Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. And based on the new strategy the Bush administration is laying out, they thought so, too. The only trouble is the book was a reflection of how the war SHOULD have been conducted, not a recommendation for what to do now. Thomas Rick's writing adds an exciting, narrative flow to this scathingly honest review of what went wrong in Iraq (so obviously, it's quite long.)

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. And based on the new strategy the Bush administration is laying out, they thought so, too. The only trouble is the book was a reflection of how the war SHOULD have been conducted, not a recommendation for what to do now. Thomas Rick's writing adds an exciting, narrative flow to this scathingly honest review of what went wrong in Iraq (so obviously, it's quite long.)

Sobering and impressive analysis of the unmitigated disaster of foreign policy and warmongering that is Iraq. Now that the damage is starting to be cleaned up, I am cautiously optimistic, but there is still too much to be done here.

The Washington Post's Thomas Ricks has written a dense, readable and highly-detailed account of the first 3 years of the American war in Iraq as seen and experienced from within the US military. It is an outstanding account in many ways and a number of other reviewers have done a good job in explaining many of its good qualities. Ricks has obviously had access to many, many officers who were involved in the invasion and subsequent occupation and he seems to have been provided and extraordinary amount of access, including memos, presentations, papers, emails, communications and other internal documents.However one would hesitate in calling it the definitive account of this period of the war, though it is undoubtedly one of the most important. Firstly, as is immediately noticeable when scanning the dramatis personae provided at the front of the book, there are virtually no Iraqis here, which is unfortunate in a book to do with Iraq. In fact the only Iraqi who makes an appearance is Ahmed Chalabi and he comes across as some kind of evil Machivellian villain manipulating things behind the scenes, blamed by various Coalition Provisional Authority officials for all sorts of bad decisions made by the Bush administration and Bremer in Iraq. He's also blamed for faulty intelligence and the shoddy reporting by the New York Times' Judith Miller. Now, there's no doubt that Chalabi played a major role in feeding people in the administration and in the world of journalism the kinds of stories they wanted to hear in order to further his own agenda. However one suspects there's a great deal of buck-shifting going on here.Another issue to keep in mind is that Ricks' book seems heavily influenced by the milieu in which it was written. It is an account of how the military operated in the years 2002 to 2006 but it is also a polemic. Ricks is arguing for the adoption of Counter Insurgency strategy (or COIN) by the military in Iraq if it wants to have a hope of success. Now, he makes a very compelling argument, but as a result of this agenda, sometimes it feels as if Ricks is focused on addressing officers within the army. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it can sometimes feel as if the narrative is kept within a box. Assumptions and attitudes are only questioned so far. So, for example, he looks at the containment vs. elimination debate within the military on the question of how to deal with Saddam Hussein but does not really examine the history of the US-Saddam relationship or question the assumption that he had to be dealt with in one of these two ways.Now I'm not necessarily saying this is a bad thing. However, it does mean that this is a book with a certain focus, and that is the operations of the U.S. military in the Iraq War, from planning to execution, and the successes and failures thereof. It is in its own way an excellent book and one I would certainly recommend to anyone who wants to understand what the US military encountered and how it adapted during the first few years of the Iraq war.

Ricks describes the beginnings--the early years, you might say-- of the American military's tragic experience in Iraq with unmatched skill and insight. (10/10)

Fiasco is not a bad book, it is a dangerous book. Its excellent readability sucks an unsuspecting reader into accepting extremely questionable and biased assessments of the past, of politicians, military institutions and soldiers. The Iraq War was a fiasco but Ricks' analysis stops at the surface.First, the book is highly biased. Ricks only quotes people to the right of the conservative-in-the-orginal-meaning Andrew Bacevich (the only exception is Juan Cole who is allowed to offer two factual inputs.). Much of the original controversies are simply air-brushed out of the picture. Ricks' primary mission is to shield his friends from criticism. There are various circles of friends, starting with the Washington Post and other print titles, the US Marines, the US army, the US army reserves, the United States of America, allies of the United States of America and the rest of the world. If the story absolutely, positively requires Ricks to point fingers at some of his friends, the circle concept comes into play, e.g. the New York Times' Judith Miller is offered as a scapegoat, nicely diluting the equally unprofessional cheer-leading of Ricks' own paper.Secondly, the book assumes readers with ADD both in regard to external facts and to the text itself. An example of a non-mentioned fact: "This new emphasis (on the operational level) also was meant to address what the Army had decided was a major failing during the Vietnam War" (p. 131). It is beside the point that I do not agree with this analysis that Vietnam was an operational failure, the important fact is that this analysis leaves out what came to be known as the Powell Doctrine ("Do we have a clear attainable objective? Is there a plausible exit strategy?"), which itself was based on the Weinberger Doctrine compiling the lessons of the Vietnam War. If the US had made sure to answer the questions of either doctrine, the quagmire might never have happened."Petraeus, now at Fort Leavenworth, ... made the thousands of Army officers who were students there also begin to study this peculiar way of war (ie COIN), so unlike what the U.S. Army had studied for the previous three decades" (p. 414), conveniently ignoring all the published lessons of Somalia, Kosovo, ... (such as the vulnerability of helicopters in close terrain). Ricks' faulty memory approach lets the US military off the hook far too easily.Thirdly, this book, like so many others, plays down US war crimes. While Ricks presents many clear cases of war crimes, he hardly ever comments or discusses these cases. He simply notes that the US military justices sends the criminals home (fining them all of USD 5.000 for murder, if they prosecute at all) where they live happy lives as high school teachers. Remedial lessons about the Geneva conventions and the laws of war should be a high priority for any US unit. Can it really be a lessons learned that treating civilians with dignity is good?Fourth, the book establishes easy scapegoats in Rumsfeld, Chalabi and those Neo-Cons. The failure and incompetence of the military-industrial complex runs much deeper. Within Ricks' cherished Marine Corps, the Warrior ethos is to blame with its COIN-unsuitable world-view. Generals such as James "It's fun to shoot some people" Mattis are part of the problem and the destruction of Fallujah the consequence of their actions.If the book's purpose is to have the military-industrial complex rethink and refine its approach, it has failed. If entertainment and glorification of Ricks' circle of friends is its purpose, it succeeds.

Douglas Feith was the Under Secretary for Policy in the Department of Defense. He couldn't believe the intelligence reports he was receiving so he decided he would make up his own intelligence that fit his views. Part of his views came from Ahmed Chalabi the Iraqi expatriate who ultimately lost all credibility. Feith was heavily involved in post war planning and he didn't want to hear from experts who had developed scenarios that indicated a long U.S. presence in Iraq. He didn't want to hear worst case scenarios. The plan he liked best was the in and out of Iraqi in a couple of months scenario. This was the beginning of the Fiasco described in this book. The army was prepared only to reach Baghdad. Anyone who thought there would be problems after that was muffled.Author Ricks's book is mostly concerned with our military exploits in Iraq. He feels strongly that Generals Franks and Sanchez were not up to the job. When L. Paul Bremer arrived on the scene to start up the Coalition Provisional Authority things didn't get better. When someone started talking to Bremer about his experiences with insurgency fighting in Viet Nam, Bremer told him he didn't want to hear about Viet Nam. French author Col. Roger Trinquier's book on the war in Algeria was known and read at the Fort Leavenworth's School of Advanced Military Studies. It could reasonably considered to be a bible on insurgency warfare yet its recommendations were all but ignored.The basic concept to be learned from past experience is that an occupying force must live among the people in order to gain their support. If you have their support then they will not aid the insurgents. Easy prescription for success? Yes, but it was rarely followed. The military live there in air-conditioned encampments with all the comforts of home. Shoot first and ask questions later was often the policy. Marine Major General James Mattis thoroughly believed in the "live with them" approach, and when he was assigned to the Fallujah area he had trained his troops to be part of the population. When he took over he was quickly ordered to conduct a major insurgency campaign involving going house to house through the whole city to root out the enemy. His protests about this approach went unheeded. He then engaged in battle, and when he was close to achieving victory he was ordered to back down. He protested again, and again was not listened to. Fallujah was once again a terrorist stronghold.Well you get the idea. The upshot of this tale is that nothing was planned for. No one wanted to hear from anyone with dissenting views. When General Garner was appointed to head up the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance he found a gentleman named Tom Warrick who exhibited an extraordinary expertise in Iraqi affairs. Shortly after he was hired VP Cheney passed down the word to have him fired. Warrick's views did not coincide with those of the administration. Another amazing thing about this book is the recounting of the childish rivalry between the State Department and the Pentagon. I sure wish someday people in the Administration could act like grown ups.Ricks interviewed numerous people, and fills the book with quotations. When he seems a bit hard on someone he often quotes people with a different point of view. This is an amazing book that often reads like a thriller. It is difficult for me to understand how anyone could read this book, and not realize that things went horribly wrong in our invasion of Iraq. Some other reviewers have nit picked at things in the book, but seem to not see the forest for the trees.As Ricks is mostly concerned with military operations he doesn't dwell much on the civil administration other than to castigate Bremer from time to time. I am currently reading "Imperial Life in the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran which is mainly concerned with civil affairs. These two books together cover much of the whole Iraqi affair. I might mention too that where the Emerald City book overlaps Fiasco there is a high degree of accord between the two.A must read book.

If this doesn't demonstrate the absolute criminality of the invasion and the utter failure and meaninglessness of the subsequent occupation then I don't know what will.

Thomas Ricks has been the senior Pentagon reporter for the Wall Street Journal and later the Washington Post. He is no enemy of the US military (in fact, he does not advocate US withdrawal). This book really should be read by every American not just for what it tells us about the Bush Administration and the Iraq war, but as a cautionary tale about the limits of military power. Let me be clear: I opposed this war before President Bush chose to start it mainly because it was a distraction from fighting terrorism. `Fiasco' details the choices made by the Administration, the willful ignorance of facts that didn't fit their chosen path. Fiasco is strongest in describing the false premises upon which the Administration built its case for war, the lack of planning for Phase IV (post-war plans), and Bremer's enormous false steps. And Ricks' admiration for the US military shines through as he relates its failures, successes, and `lessons learned'. There is indeed much to be admired in the US military - such as the Army's Center for Army Lessons Learned where the whole point is to review what the Army did, what it did right, what it did wrong, and how to apply those lessons in the future. Sounds like something the White House should try. Fiasco is such an important book that I would like to give it a `5' star rating and it really should be read, but the book lacks structure, other than simple chronology and after a while begins to read like a string of newspaper articles. The concluding Afterword was especially weak with brief descriptions of what might lie ahead. Ricks is best at description, okay at prescription, and poor at prediction. Fortunately, most of the book is descriptive and very little is predictive. Nonetheless, I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the story of the Iraq War.

Impressed by the writing and research in the early section. I remember a lot of the excerpts from the news at the time, but Ricks goes deeper into what has come out and been discovered from interviews since.However, after that very solid start on the political background and decisions before the war, this books disappoints - it doesn't live up to early promise. The book is very scattered, with very short, one or two page pieces (vignettes really). There's very little overall structure, despite the impression the parts and chapters give. Still there are some priceless pieces of writing here, and some powerful set-pieces, but it gives the impression of a daily column spliced together; with repetition of explanatory phrases and of individual incidents replete througout.

Fascinating dissection of the military campaign in Iraq. Apparently no one in the administration knows the difference between goals, strategies, and tactics. Devastating.

Not the last word by a long shot, this is still a useful survey of the war pretty much to date, as Ricks oscillates between the tactical maneuvers of the troops on the ground, the operational incoherence of the theatre commanders in 2003-2004, and the strategic ineptitude that generated a quagmire when what was expected was a lightning campaign; but most of you folks know that already. Still, if you haven't followed events closely from the start, this is a good source to get up to speed; though there are times when this account feels more like the proverbial "cut-and-paste" job than anything else. If you're looking for a close study of the initial invasion you're probably better off checking out Gordon & Trainor's "Cobra II."

A readable history of OIF that focuses entirely on military operations. Based on detailed interviews with military officials(some quite senior) as well as a thorough examination of public government paperwork , Ricks does an excellent job of explaining how the inexperience of the civilians in the Bush government led to chaos in the military. For instance the insistence of the lie of WMD in Iraq resulted in the military chosing to leave large caches of conventional weapons available to formor government militia men who ended up leading the insurgency with them. In parallel, sections of the military were ill prepared to deal with a guerilla based insurgency and used tactics that were known from history (particularly Vietnam and Algiers) to fail miserably. When I bought the book I had assumed it was more of an expose on the failed decision to go to war, on reality it was a book on the details of a military engagement - but worth the time and the money none the less. Less than satisfying ending however - the book touches little in 2005 and nothing in 2006.

Tells the disturbing story of the inept Americam attempt to democratize Iraq. The lies, self-deception, arrogance, and incompetence of our civilian and military leaders are catalgued in this revealing look at the Iraq war. He could have been more detailed concerning events in 2005 and 2006.