This is a book review, but I’m going to use it as a platform to discuss the main topic of the book, the American military adventure in Iraq. Within Fiasco, author Thomas E. Ricks paints a narrative of Operation Iraqi Freedom from before 9-11 until about a year ago. Unlike Woodward’s efforts, this is a very military focused narrative, which helps substantially once OIF gets underway.

I’ve read both Woodward’s Plan of Attack and Paul Bremer’s My Year in Iraq, but I feel that this book and the Iraq Study Group Report are the only two bits of essential reading on the subject, though Woodward and Bremer’s books help give this one perspective. The only area of conflict between Fiasco and Bremer’s account is in dealing with Order No. 1 (De-Baathification) but it isn’t a large enough to warrant discount either work, and Bremer does provide a lot more elaboration as to why were given the exaggerated numbers of trained Iraqis by the Administration (my review of Bremer’s book here).

If Ricks has a political agenda he’s pursuing in the book, I couldn’t find it. The book is very fair, and he seems about as neutral as anyone could be expected to be vis-à-vis the Bush Administration. He does not accuse the Administration of lying us into this war, but he doesn’t give them a pass on anything. What investigative journalism should be.

Ricks explores the relationship between Rumsfeld’s office (OSD) and the Army, which was strenuous at best. Going to war with a an Army and military bureaucracy mad at each other is a really bad idea.

One thing that stood out for me was the planning of Phase IV, i.e. “what happens when we get to Baghdad.” There was some planning done, no one was in charge of it, and the duty was shuffled back and forth between OSD and CENTCOMM for far too long.

However, Ricks gives a phrase to a concept that I haven’t come up with a better name for. To paraphrase, America fought the war it wanted to, not the war it faced. The main facet of this would be that the Army’s endgame seemed to be the fall of Baghdad, while ignoring other problems along the way.

There were major problems with the American attitude post-fall of Baghdad, including holing up in palaces rather than living among the people. By not being prepared for an insurgency, we neglected the beginnings of one, and squandered most, if not all of the goodwill we earned by toppling Saddam.

Then, after the insurgency was underway, the Army was fighting insurgents rather than fighting the insurgency. This lapse of thinking is a lesson we could have taken from the few bright spots in Iraq, Petraeus’ 101^st Airborne, Gen. Mattis of the 1^st Marine Division, and the Marine Corps on the whole, who were determined not to follow the Army into mistakes.

Given that Petraeus seems to understand the nature of the enemy we’re fighting better than any other commander in the US military, having him in charge is a big positive sign for the future of Iraq, assuming Washington doesn’t pull the plug.

In fact, this may be the case, as the BBC is concluding that the “surge” (and more importantly, the change in strategy and tactics that came with it) is working:

According to BBC world affairs editor John Simpson, the debate is moving so fast in Washington that Gen Petraeus's efforts, which might have saved the day for the Bush administration if they had been introduced three, or even two, years ago, may well have come too late.

Read the whole BBC article, which is largely an interview with Patraeus. Sadly, he has to play two to three years of catch up. I hope that this isn’t too little too late, and that those in Washington pay close attention to what is going on in Iraq.

Overall, I highly recommend Fiasco, and I will note that the paperback editioncomes out soon.

Labels: Book Review, Books, Iraq

Posted by Ryan S. on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 at 8:00 PM | Permalink |