The Weight of a Mustard Seed

Starred review from January 19, 2009
Early in this portrait of Iraqi general Kamel Sachet, Steavenson (Stories I Stole
) warns, “In Iraq, there was never one story, there were always many stories, layers of episodes, each one a wound.” She examines the life of General Sachet from his humble beginnings to his rise in the Iraqi army and his growing closeness with Saddam Hussein. Sachet was commander of special forces and the general in charge of the army in Kuwait during the first Gulf War. His life was one of service to his country, and his moral compass set by a military code. Yet his obedience, Steavenson reveals, came at a price: as his repulsion for the demagoguery of the Baath party and Saddam's sadism grew, the terror tactics of the regime kept him and his peers paralyzed. Steavenson is a talented writer and her reconstruction of Sachet's story is staggering in its revelation of a collective psychological trauma that continues to grip a nation.