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Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (Hardcover)
by Thomas E. Ricks
Just when you think that everyone in the world has written a book about Iraq, another one shows up. When I think of all of them, I smile. Enough already!
However, one book, I am tempted to read is Fiasco which basically is about how the military leadership failed to anticipate the insurgency and continued to fight it with conventional methods which only made matters worse.
I heard the author of Fiasco, Thomas Ricks, interviewed on NPR by Terry Gross(my favorite interviewer). Ricks was entertaining and interesting. He reminds me of my brother, who can tell a great story.
Ricks told about this interesting encounter which almost tells the whole tragic episodic story of Iraq. Someone was trying to talk to Paul Bremer in the beginning about a possible insurgency and the guy made the mistake of mentioning Vietnam and Bremer goes berserk and says, "I don't want to talk about Vietnam. This is not Vietnam. This is Iraq." Thanks a lot!
Of course, Bremer wrote his own book, excusing himself for his own foibles including disbanding the Iraqi Army which is now thought, by most everyone who thinks, to have been a colossal mistake.
Ricks told story after story on NPR with several of them almost making me sick. According to Ricks, the ever persistant and prevailing insurgency is mainly because of our own bungling. Of course, Ricks is not telling any of us who have been paying attention anything we don't already know.
Where Ricks and I are definitely on the same sheet of music is the feeling, that, especially in the beginning, the powers that be took a very winnable and quick exiting strategy stage right and screwed the war up unmercifully.
Ricks, the Washington Post Pentagon correspondent has done his homework, and afterall, writes for a publication, which I think, is fairly friendly to the Iraqi decision makers. For those that cannot be convinced on how we have f....d-up the Iraq war, maybe they might pay a little attention to this guy, but maybe not.
Ricks says that after Vietnam, we were determined to totally ignore the lessons we had learned. I know that to be true. I happened to be at the Army's Command and General College when Vietnam fell. It was a sad day as suddenly we Vietnam veterans grasped the fact anew that our efforts had been in vain and our friends had died in vain.
In fact, the more I think about it, what makes me go along with Ricks is that during my year at Command and General College, we never talked about Vietnam. It was as though it didn't exist. In other words, we threw away any lessons we learned. And, the military was definitely complicit in this. I can remember a speech given by the Commander, a two star general whom I had served with in Vietnam. He more or less spanked us and intimated that he didn't want to hear about Vietnam anymore and get over it.
I have only listened to an interview and read a couple of reviews, but I'm determined to read this book. Ricks indicts the military "higher ups" for being so "go along" with the idea that the insurgency didn't exist and things were great. I can still remember watching the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on TV and thinking, "it is like the Secretary of Defense makes his spiel and then turns to the Chairman, 'OK, reinforce what I've said.'' - the result is a Joint Chief with no opinion of his own and perhaps looking like a puppet.
I may be a little harsh and not sure what I would want these guys to say, but what they did say surely didn't help and we're still losing soldiers.
Ricks tells this one story of when Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are in Iraq during the first year of the war. On this particular red carpet visit, they assured the press of this "amazing progress that has been made." And, they are doing it, "looking over white tablecloths with candelabras with a buffet of lamb, rice and veggies, swaddled in the tight security of the Green Zone." Ricks says that almost for a moment, it was easy to believe them. Well, a couple or so years later, it ain't so easy to believe. KT
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