“Those Twenty-Three Men” is the sorrowful tale of the “young and effortful men” who went to the war front and were captured by Iraqi Ba’ath regime. In spite of being young, these heroes who were twenty three men, created an unprecedented epic which became indelible in the history and even delighted the pages of history. The story began when Iraqi television, showed the scenes of arresting and mprisoning several teenagers in its documentaries on the war front, who at first glance, were too young to be able to attend the operation. Upon seeing this scene, the president of Iraq, Saddam, started to think about how he could use this event as propaganda against the slamic Republic of Iran. He decided to visit these twenty-three men and trigger a massive propaganda maneuver. Taking a group of 15-year-old teenagers to the palace of Saddam and forcing them nto false confessions about compulsory recruitment of teenage soldiers in the war, which would have changed the world public opinion in the interests of the Iraqi Baath regime, is a subject that has made the book unparalleled.

Ahmad Yousef Zadeh