Others say...

"The story of an incredible American folly"
Amazing that such a book could be written about a war that is still going on. The existence of this book, if not its horrifying contents, have given me back some faith in the freedom we are (or should be) fighting for.

Clearly the recent "surge" that has brought about such a significant reduction in violence in Iraq is based upon all the costly lessons the Americans learned in the first four calamitous years of the Iraq War, as set out in this book. It would be a terrible waste if all those gains were to be lost by US domestic political opportunism, which might pull the troops out too soon. The Americans already lost one war they had already won on the ground (Vietnam) due to misguided domestic pressures, I hope they don't do it again.

"Best Documentation of Iraq War to date"
No, I have not been to Iraq in any capacity, but this book has an intensely real feeling to it. Unlike "Cobra II" which rambles a bit and tends to focus in on the details of battle too much (that is still a good book to read), "Fiasco" can be devoured in one sitting by the reader, giving them a bird's eye view of the whole mess that feels very real, and will fill in a lot of the blanks for Americans who had been relying on the media for an idea of what is going on over there.

"INCOMPETENCY IN CIVILIAN LEADERSHIP.....WORST IN HISTORY"
In America, we are not only divided by political ideology, religion, class, social economic status, but by beliefs and values. There are many Republicans who believe we are taking the right military actions in Iraq to fight terrorism. There may even be some Democrats who believe this is the right action to take. And then there are many Americans who believe what the Bush White House is saying about "Stay the Course."

We have many, in the millions, who do not have a clue as to why we are really in Iraq, millions. Usama Bin Laden is off the political radar, why? Attacking Iraq was and will be the worst foreign policy mistake in U.S. history. Even well known people, like Fareed Zahkaria, Novak, Powell, and other gifted intellectual talents believe this. Colin Powell was used by Mr. Bush to "sell the war."

There are no WMD, no Bin Laden in Iraq, no reason or need to be there fighting innocent people who have nothing to do with Usama Bin Laden. So why is Mr. Bush having troops in Iraq? My guess is oil, domination of the region, and political and economic influence in the muslim world. So what happened to Bin Laden? Nothing. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is to set an example to the muslim world that Mr. Bush will order the attack of any nation that premptively "thinks" about attacking. Interesting that no Iraqis were involved in 9/11 but there were Saudis, who happened to be in bed with Mr. Bush and oil giants.

The worst part is that our troops do not even know the truth! Many have been killed, maimed, paralyzed, and many more will be because Mr. Bush wants to set an example.

The region was stable and then divided. It is the old theory of "conquer and divide and all will fall."

Military enlistment will be the lowest when this mess is over. No bonus. No Bennies will keep people in. On second thought, unemployment might have an effect!

"Not the Left-Wing Hit Piece I Expected"
Thomas Ricks' "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005" is a well-researched and well-supported book outlining the many mistakes made during the invasion and early occupation of Iraq.

This book was much better than I expected: I had steered away from it for two years because I expected it to be a left-wing attack on everything the "neocons" and "chickenhawks" in the Bush Administration had done during the run-up to the Iraq war. Instead, this is a well-reasoned and well-documented analysis of the man mis-steps and mistakes taken during the planning and execution of the Iraq War.

Ricks adeptly describes how the early war planning lacked strategic vision and guidance. He is especially critical of the early leaders in the campaign, including General Tommy Franks and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, and explains how their early decisions, tactics, and mistakes had long-lasting effects on the occupation. This is also the best account of how the different units, different tactics, and different leaders produced different results in various parts of Iraq, and how that continuity was lost as units rotated out.

Ricks does a good job describing how General Sanchez's misguided emphasis on intelligence gathering led to overcrowding and other similar problems at Abu Ghraib, but, like so many others, he forgets or omits that almost everyone in the chain of command of the Abu Ghraib soldiers had their career ended because of what happened there, and doesn't understand that criminal culpability is a different beast altogether.

Most of Ricks' sources are officers who were involved in the campaign, and they provide keen insight and support for Ricks' arguments. Although harshly critical of the war effort, Ricks argues not that we should pull out of Iraq but that we should try harder to win - and should have done better from the beginning.

This book is just a snapshot of the Iraq War - the first part, through 2005 - and is much better than "Cobra II." It is immensely important and illuminating, and many lessons can be learned by reading this book. Hopefully, by reading and learning from this book, Ricks can write a sequel with a much more flattering title than "Fiasco."


"Most extensive information on the down-slope phase of the Iraq war.""
Don't let the inflammatory title or the author's almost uniformly critical attitude prevent you from reading this book. Ricks published the initial edition in 2006, when little was going well in our handling of the Iraqi insurgency. Amid the gloom of those times it is not surprising that his book is biased against the war, and the Bush administration. He describes the varied opinions of participants and prior commanders with emphasis on those with Middle East experience who were critical of the war's direction. He is a very knowledgeable about the events and command policies in Iraq, but is less informed on strategic concerns in Washington.

Ricks has put together an amazing compilation of the information and attitudes characteristic of the mid-war period. As such, his book contains insight into the angst felt by many prior to adoption of a more successful strategy. We all must consider the impact these attitudes have on America's ability to wage protracted wars.

Since that time the situation has improved on the ground. Our armed forces now better understand the necessity of a counter insurgency (COIN) approach, and more Iraqis have decided their future is better protected by our army (and marine corps).

Ricks provides very extensive information on what went wrong as the insurgency grew in 2003-2006. His book was widely read and no doubt influential in shaping attitudes for implementing a more appropriate approach to counter the insurgency. For this reason alone the book is well worth reading.

As Ricks did not have information on the strategic planning that occurred in Washington, he found fault without knowing the options considered. Douglas J. Feith's book "War and Decision" provides a useful companion and contrast to Ricks' work since it provides this insider's view, and a clear historic record of the decision processes leading up to and pursuing the initial portion of the Iraq war.

In retrospect it is easy to fault the President and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for failing to push the Army to adopt a counterinsurgency strategy at an earlier date. Earlier replacement of Bremer (head of the Coalition Provisional Authority) and General Sanchez (Coalition military commander) would have been appropriate. It appears that both the President and the Secretary of Defense over-reacted to the disastrous experience of a President and Secretary of Defense micromanaging the Vietnam War. Possibly because of this unfortunate history they were extremely reluctant to reverse decisions made at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and Regional Command (Centcom) level. (Ricks also points out that the Army unfortunately repressed or forgot the lessons in counterinsurgency for which they had paid so dearly in Vietnam).

Although Ricks never points it out, it is important to remember that the chain of command goes from the President to the Secretary of Defense to the regional commander (Centcom's Tommy Franks handled the invasion of Iraq). The Centcom commander can (and regularly did) react negatively to any suggestions for change that did not come directly from the President or the Secretary of Defense.

The Pentagon staff and the Joint Chiefs provide support and advice only, and are not in the chain of command. Thus, Wolfowitz, Feith and General Myers in the Pentagon could only make suggestions to Rumsfeld and the President. These advisors supported the President's world-wide vision of the terrorist threat with policies designed to reduce that threat. They did not narrow their vision to only Afghanistan, as many have recommended.

Some of the Pentagon's suggestions were adopted and others were not. Unfortunately (in my opinion) one that was adopted by the President was effectively countermanded on the ground by the head of the CPA Paul Bremer III. Bremer did not follow the plan to turn the Iraqi government over to Iraqi's as rapidly as they showed the ability to handle the ministries. He opted in favor of a longer American occupation to reduce the influence of exiled Iraqis in favor of a new indigenous political class. He also cut deeply into the available ministerial talent pool by excluding all high ranking former Baath Party members. The delay alienated many Iraqis and made the recruitment of Iraqis easier for the insurgents.

Also, because the CPA did not report to the Centcom commander, we had divided leadership with questionable lines of command. Rumsfield, the boss of both men, can be faulted for accepting this situation and failing to remove Bremer promptly when he deviated from the President's policy.

Ricks appears to forget that America usually goes into its wars with the wrong tactics and/or strategy. Early mistakes are almost a foregone conclusion since your enemy has studied your previous tactics and made adjustments to counter them. We usually bumble along, adjust and eventually get tactics that work inside the enemy's decision-response time (Serious students of strategy and tactics must read the theories of American strategic genius John Boyd).

Our superb non-commissioned officers and thinking soldiers have given us a real adaptation advantage over every foe except the Civil War Confederates. Tactical changes can occur in the field, but adjusting strategy is done with much greater care and requires careful communication to all levels. This takes time and can be seriously impeded by unclear or unrealistic goals. Although General Franks can be faulted for Centcom's weak Phase IV planning, his successors at Centcom and the CPA deserve more blame for hindering the pace at which we reacted to the growing insurgency.

After we achieved our initial goal, overthrowing Saddam, our strategy for dealing with the insurgency was unclear and unrealistic. Ricks' criticism of the delays in adopting the correct strategy are well founded, although his eagerness to assign blame tends to prevent a cool-headed assessment. His description of the demoralization and confusion that attended this period contains a valuable lesson for the next war. Ricks' book provides further evidence that although patience is required to succeed in these endeavors, it is not an American virtue.

The character and history of the Iraqi people also accounts for some of their refusal to support early American initiatives. It always takes time to convince the population of a conquered country that we will provide for their safety and progress. The cultural change and learning that occurred to generate the Anbar Awakening may not have occurred earlier. The purported religious affinity with Al Qaeda gave that group an entry until the Anbar tribal sheiks found any religious value overcome by their cruelty and depravity.

Our present success in Iraq may not have been possible several years ago even if the troop surge had occurred then and General Petraeus had been the boss.

Thomas Ricks has produced a must-read book that shows clearly the difficulties of the mid-war situation. He should be commended for his contribution to our eventual success! It is also a warning of how slowness to adapt can lead to discouragement and war weariness.

We have achieved many of our goals in Iraq, but only history will decide if our decision to invade was a disaster that created new generations of terrorists or a brilliant initiative to inspire and remake the Middle East. One can hope as Iraqi Member of Parliament Mithal Al-Alousi said recently: "By Allah, we will build a strong Iraq, which will be an ally of the West. Let Iran and all those foolish Arab countries listen carefully. Iraq will be the ally of the West, and will progress more than the Emirates and Singapore, and all the rest will come looking for work in Iraq."

If the MP's wish becomes the case, we can look back with appreciation at the decision to invade and the many sacrifices made to start the Middle East on a path toward a better future.


  

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"Explaining the Mess in Iraq", Among the most illuminating, and hence the most damning recent volume about the war in Iraq is Fiasco, by Thomas E. Ricks. Like other recent books, the author describes in detail the dysfunctional decision-making that has plagued our endeavor in Iraq. But Fiasco highlights the lengthy series of critical turns and cross-roads that we have taken in the nearly four years since the invasion--any of which might have led us away from disaster and toward a stabler and less uncontrollable occupation. And he brings the insights of a career military writer to the task of analyzing what has gone wrong, and how wishful thinking and political turf battles in Washington have placed our soldiers in mortal peril abroad.

A Tragedy in Three Parts
Ricks treats the saga of Iraq as a tragedy in three parts. The first part, dealing with events leading to the invasion, portrays a military far more skeptical of the looming adventure than the public was aware, or the politicians would permit to become public knowledge. Though the Bush Administration was elected in part on a platform of support for a neglected military and opposition to the nation-building adventures of the Clinton years, the shock of September 11th soon turned into contingency planning for an invasion of Iraq--an old enemy uninvolved in the actual attack, but expressing sympathy for America's enemies. Apparently, however, this occurred without much thought for what might happen next. Upon taking office, the civilian leadership of the defense department had effectively neutered its generals, turning them into staff assistants for an overbearing secretary of defense. A long-standing contingency plan for just such an invasion--a battle plan named Desert Crossing, the culmination of years of in-depth planning that called for nearly 400,000 troops--had been discarded in favor of a test of Donald Rumsfeld's theories about waging a "lean and mean" war. As a result, we invaded Iraq with forces totaling just over a third of the original number. While Iraq's military proved no match for the scaled-down invasion force, the task of maintaining order once Saddam's regime had fallen would prove to be more demanding than the optimistic assumption of the war planners ever acknowledged as a possibility. The result was, in Ricks' words, "the worst war plan in American history."

The remainder of the book deals with the invasion and ensuing occupation, as well as the many miscalculations that have led us to our current state of affairs. Most of our initial mistakes were blunders by our political leaders, and those they sent to oversee the occupation. But some of the problems were institutional and would have required insightful leadership to overcome. Despite Rumsfeld's contrary preferences, for example, American military tradition in recent years has come to believe in Colin Powell's doctrine of "overwhelming force." Simply put, this called for application of American might that is so vast and irresistible that it buries all resistance by its mass, as well as through the power of its destructive force. Yet the techniques for fighting a counterinsurgency are completely different, calling for minimal forces and a light, deft touch rather than the heavy hand of tanks and armor. If confronted with an enemy of insurgents, the American way of massed power tends to be counterproductive, since it runs the risk of creating more enemies than it can kill.

Forgotten Lessons
As Ricks shows, these are all lessons which our military learned painfully in Vietnam, but cast aside after resolving never to become entangled in anything like it again. In Iraq, however, the politicians anticipated that we would be hailed as liberators and greeted with flowers instead of roadside bombs, and the military war-gamed against the Republican Guard rather than the Fedayeen. But in Rumsfeld's defense department, acknowledging the possibility that things might go differently was viewed as disloyal, and so little thought and no training was given to the challenge of fighting against a determined insurgency. This led many of our units in the field to engage in heavy-handed tactics that did little to quell unrest, but much to swell the ranks of the insurgents. Now, with the streets filled with sectarian violence and an unfolding civil war, our troops can either come down heavily to restore order, or try to stay out of the way. Both approaches carry significant risks and the possibility of disaster; neither approach is what we expect our Army to do, or what any of the soldiers expected when they volunteered to serve their country. And with Iraq now spiraling out of control, we find that all our massive firepower has lost much of its utility, and our troops find themselves caught in the crossfire between warring factions.

This book, and others like it, raise many unsettling questions that the country would have been wise to consider before the president issued the final order to attack. Its biggest contribution to our understanding of events is in recounting many of our blunders in terms and concepts that the non-military layman can readily grasp. The book provides a wealth of information and insight, but in the end confronts the reader with a sobering assessment of what can go wrong when the optimism and resolve of our public leaders manage to convince the public that doubt or skepticism is the same as disloyalty.


"Excellent Book!", "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" is an excellent, clear-sighted, and well-named review of the numerous mistakes which hindered success in the Iraq conflict. As military correspondent for "The Washington Post" and the author of "Making the Corps" Mr. Ricks writes with considerable and deserved authority and this is one of the best of many recent books on this subject.

The most important lesson in this book is that the Army and Marine Corps did not recognize (for some time) that their enemy was an insurgency and required a set of solutions other than the application of sheer combat power. That failure of recognition is not surprising. The Army and the Marine Corps were doctrinally organized, trained, and equipped to fight and destroy a conventional enemy. The Army had not updated its counterinsurgency doctrine for 20 years and, even then, it had not integrated the counterinsurgency lessons from the war in Vietnam. The foremost discussion on that failure was John A. Nagl's book " Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam." Nagl compared the practice of counterinsurgency by the British Army in the Malayan Emergency from 1948 to 1960, and the American military in the Vietnam War, to the pronounced detriment of the Americans. Ricks demonstrates that the lessons remained unlearned.

Much has changed. The Army and Marine Corps developed and published new counterinsurgency doctrine in 2006 and, together with "the surge" of additional troops, have applied that doctrine to good effect in Iraq. Those beneficial changes, however, demonstrate the accuracy of Ricks' assessments and ascriptions of responsibility for the earlier mishandling of the war.


"Despite All the Planning, Rumsfeld Had No Plan", Mr. Ricks argues that the invasion of Iraq "was based on perhaps the worst war plan in American history," an incomplete plan that confused removing Iraq's regime with the far more difficult task of changing the entire country.

The result of going in with too few troops and no larger strategic plan, he says, was that the U.S. effort resembled a banana republic coup d'état more than a full-scale war plan that reflected the ambition of a great power to alter the politics of a crucial region of the world.

The four hundred plus pages move along pretty fast and Ricks to his credit, lets the facts tell the story without extensive or heavy-handed direct criticism of President Bush or then-Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.

I think Fiasco along with Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 are the two best books about the Iraq war to date. Recommended.

"Fantastic", What a book. The true behind the scenes revelation of how and why the Iraq war happened. No BS just the facts.

"Pleasantly Surprised", Since 2003, the people who had negative thoughts about Iraq were usually the people who were not very well informed. Although this book holds a more liberal point of view, the technique that Ricks' uses in his countless interviews with everyone from Privates to 4 Star Generals was amazing. He rarely inserts his own opinion in the book and lets the information speak for itself...so that the reader can either disagree or agree with the information presented to him/her. This is a great read for anyone who is interested in the war in Iraq, anyone who loves military reading, or anyone who is being deployed to Iraq. It holds a lot of good information on why we have been failing over there and what we can do to better our chances of stopping the insurgency. Great read, I strongly recommend it.



 
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Read this reviews before You buy...

"Great Title, Decent Book", As an Iraq War veteran who served on the front lines in the Sunni Triangle throughout 2004, I took a certain interest in the subject matter of this book. I found it to be most convincing - and damning - in the first third, where Ricks lays out the blindness, incompetence, and misguided thinking of civilian and military leaders who planned the war. While the rest of the book is worthwhile reading, and offers some interesting insights, it is also lazily organized and far from comprehensive. Obviously, one book can't cover everything, but Ricks could have been more judicious in the amount of coverage he devoted to certain topics. For example, while the mismanagement of Bremer's CPA is hashed out over what seems a hundred pages or so, the roles of influential military-industrial companies such as Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, etc, barely rate a few pages.

While one strength of the book is Ricks' access to high ranking officers and civilian authorities,it also suffers from a lack of meaningful commentary from the enlisted ranks. Speaking as a former Army Sergeant, my feeling has always been that enlisted men have a far better feeling for the reality of what is happening on the ground. However, rather than including strategic insights from the lower ranks, Ricks reduces their contributions to brief anecdotes about fierce firefights with insurgents.

Ultimately, this book is good in providing a limited perspective on the war, particularly in parsing the differences between tactics and strategies, and how they were often at odds in 2003-2004. However, this book should NOT be considered comprehensive in any way. It is far more jouralistic than historic, and readers seeking blow by blow accounts of the action will be sorely disappointed. On the other hand, when the war is fially over and the history books are written, this book should provide some good reference material.



"Fiasco", The contents of this book served to confirm events for which I was aware and at the same time reveal things for which I was not aware. It is a worth while source of information for all Americans, for or against the Iraq war notwithstanding.

"view from inside the military", This is a very detailed look at the occupation up to the end of 2005 from the point of view of mid-level military officers who understood counterinsurgency, saw what was going wrong, and tried to do something about it. The author is sympathetic to the military and its aims, but plain spoken about the failures of planning and strategy that caused the fiasco.

"A Superb Read", Tom Ricks' "Fiasco" is a superb history of the first three years of U.S. military engagement in Iraq, chronicling in detail the years 2003-2006. Though the events in the book seem a little dated at this point, reading about them now in the Spring of 2008, one can see how mistakes made early on impact the later evolution of a conflict.

Mistakes were made at all levels of this war. Politicians and senior decision makers in Washington sent too few troops to win the peace and were too willing to listen to exiles, many of whom had little experience in Iraq in the last 20 years, and their rosy projections about the Americans would be greeted. On the other hand, many commanders in Iraq were too heavy handed or unwilling to accept the type of the conflict they were fighting, and too quick to resort to firepower over finesse.

All in all, this is a powerful book and should be read by the widest possible audience. I highly recommend this book.


"The Most Relevant Book about the U.S. Invasion of Iraq", Thomas Ricks is to be commended for a thorough and well-researched book on the Iraqi invasion and the overall so-called "War on Terror." Ricks discusses in great detail the evolution of the U.S. relationship with Iraq from it's outward support during it's war with Iran, Saddam's miscalculation regarding U.S. intentions regarding Iraq's invasion of Kuwait leading to the Persian Gulf War, American and U.S. containment of Iraq following the war, and the rise of the neo-cons and their pre-determination that Saddam needed to be overthrown.

Ricks discusses the effects of 9/11/2001 and how the Cheney/Bush whitehouse used the Al Qaeda attacks as a justification for the armed conflict in Iraq. Ricks takes the reader to the same places and events that Ron Suskind does in "The One Percent Doctrine" in examining how evidence was built around the policy rather than the other way around. He shows the marketing efforts of the Bush Administration in selling the war to an angry and shell-shocked American public.

Ricks discusses briefly the actual invasion of Iraq because it was, shall we say brief. However, he writes about the basic problems associated with the Rumsfeld strategy of a quick and small military force, the flawed assumptions behind that strategy, namely that more forces would be needed to invade Iraq than to secure it.

He also does a good job of showing the failure of American planners, both military as well as civilian to bring order to Iraq and maintain a functioning society. The failed efforts to provide Jay Garner what he needed for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and the ineptness of L. Paul Bremer in his role replacing Garner are a central to Rick's book and title. De-baathification, the disbanding of the Iraqi army, the ill-fated attempts at creating a secular group of Iraqis to turn the country over to- all are discussed and how the failures of the CPA and the lack of effective military command under Gen. Sanchez led to an insurgency.

The development of the insurgency and the coalition response is perhaps the most interesting and historically significant part of this book. The military having no central guidelines coming from the top commander meant that individual units had to improvise, and some did better than others. Fiasco makes General Petraeus look inspired, whereas it makes General Odierno look bullish and incompetent. It also outlines the successes of Col. McMaster in his effective dealing with the insurgents and turning things around in Talafar.

Ricks also addresses the problem of gaining actionable intelligence about the insurgents and how detainment policies were implemented and how the Abu Ghraib situation arose and how it bolstered the insurgency. He also discusses the effects of the battles of Fallujah, the growth of the Mahdi army and other armed factions. He also goes into the civil war and how Al Qaeda's blowing up of the golden dome led to widespread violence.

All in all, Fiasco, will be regarded by historians as the most important contemporary account of what led to the war, and what problems the Americans faced in and after their invasion. It will provide future historians and future Presidents with an arsenal of cautions about nation-building, regime change, and engaging in pre-emptive war. It also provides an enlightening understanding of counter-insurgency tactics and how they can be best deployed. All Americans, from liberals to conservatives should read this book.

Ricks in the end is still hopeful that the situation can be salvaged. His sympathies are clearly with the troops and with the Iraqi people. There is underneath it all a searing contempt for the Bush Administration that he tries to hide, but in the end can't. A very interesting book.

 
 
 

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