Introduction

If you only wanted to read two books about the on going war in Iraq the first one I would recommend is War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorismby Douglas Feith that I previously wrote about here on the ROK Drop, which tells the inside story about the war from the perspective of a Pentagon insider.  The book is well researched and packed with indisputable facts backed with extensive endnotes.  The second book I recommend reading would be The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by journalist Thomas Ricks:

Ricks is the author of a previous book about the war titled Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005 that was good in parts and poor in others, but his latest book is much better with much of his facts backed up with endnotes.  His book’s endnotes, like Feith’s, has copies of memos and PowerPoint presentations that are always interesting to read through.

Thomas Ricks

As far as the scope of The Gamble, it covers the time frame of the war in Iraq between 2006 and 2008 where his last book Fiasco left off.  I didn’t have a high opinion of Ricks’ book initially because the opening chapter focused on the Haditha Incident and does not give the Marines’ side of the story as well as not disclosing that what happened at Haditha that day was a planned Al Qaeda media operation.  Ricks barely makes mention of the fact that none of the Marines were convicted for murder due to this incident.  I just think a whole lot more context should have been given to this issue if you are going to bring it up.

Prelude to the Surge

Anyway, once Ricks gets away from his fixation on Haditha he then gets into a critical part of the war in Iraq which was the pre-Surge period.  I found it interesting that in June 2006 three national security experts Eliot Cohen, Michael Vickers, and Fred Kagan plus writer and journalist Robert Kaplan were invited to Camp David to advise the President on how the war could be better run.  Some may remember Michael Vickers is the CIA operative that was made famous in the book and movie Charlie Wilson’s War and that Robert Kaplan is a man I often cite here on the ROK Drop and is the subject of one of my favorite blogs Coming Anarchy.  Kaplan specifically argued for increased patrols and a 24/7-security presence in Iraq neighborhoods.  I found this meeting with these four men to be quite an indictment of the advisers surrounding the President that he would have to reach outside his administration for advice.

Ricks explanation about the inside story of how the US military was able to find and target Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was extremely interesting and great blow to Al Qaeda.  However, the death of Zarqawi apparently caused President Bush to continue to put off advice from people like Kagan, Kaplan, Cohen, and Vickers to change strategy in Iraq because the killing of Zarqawi was taken to be a turning point in the war.  The strategy in Iraq prior to the Surge was one of handing over security responsibilities to Iraqi Forces in order to withdraw US combat troops.  However, this strategy was clearly a failure as violence continued to rise as incompetent and compromised Iraqi troops did next to nothing to stop the ethnic violence engulfing many areas of Iraq.  Ricks in this book is extremely critical of the US commanding General in Iraq, General George W. Casey.  Casey is painted as a General who is ignorant of a failed strategy he continues to advocated for despite all the evidence showing it is not working.

General Raymond Odierno

This sets the stage for his deputy, General Raymond Odierno to become one of the heroes of Ricks’ book.  General Odierno was actually one of the villains of Ricks’ first book Fiasco due to decisions Odierno made as commander of the 4th Infantry Division.  This was a part of Fiasco I thought Ricks was very unfair about since I served in the 4th Infantry Division and had direct knowledge of why Odierno did what he did during that first year in Iraq.  Anyway in this book it appears Ricks’ decided to paint Odierno as his redeemed hero as Odierno is actually focused on more as the architect behind the Surge strategy then even General David Petraeus.  Ricks writes that Odierno did much work behind General Casey’s back to get a change in strategy.  Even more critical behind the scenes work to change the strategy in Iraq was being accomplished by someone who was not even in the military any more retired General Jack Keane.

Jack Keane

Keane used to be the Vice Chief of Staff for the US Army And after retirement he closely followed the war and was unhappy with what he was seeing and decided to take action to do something about it.  Keane worked with the think tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and used his contacts in the Pentagon and through AEI to begin to change the strategy in Iraq.  Ricks in the book describes how Keane and Odierno working through their back channels were able to get the President to change his strategy in Iraq.

The Losers

During this part of the book Ricks is extremely critical of a number of Bush administration officials to include the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Peter Pace for not realizing a change is strategy was needed.  Pace is described in the book as bordering on incompetent.  Interestingly Ricks takes shots at one of the left’s favorite General Officers, Admiral Fox Fallon.  Fallon was no fan of Petraeus and Ricks lays out in his book how Fallon actually tried to hinder Petraeus’ work in Iraq.  Fallon actually comes off in the book as appearing jealous of the publicity that Petreaus was receiving.  General John Abizaid also comes off looking poorly in the book, which tends to validate the article Lieutenant Colonel Paul Yingling wrote about the failure of the Generals that ran the military in the lead up and beginning years of the war in Iraq.  Abu Muqawama has a good posting that further shows  the winners and losers of The Gamble to include a guest appearance by Ricks in the comments section.

Prior Counterinsurgency Success

To this day a lot of people still do not know that the counterinsurgency strategy brought to Iraq with the Surge strategy was actually already being implemented in a few areas in Iraq.  It is well known in military circles about the fine work Colonel Sean McFarland did in Al-Anbar province to turn tribes in the city of Ramadi against Al Qaeda in 2006.

Col. Sean MacFarland, left, in Ramadi, embraced the opportunity to try something different. He was told to "fix Ramadi, but don't destroy it. Don't do a Fallujah."

McFarland’s decision to implement counterinsurgency and doing things such as establishing combat outposts within the city was met with much chagrin of the Marines who had operated in that area for years with little success.  Ricks makes mention of the fine Civil Affairs officer Captain Travis Patriquin that worked with McFarland to implement a counterinsurgency strategy to help the tribes rise up against Al Qaeda.  Patriquin even released a PowerPoint presentation that laid out his strategy in the simplest of terms that has since been converted to YouTube:

Captain Patriquin was unfortunately killed in Ramadi, but the more I read about the operations that McFarland and his subordinates led there, the more I become impressed by what his unit accomplished in Ramadi.

McFarland wasn’t the only one who had used counterinsurgency in Iraq with great success.  A year prior in Tal Afar, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment commanded by Colonel H.R. McMaster also implemented a counterinsurgency approach that ultimately drove out Al Qaeda from that city and re-established security there.  I actually mentioned this counterinsurgency success right here on the ROK Drop over three years ago.

H.R. McMaster

The Surge strategy to bring more troops to Iraq was to build off the success of these prior operations by creating a nation wide strategy to implement counterinsurgency doctrine across Iraq augmented with increased troops.  The architects of the Surge strategy such as Keane, Odierno, and Petraeus understood they had a limited time to show results with the strategy and thus this is why they needed more troops.

The Surge Begins

Ricks narrative of the surge reads straight from many of the media and first hand blog accounts of what happened.  So if you have been following the war in Iraq closely through legitimate sources you may not be to surprised by what you read.  However, Ricks interviews with soldiers and officials that dealt with the Iraqi government were extremely reading.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki

For example it is clear that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malilki was impeding US operations in Iraq.  Ricks tells of how a senior member of Iran’s Quds Force was apprehended by US forces in Iraq and was linked to planning attacks against the US military in Iraq.  This agent was actually arrested in the compound of one of Iraq’s most influential politicians Abdul Aziz al-Hakim.  The US leadership was furious when Maliki released the man just a few days after his capture.  Maliki was also the chief defender of Muqutada al-Sadr because he would prevent the US military from conducting any crackdowns on Sadr in his stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad.  I think Ricks makes a strong case that Maliki was complicit in the Shia attempt to ethnically cleanse Baghdad of Sunnis.

Emma Sky, above, was invited by General Odierno, centre, to be his political adviser: 'I know that I have prevented loss of life on numerous occasions'

The book has much more in it about behind scenes details of the Surge from Petraeus and Odierno as well as excerpts of interviews with their key advisers such as Australian counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen and British human rights advocate Emma Sky.  These names are probably not familiar to most people, but to those who have closely followed the war in Iraq these people were critical to the implementation of the Surge strategy.  Sky who was long a critic of the US military actually had an entirely different opinion of them once she began working with them.  She actually has the best quote in the book that the people of the United States don’t deserve the military that defends them.

Incredible Coincidences

The book is also sprinkled with other interesting stories such as the time that Petraeus was shot in the chest during a training accident when he was a brigade commander with the 101st Airborne Division.  I had heard this story before, but something I didn’t know was that incredibly the guy standing next to Petraeus watching the training was Jack Keane.

General David Petraeus

Keane was the first person to notice Petraeus was shot and helped to medevac him out of the area.  Petraeus was to injured to be treated at the military hospital and was instead medvaced to a civilian hospital where another great coincidence happened that day.  The doctor that operated on him was Bill Frist who went on to be the Majority Leader of the Senate when Petreaus went to Iraq to implement his counterinsurgency strategy.  What are the chances of three so critical to the success of the Surge strategy meeting like this?  Pretty incredible when you think about it.  In another amazing coincidence the three major architects of the Surge Petreaus, Keane, and Odierno are all from the greater New York area.

Conclusion

As I mentioned in the introduction to this review I recommend both Ricks and Feith’s book as the two best reads for anyone looking to get a better understanding of the war in Iraq.  If you are wondering Ricks has no love for Feith and says so in his book, but what is interesting is that after reading each book you will see that each author is saying the same thing, but from different perspectives.

So what does Ricks think will ultimately happen in Iraq?  Well in this extremely interesting interview with Michael Totten he offers without reservation what he thinks will happen:

Iraq will not be okay. Americans are not going to be happy with the ultimate product. The best case scenario, I think, is an Iraq that is not democratic, not really stable, still has some violence, and is probably a closer ally of Iran than the United States. This is why the invasion of Iraq was the biggest mistake in the history of American foreign policy.

So what does Ricks think the US should do about this?:

This is why I think staying in Iraq is immoral, but leaving Iraq is even more immoral. There are no good solutions. The least bad solution is staying in smaller numbers for many years to come. If you walk out of Iraq tomorrow, that’s the Jerry Rubin solution. Remember Jerry Rubin? He was asked what he’s going to do after the revolution, and he said he was going to groove on the rubble.

Iraq would rubble-ize.

I tend to agree with Ricks that we are far from seeing victory in Iraq as some people claim.  Instead as I have expressed before Iraq is going to be a decades long nation building exercise just like South Korea was.  South Korea suffered through much political upheaval, military coups, corruption, among a host of other problems to include dozens of US soldiers being killed every year even 15 years after the end of the Korean War.

Through it all the US stuck with South Korea and that is the only way victory is going to come in Iraq as well.  However, are we up to it like we were in Korea?  I don’t know and don’t think anyone knows.  What I do know is that victory after the Korean War came in 1988 when Seoul hosted the Olympic Games.  If Baghdad is hosting the Olympic Games in 2040 then the US can declare victory.  In the mean time ignore the political demagogues and instead read realists like Thomas Ricks to get a better understanding of the war in Iraq.  I don’t agree with everything he says, but he is a serious thinker that everyone should respect and that is why I recommend everyone check this book out.