| Fiasco
is a more strongly worded title than you might expect a seasoned
military reporter such as Thomas E. Ricks to use, accustomed
as he is to the even-handed style of daily newspaper journalism.
But Ricks, the Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post
and the author of the acclaimed account of Marine Corps boot
camp, Making the Corps, has written a thorough and devastating
history of the war in Iraq from the planning stages through
the continued insurgency in early 2006, and he does not shy
away from naming those he finds responsible. His tragic story
is divided in two. The first part--the runup to the war and
the invasion in 2003--is familiar from books like Cobra II
and Plan of Attack, although Ricks uses his many military
sources to portray an officer class that was far more skeptical
of the war beforehand than generally reported. But the heart
of his book is the second half, beginning in August 2003,
when, as he writes, the war really began, with the bombing
of the Jordanian embassy and the emergence of the insurgency.
His strongest critique is that the U.S. military failed to
anticipate--and then failed to recognize--the insurgency,
and tried to fight it with conventional methods that only
fanned its flames. What makes his portrait particularly damning
are the dozens of military sources--most of them on record--who
join in his critique, and the thousands of pages of internal
documents he uses to make his case for a war poorly planned
and bravely but blindly fought. --Tom Nissley
All Customer Reviews
5 out of 5 - Dec 20, 2006
Thomas Ricks was always a good writer, but was
best known for his work at the Washington Post until his excellent
book "Making the Corps" hit shelves. It was a book
full of rich detail and honest, factual conclusions. With
"Fiasco" Ricks outdoes himself and dozens of writers
who have tackled the quagmire that is the Iraq War. Drawing
from hundreds of interviews, press conferences, and policy
papers, Ricks reveals the progression of mistakes and bad
decisions that turned a winnable war into a quicksand-like
mess of epic proportions, without cloaking himself in partisan
colors.
From CENTCOM to the Pentagon and White House,
initial planning for the war took on a bare-bones, best case
scenario. Rumsfeld and his sycophantic policy advisors Wolfowitz
and Feith believed the Iraqis would welcome the US in, and
few troops would be needed; they weren't afraid to bully their
opinions into policy or twist vague intelligence to fit their
theories. They believed that the war would end, a new Iraqi
government would form, and America could walk away with a
shiny new victory over the forces of evil. Any soldier worth
their salt could tell you, though, you plan for the worst
possible scenarios, so you are ready for any eventuality.
While Rumsfeld and gang take some deserved hard hits, Ricks
makes the interesting assertation that President Bush was
not obsessed with going to war with Saddam as other authors
have claimed, but that going to war with Iraq was a necessary
next step after Afghanistan. The President comes across as
a disinterested observer. I personally disagree with this
assessment, but Ricks argues his case well.
Though the invasion was successful and fast,
the fall of Baghdad didn't bring about the end; in fact the
months that followed were merely the portent to the insurgency.
Lacking any kind of cohesive plans for the post-war Iraq,
both civilian and military stumbled their way forward. Ricks
discusses many of Paul Bremer's horrendous decision making
as head of the CPA, most notably the dissolving of the Iraqi
Army which created a ready-made force of angry, unemployed
young men with military training and experience. He addresses
how the Army and Marines philosophy of overwhelming with superior
firepower didn't adapt to the new reality of counter-insurgency.
Ricks also points out how slow commanders in the field were
to realize they needed to fight a counter-insurgency war and
praises those like Marine General Mattis and Col.H.R. McMaster
who did.
The book reads fast, despite some awkward grammatical
structuring, and actually contains a extensive list of footnotes
and source material used in writing the book, something James
Risen should have paid more attention to. Ricks' sources give
this book credibility, as does Ricks' refusal to sling mud
for mud's sake. Ricks does slip a bit with a tendency to over-focus
on negative incidents by units like the 4th ID and 1st Marines,
casting a negative light on a division or regiment rather
than the individuals involved. Overall though, he is incredibly
fair and honest in describing what truly has become a fiasco,
and this book should be required reading at all levels of
the government.
A.G. Corwin
St.Louis, MO
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