Trevan is a former diplomat and adviser to the UN Special Commission for Iraq (Unscom). He writes clearly and well if (understandably) not impartially of the standoff between Iraq and the UN over Saddam Hussein's non-compliance with the UN resolutions forbidding it from arming, especially with deadly biological weapons. An overwhelming impression is that the cultural divide between Iraq and the West was always the greatest gap to success - although perhaps that is a kind way to label what Trevan describes as the Iraqi pattern of behaviour: "in face of incontrovertible proof that they were lying [they would] come up with a new lie that incorporated what they now knew we knew, but did not tell the whole story". Trevan by implication contrasts unfavourably the robust performance of Australian diplomat Richard Butler as head of Unscom, with his longer-serving predecessor, the ambitious and industrious Swede Rolf Ekeus.