Books on Iraq
Tom Ricks’ book covers the run-up to the war and the war itself, but mostly it’s about the occupation in 2003 and early 2004. A couple chapters at the end bring it up to date (early 2006), but it is the early mistakes that Ricks’ focuses on: the inadequate number of troops committed, Bremer’s atrocious decisions, and the ‘get tough’ policies of the U.S. military in 2003 that led to Abu Ghraib.
Hugh Hewitt claimed that this book was based “largely on anonymous sources.” Sure, some people spoke anonymously. But many went on the record and the author also researched a mountain of documents. But, by far, the most damning statements were the public utterances of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Myers, Franks, et al, — statements that made me wince to read them again. I suppose I had tried to brush them away over the past three years. Ricks convincingly links the public unrealisticly optimistic words to the actual planning went on.
It hurt to read this book. It really did.
One last point: anyone who dismisses this book because of Ricks’ recent statements about Israel in Lebanon is making a huge mistake.
Michael Gordon’s book focuses more on the military aspects of war itself, ending in mid 2003. The first third of the book covers the military planning, describing in exhaustive detail how Rumsfeld browbeat his generals to reduce the troop commitment. For the pure military history buff, the bulk of the book is all military operations: units, maps, arrows, battles, equipment, etc. It was clear, almost from the first day of operations, that “the enemy we were facing was not the enemy we war-gamed against.” We still got to Baghdad in three weeks, but Rumsfeld’s only response to fact of facing a different enemy was to threaten to fire General Wallace, who had only said what was obvious.
The two chapters of the book that fascinated me the most were the events in Nasiriyah on March 23 and the Thunder Runs into Baghdad on April 5 and 7.
I tend to read too quickly, almost skimming. The welter of names and military units overwhelmed me on the first reading. On my second reading, with most of the important names now familiar, it made much more sense.
Another excellent source is the collection of official reports and documents on Globalsecurity.org, including:
On Point - the U.S. Army’s “Lessons Learned” document, pretty dry, but with some good maps. Obviously a major source for Cobra II.
The Taguba Report on Abu Ghraib
AR 15-6 Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Prison and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade
Here’s a brief sample. In reading this, keep in mind it is an official DOD report, not some moonbat so-called human rights organization.
(U) There was general consensus (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1, FAST, CIVILIAN-12, LYONS, WOOD, SOLDIER14, SANCHEZ) that as the pace of operations picked up in late November – early December 2003, it became a common practice for maneuver elements to round up large quantities of Iraqi personnel in the general vicinity of a specified target as a cordon and capture technique. Some operations were conducted at night resulting in some detainees being delivered to collection points only wearing night clothes or under clothes.
SGT Jose Garcia, assigned to the Abu Ghraib Detainee Assessment Board, estimated that 85% - 90% of the detainees were of no intelligence value based upon board interviews and debriefings of detainees. The Deputy C2X, CJTF-7, CIVILIAN-12, confirmed these numbers. (Reference Annex B, Appendix 1, GARCIA, CIVILIAN-12). Large quantities of detainees with little or no intelligence value swelled Abu Ghraib’s population and led to a variety of overcrowding difficulties. Already scarce interrogator and analyst resources were pulled from interrogation operations to identify and screen increasing numbers of personnel whose capture documentation was incomplete or missing. Complicated and unresponsive release procedures ensured that these detainees stayed at Abu Ghraib – even though most had no value.
Translated from mil-speak: We rounded up whole villages of innocent Iraqis at night and dumped them in Abu Ghraib.
Report on A-10 Friendly Fire Incident in Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003
The events in Nasiriyah on March 23rd are very interesting, involving Jessica Lynch of the 507th Maintenance Company, and also the Marines of the 1st Battalion, 2nd Regiment, who found themselves in the first real fight of the war the next day at the bridges of Nasiriyah.
This is the book I am reading today, 400 pages detailing a platoon-level look at the week of fighting for the Euphrates bridges. To be clear, this last one is a detailed look at one event of interest to me; I don’t mean that it provides significant overview or insight to larger situation in Iraq today.
I sold a TV
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Did you know the human head weighs 8 pounds?
Show me the Powerpoint
The Bright Glow of Farsi-Shine