Fiasco The American military adventure in Iraq

*Starred Review* ""President George W. Bush¿s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 ultimately may come to be seen as one of the most profligate actions in the history of American foreign policy. . . . The U.S. government went to war in Iraq with scant solid international support and on the basis of incorrect information . . . and then occupied the country negligently." So begins Ricks¿ definitive and well-sourced account of the failures that led up to the morass that is the Iraq War. Where other books on Iraq have adopted a neutral tone, Ricks, the senior Pentagon reporter for the Washington Post, has a definite point of view­ and offers plenty of blame to go around-all well grounded in the facts he presents and the sources from whom he quotes. Interestingly, President Bush gets off rather easily, as Ricks disputes what others, such as Paul O¿Neil and Richard Clarke, have said-that the administration was hell bent on going into Iraq early on. Coming under closer scrutiny are Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, his protégé Douglas Feith, and Tommy Franks, all of whom, Ricks argues persuasively, badly misread the situation in Iraq, planned for the rosiest of futures, and ignored information that suggested they might get something else. Nor are other American institutions spared: Ricks effectively shows how Congress and the press rolled over when they should have stood up. Written in clear prose and organized into short bits with titles like "A fuse is lit in Fallujah" or "The occupation at the tipping point," this penetrating analysis is remarkably accessible, even as the events discussed remain depressingly difficult to comprehend."--"Cooper, Ilene" Copyright 2007 Booklist

Lurie has that wonderful ability to disappear into the text. His voice is low and steady, with just enough variation to emphasize points, highlight irony and make every sentence eminently clear. You don't need a dramatic reading here-there's plenty of drama in this smoothly wrought abridgment. Ricks minutely examines each stage of the Iraq war through hundreds of interviews with senior and junior officers, and reviews of untold numbers of documents. The result is a portrait of tragedy he lays at the feet of an administration that went into Iraq to overthrow Hussein, but had no strategy to handle an occupation. Ricks exposes the failures emerging from civilian and military leadership's inability to plan beyond today. The U.S. military's disbanding of the former Iraqi army and civilian corps morphed into an insurgency when tens of thousands of angry, unemployed men were unable to feed their families. In a few areas, good leaders make friends with local religious and civilian leaders, but in most the administration's go-get-'em mentality creates more enemies. Simultaneous release with the Penguin Press hardcover (reviewed online). Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.