Fiasco
The American Military Adventure in Iraq
New York : Penguin Press, 2006.
Format: Book
Description: xiv, 482 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco is masterful and explosive reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on the unprecedented candor of key participants.The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. But the officers who did raise their voices against the miscalculations, shortsightedness, and general failure of the war effort were generally crushed, their careers often ended. A willful blindness gripped political and military leaders, and dissent was not tolerated.There are a number of heroes in Fiasco-inspiring leaders from the highest levels of the Army and Marine hierarchies to the men and women whose skill and bravery led to battlefield success in towns from Fallujah to Tall Afar-but again and again, strategic incoherence rendered tactical success meaningless. There was never any question that the U.S. military would topple Saddam Hussein, but as Fiasco shows there was also never any real thought about what would come next. This blindness has ensured the Iraq war a place in history as nothing less than a fiasco. Fair, vivid, and devastating, Fiasco is a book whose tragic verdict feels definitive.
Contents:
Containment -- A bad ending -- Containment and its discontents -- This changes everything: the aftermath of 9/11 -- The war of words -- The run-up -- The silence of the lambs -- Into Iraq -- Winning a battle -- How to create an insurgency (I) -- How to create an insurgency (II) -- The CPA: "can't produce anything" -- Getting tough -- The descent into abuse -- The long term -- "The Army of the Euphrates" takes stock -- The Marine Corps files a dissent -- The surprise -- The price paid -- The corrections -- Turnover -- Too little too late? -- Betting against history.
ISBN:
159420103X
Availability | |||
---|---|---|---|
Call Number | Location | Shelf Location | Status |
HISTORY War Iraqi Ric | Main (Downtown) | Third Level, Nonfiction | In |
HISTORY War Iraqi Ric | Main (Downtown) | Third Level, Nonfiction | In |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [441]-462) and index.