bedroom traps, not least in the case of one General Nico Stollen, a charming and know-all agent of the KGB who “makes a welcome addition to London society”.

Poisoning the Kurdish water supply and murdering a British defence minister is all part of the pattern of Souza’s book.

We can feel for some of the innocents caught up in the system and have a shred of understanding for some of the operatives.

But this is an exposure of deep-rooted hypocrisy and is so close to the type of people we know and are expected to respect that it will send shudders of fear and shame down the spine of any decent person.Jasmine’s Tortoise: A Modern History Novel of Intrigue and Espionage Set in Baghdad and London is published in paperback by Picnic Publishing, PO Box 5222, Hove BN52 9LP, priced £12.99 (ISBN: 978-0955610509), and is also available from Amazon (www.amazon.co.uk)

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