Thomas E. Ricks.
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.
New York: The Penguin Press, 2006.

Book information: publisher, Amazon.com.

You must read this book if you want to begin to understand how the United States failed so badly in Iraq. American political leaders and other high U.S. government officials have put out so much disinformation that the American public is badly misinformed about what happened and why. People lobbying for continuing the American war in Iraq should speak honestly about what that requires in order to have any success: an additional several hundred thousand soldiers well trained in counterinsurgency warfare techniques who would stay continuously on the ground for many years. But the United States obviously has no interest in fielding such an army, nor even the ability, given the current state of war mobilization, and certainly not for a poorly understood country on the other side of the world. The failures of the political and senior military leadership have been staggering, probably the worst in American history. And that is surely one reason why the American people have been deliberately misled about this war, and unfortunately the mass media has tended to accomodate rather than expose the politicians' misdeeds. See also the comments at Amazon.com.

If you don't have the time or inclination to read this book, at the very least I recommend you watch the film Why We Fight (2005); perhaps also Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers (2006).

About Thomas E. Ricks:

• Thomas E. Ricks, Wikipedia.


• PBS - Frontline - The Invasion of Iraq - Interview: Thomas E. Ricks


• Links to some of Ricks' articles

Book reviews:

• Michiko Kakutani, From Planning to Warfare to Occupation, How Iraq Went Wrong, The New York Times, 25 July 2006.


• Daniel Byman, The March of Folly, The Washington Post, 30 July 2006. [Looks like you have to pay to see the whole article.]


• Jacob Heilbrunn, Eyes Wide Shut, The New York Times, 13 August 2006.


• Lawrence D. Freedman, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2006.
  (A strangely flat review.)


• Peter W. Galbraith, Mindless in Iraq, The New York Review of Books, Volume 53, Number 13, 10 August 2006.
  Discusses several books on the United States' Iraq quagmire, but not Ricks'. Galbraith is the author of The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End.

Other Links:

• PBS - Frontline - The Invasion of Iraq - Chronology, only covers the period 6 March 2003 - 1 May 2003.


• Lie by Lie: The Mother Jones Iraq War Timeline (8/1/90 - 6/21/03), very well done. Check it out!


• Juan Cole, Paul Wolfowitz's fatal weakness; The cronyism that may cost him his World Bank job is also what caused the Iraq debacle, Salon.com, 14 May 2007.
  Understanding the Neoconservative cabal, its policies and how it operated, is crucial to understanding how the United States blundered so badly in Iraq. But by singling out the Neocons I do not mean to deny or preclude the additional responsibility of the wider Republican Party and particularly George Bush and his inner circle for the Iraq disaster, which is also just one of the many crimes of George Bush's administration.


• Also essential to understanding the Iraq fiasco is some aquaintance with Arab / Middle Eastern / Islamic culture and history, something obviously absent from the American political debate, particularly among the right-wingers. On reflection I realized that within the policymaking and journalistic classes there must be some knowledge of that history and culture (perhaps I give them too much credit); rather, it has been in the public debate, in what the politicians say to the less educated and less informed public, in what the propagandists say to the ignorant masses - there is were we have seen an absence of honest discussion that takes into account the differences in culture and national interests between American society and the various Middle Eastern societies. What does that imply about how the United States reaches a consensus on momentous undertakings?
  
  Juan Cole offers a list of Suggested Books about the Middle East at his excellent website Informed Comment which he updates daily with Iraq and Middle East related news. Juan Cole fills in the shamefully large gaps in the American media's coverage.


• Iraq Resolution / Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq, Wikipedia.


• Public Law No: 107-243, To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq.


• Greg Jaffe, Battling On; At Lonely Iraq Outpost, GIs Stay as Hope Fades; U.S. Soldiers Persevere Despite Snipers, Ambush; Fighting for Each Other, The Wall Street Journal, 3 May 2007.
  The article observes the effects of '... the new U.S. "surge strategy," which some U.S. officers in Iraq say does little more than chase insurgents from one part of the country to another.'


• Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, A failure in generalship, Armed Forces Journal, May 2007.
  Reviews and comments on Yingling's essay:
  Thomas E. Ricks, Army Officer Accuses Generals of 'Intellectual and Moral Failures', The Washington Post, 27 April 2007.
  Fred Kaplan, How our generals got so mediocre, Slate.com, 16 May 2007.


• War on Terrorism, Wikipedia.


• Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence (1995), Policy Subcommittee of the Strategic Advisory Group, United States Strategic Command, Department of Defense.


• Goodbye Houston: An Alternative Annual Report on Halliburton, CorpWatch, May 2007.


• Gareth Stansfield, Accepting Realities in Iraq, Chatham House, 17 May 2007.


• Iraq Study Group Report:
  Wikipedia
  Iraq Study Group webpage
  Report download webpage