War & Face of Battle – Page 21 – Public Intelligence Blog

2006/10/042010/05/31

Review: State of Denial–Bush at War Part III

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Democracy, Diplomacy, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Priorities, Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), Terrorism & Jihad, Threats (Emerging & Perennial), True Cost & Toxicity, Voices Lost (Indigenous, Gender, Poor, Marginalized), War & Face of Battle

Stake in the Heart of the W Presidency

October 4, 2006

Bob Woodward

Here are the highlights I drew out that make this book extraordinary and worth reading even if it leaves one with a political hang-over:

1) The Federal Government is broken, and was made worse by a President who knew nothing of foreign policy, a Vice President who closed down the inter-agency policy system, and a Secretary of Defense who was both contemptuous of the uniformed military and held in contempt by Bush Senior.

2) My opinion of the Secretary of Defense actually went UP with this book. Rumsfeld has clearly been well-intentioned, has clearly asked the right questions, but he let his arrogance get away from him. Given a choice between Admiral Clark, a truth-telling transformative person, and General Myers, an acquiescent warrior diminished to senior clerk, Rumsfeld made the right choice for his management style, and the wrong choice for the good people in our Armed Forces. I *like* Rumsfeld's Anchor Chain letter as it has been described, and wish it had been included as an Appendix. Rumsfeld got the control he wanted, but he sacrificed honest early warning in so doing.

3) This book also improves my opinion of the Saudis and especially Prince Bandar. While I have no tolerance for Saudi Royalty–the kind of corrupt debauched individuals that make Congressman Foley look like a vestal virgin–the Saudis did understand that Bush's unleashing of Israel was disastrous, and they did an excellent job of shaking up the President. Unfortunately, they could not overcome Dick Cheney, who should resign or be impeached for gross dereliction of duty and usurpation of Presidential authority.

4) Tenet's visit to Rice on 10 July is ably recounted and adds to the picture. It joins others books, notably James Risen's “State of War,” “Hubris,” FASCO” and “The End of Iraq in presenting a compelling picture of a dysfunctional National Security Advisor who is now a dysfunctional Secretary of State–and Rumsfeld still won't return her phone calls…..

5) The author briefly touches on how CIA shined in the early days of the Afghan War (see my reviews of “JAWBREAKER” and “First In” for more details) but uses this to show that Rumsfeld took the impotence of the Pentagon, and the success of CIA, personally.

6) The author also tries to resurrect Tenet somewhat, documenting the grave reservations that Tenet had about Iraq, but Tenet, like Colin Powell, failed to speak truth to power or to the people, and failed the Nation.

7) Rumsfeld recognized the importance of stabilization and reconstruction (and got an excellent report from the Defense Science Board, not mentioned by this book, on Transitions to and From Hostilities) but he vacillated terribly and ultimately failed to be serious on this critical point.

8) This book *destroys* the Defense Intelligence Agency, which some say should be burned to the ground to allow a fresh start. The author is brutal in recounting the struggles of General Marks to get DIA to provide any useful information on the alleged 946 WMD sites in Iraq. DIA comes across as completely derelict bean counters with no clue how to support operators going in harms way, i.e. create actionable intelligence.

9) Despite WMD as the alleged basis for war, the military had no unit trained, equipped, or organized to find and neutralize WMD sites. A 400 person artillery unit was pressed into this fearful service.

10) General Jay Garner is the star of this story. My face lit up as I read of his accomplishments, insights, and good judgments. He and General Abizaid both understood that allowing the Iraqi Army to stay in being with some honor was the key to transitioning to peace, and it is clearly documented that Dick Cheney was the undoing of the peace. It was Dick Cheney that deprived Jay Garner of Tom Warrick from State, the man who has overseen and understood a year of planning on making the peace, and it was Dick Cheney that fired Garner and put Paul Bremer, idiot pro-consult in place. Garner clearly understood a month before the war–while there was still time to call it off–that the peace was un-winable absent major changes, but he could not get traction within the ideological fantasy land of the Vice Presidency.

11) Apart from State, one military officer, Colonel Steve Peterson, clearly foresaw the insurgency strategy, but his prescient warnings were dismissed by the larger group.

12) General Tommy Franks called Doug Feith “the dumbest bastard on the planet,” –Feith deprived Garner of critical information and promoted Chalabi as the man with all the answers.

13) The author covers the 2004 election night very ably, but at this point the book started to turn my stomach. The author appears oblivious to the fact that the Ohio election was stolen through the manipulation of 12 voting districts, loading good machines in the pro-Bush areas, putting too few machines in the pro-Kerry areas, and in some cases, documented by Rolling Stone, actually not counting Kerry votes at all on the tallies. Ohio has yet to pay, as does Florida, for its treasonous betrayal of the Republic.

Today I issued a press release pointing toward the Pakistan treaty creating the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan as a safehaven for the Taliban and Al Qaeda as the definitive end–loss of–the war on terror, which is a tactic, not an enemy. As Colin Gray says in “Modern Strategy,” time is the one strategic variable that cannot be bought nor replaced. As a moderate Republican I dare to suggest that resigning prior to the November elections, in favor of John McCain, Gary Hart, and a Coalition Cabinet, might be the one thing that keeps the moderate Republican incumbents, and the honest Democrats–those that respect the need for a balanced budget–in place to provide for continuity in Congress, which must *be* the first branch of government rather than slaves to the party line.

It's crunch time. This book is the last straw. The American people are now *very* angry.

2006/09/082009/12/04

Review: Blood Money–Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Insurgency & Revolution, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page

Shocking, Read with “Squandered Victory”,

September 8, 2006

T. Christian Miller

This is a definite five star piece of work that approaches our failures in Iraq from a different perspective, and hence should be read with, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. It goes beyond Squandered Victory, which creates outrage over incompetence, and actually turns one's stomach with disgust toward the end.

The book starts with a very useful timeline of events, and the opening premise that Paul Wolfowitz was wrong on virtually every promise and claim made to Congress.

The author's strategic view, threaded throughout the book, is that the U.S. effort in Iraq never had coherent “supreme commander” type leadership, that virtually all elements (U.S. Army and U.S. Marines excepted) lacked both intelligence and integrity, and that this was one of the most incompetent, ignorant occupations in the history of mankind. He does seem to avoid pointing out that Rumsfeld demanded complete military control of the country, relegated the diplomats to the back room, and did not even tell Bremer for a year that there was a diplomatic plan for nation-building. This is on Rumsfeld and Bremer. History will judge them harshly.

The author documents that the US Government knew in advance that there was no plan for the peace (the State Department efforts not-withstanding) and no way of creating an effective plan.

The author is powerful in showing that “shock and awe” warfare made the transition to peace virtually impossible. 17 out of 21 Ministry headquarters buildings were completely destroyed (and then the occupying force allowed for the looting of all offices, all museums, all universities, and all stockpiles of ammunition and explosives needed for the Improvised Explosive Devices (IED) that have killed so many of our troops. The oil infrastructure was not protected, was completely looted, and this lost the chance for paying anything with oil in the early years.

Immortal quote on page 40: “…a circus, a Looney Tunes version of government, hatched on the fly, delivered at random, and operating without instruction.”

Reconstruction cost estimate: $2.4 billion. Actual cost: $30 billion and rising. Results after several years: less than 10% of the needed work. Money unaccounted for: $18 billion.

The author differs from those who supported sanctions in pointing out that the sanctions virtually destroyed Iraq's health system.

Psychologically, the author suggests that the months of lip service to freedom and reconstruction raised hopes that were then dashed. One is reminded of the Davies J-Curve from the 1970's–revolutions occur not among the oppressed, but among those who have been shown the prospect of freedom and prosperity, and then had it taken out of their grasp.

On contracting, one's stomach turns with every page. Cost plus, no incentive to save; U.S. companies doing for millions what Iraqi companies would do for tens of thousands; U.S. contractors earning $60K and more, foreign laborers imported for $3000 a year. The author specifically quotes contractors as saying they knew they could steal the process blind in the first year, which would be “open season.”

I consider this book to be the eventual final nail in the coffin of the Private Military Contractors. The author documents how the military's very unwise reliance on private contractors for combat zone logistics led to a need for private contractors to provide security, to the point that 22% of the reconstruction dollars are going toward Private Military Corporations (PMC).

My global reading program suggests that the Bush-Cheney Administration will go down in history as having pulled off the most blatant program of planned lies to the public, Congress, and the United Nations, and the most blatant slight of hand in switching the burden from a properly staffed military command to a war-profiteering mélange of PMCs. There is no question in my mind but that we need to eliminate PMCs along with Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) in the future, and we need to properly fund four forces after next: big war force, small war and gendarme force, peace force, and homeland security force. The US military today is a Cadillac built for the superhighway, when we need 10 jeeps, 100 motorcycles, and 1000 bicycles.

The author condemns both the U.S. Government in all its parts, and the PMCs in all their parts, for issuing frantic and confused orders and never really getting their act together. This book is the obituary for Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Paul Bremmer, among others.

EDIT of 10 Dec 07: Since then war crimes of contractors have become an issue, see Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror and varied media stories.

2006/09/022009/12/04

Review DVD: Ike – Countdown to D-Day

Decision-Making & Decision-Support, Reviews (DVD Only), War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page

Leadership at the highest level,

September 2, 2006

Tom Selleck

As much as I like Robert Duvall, his version of Ike was scripted to focus on his relationship with Kate Summersby, not on the substance of leadership. This movie is absolutely superb.

Tom Selleck gives what may be one of the most mature and serious performances of his career, and from my vantage point–not having been a general officer but knowing about fifty of them)–I believe he captures with enormous nuance and feeling the stress not only of leadership, but of leadership in a coalition environment where egos and posturing by lesser generals can run amok.

The very best part of this movie is in its portrayal of the dynamics between Churchill and Ike, and the historic shift away from separate field commanders for air, land, and sea, and one Supreme Commander. The USA could use a Supreme Commander today. In my view, the services continue to posture and lie to inflate their budgets, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be a five-star general and chosen to be the Supreme Commander, with the Secretary of Defense in command of policy and acquisition and inter-agency support, but NOT micro-managing either the strategy or the global force projection.

When in London I always try to visit the war bunker from which Churchill managed World War II. I always look for the 2-3 telephones that were used and remind myself that command is about more than having a ton of command and control, communications, computing, and a heavy metal military. This movie is a primer on sensible leadership under stress.

Other DVDs with reviews that I like:
We Were Soldiers (Widescreen Edition)
The Last Samurai (Two-Disc Special Edition)
Glory
Tears of the Sun (Special Edition)

and the entire Horatio Hornblower series
Horatio Hornblower Boxed Set
Horatio Hornblower – The New Adventures (Loyalty / Duty)

2006/08/292009/12/04

Review: Licensed to Kill–Hired Guns in the War on Terror (Hardcover)

5 Star, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Iraq, War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page

THE Reference on Private Military Contractors and Those Who Hire or Fear Them,

August 29, 2006

Robert Young Pelton

I was the guy that did the threat study that put private military contractors on the official targeting list for the US Government, establishing them as legitimate targets who needed to be understood by all available (secret and open) means as either belligerents or at least relevant actors in any situation.

Robert Young Pelton, whom I know personally and admire as one of the most honest, courageous, and mature investigative journalists and adventurers (see my review of his Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places: 5th Edition (Robert Young Pelton the World's Most Dangerous Places), is without question the best reporter and observer in the world of the “dogs of war.” He ranks up with and above Robert Kaplan, Seymour Hersh, and John Fialka, three intrepid and intellectual reporters who help define the extraordinary talents and veracity of this author, Robert Young Pelton.

When I received his book I dropped everything and offer here a few of the highlights:

He distinguishes carefully between Mercenaries (soldiers for hire) and Private Military Contractors (PMC) who are security for hire.

Blackwater, the best of the (PMC can train 35,000 men in a year, and delivers a lighter, faster, smaller (and more effective) security force than the U.S. Army.

He recounts the history of CIA money into Special Operations Forces (SOF) black operations, which in turn created PMCs. Just as CIA funded the jihad in Afghanistan, so also has it funded–perhaps ignorantly in both cases–the emergence of the PMCs.

Telling early story: before 9/11, lawyers reduced CIA and other action elements of the US Government to wimpy toast. It took 9/11 to frost the lawyers and unleash the real men in the USG and elsewhere.

EDIT: Prior to 9/11, the lawyers were piss-ants such as those who advised the ABLE DANGER team to destroy evidence discovered pre 9-11 of two hijackers, instead of turning it over to the FBI. CIA lawyers, with a couple of exceptions, are also piss-ants. Real men include the guys that went into Afghanistan (see my reviews of Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander and First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan), and the guys at US Special Operations Command who are on their own all over the world. I never imagined that NSA and CIA would simply turn the lawyers off and violate ALL of our civil liberties, including warrantless wiretapping and rendition (kidnapping to export for torture) and the denial of habeas corpus to US and UK and Australian citizens, among others.

His overall account makes it clear that the new breed of PMC warrior is better in all respects (stronger, faster, smarter, better shot, more tech savvy) than the past SOF heroes, but FAILS in one important respect: tactical combat decision-making. He explains that communications has robbed the field men of all initiative, and they are now nothing more than risk takers for fat-assed pasty-faced Rear Echelon Mother Fryers (REMF) with too much rank, too much air conditioning, and not enough character to make it in the field.

This book will be, for some time, the basic reference for those who wish to be PMCs, manage PMCs, or employ PMC companies. On the one hand, he documents the rates and the profits ($500 a day per man, billed at $1500 a day per man, with $500 for overhead and $500 for profit PER DAY), but he also points out that at 24/7 ops tempo, this can come out to $25 an hour, or worse. He points out that SOF and other skilled uniformed professionals earn $50K a year, while PMCs can earn $200K a year–the contrast explains why SOF is hemorrhaging personnel. He discussed the 90 days on, 30 days off, but also notes that a third of the candidates do not make the grade in training, while half of those who are sent to the field do not make the grade under combat conditions and are Ordered Home.

In passing he notes that CIA tends to stink at local level relations, throwing money at locals to get intelligence, which is consequently generally bad and useless.

He also warns those who receive USG funded PMCs that as was the case in Haiti, the withdrawal of US funding for PMC security can be capricious and sudden.

He related the rise of the PMC to the political desire in the US of limiting the uniformed head counts in combat conditions, and this in turn not only supports PMCs with guns instead of uniformed military with guns, but also turning over all logistics to PMCs, some of which are unrealizable (and thus leave our troops without water and food and shower points in the clinch).

The book adds further to the documented view of Paul Bremer as a dictator no better than Saddam Hussein (who at least provided electricity and water and stability).

This thoughtful study notes that the Rules of Engagement (ROE) have not been well developed for PMCs, and that the seam between PMCs and the US military and the US Department of State are thoroughly screwed up to non-existent.

He notes that in addition to Iraqi disdain for Paul Bremer, there is acute Iraqi consciousness for the fact that in Iraq, PMCs are the top of the food chain and have everything, including jobs, which Iraqis have not received in the so-called “peace.”

This author and this book SMASHES both the Rolling Stone article on “Heavy Metal Mercenaries” and the self-promoting and largely false book The Hunt for Bin Laden: Task Force Dagger.

Passing comments document the different “tribes” in the PMC world, the fact that many PMCs are paying their US citizens with offshore accounts that evade taxes, that laptops not guns are the focus for many individuals (their lifeline to family and reality), that London is the center of gravity for PMC activity, that over 400 PMCs have been killed in Iraq (contract this with 2,500 from US military), and that the bottom line for PMCs is that they are largely ethical, moral, professional, and committed.

I especially liked the author's closing contrast between the British PMC model “it's about minimum force, Old Boy” and the US model, “high tech max force” approach.

Immortal quote on page 227: “The post 9/11 world opened up a Pandora's box of prospects for adventurers, conmen, and opportunists….”

I will end with three points the author brings out:

1) PMC Blackwater is smart, focused on the bomb makers not the bomb deliverers.

2) Everybody is making money in Iraq (that is a US citizen) EXCEPT the US uniformed soldiers actually fighting the war.

3) PMCs are, like guns, something that can be used for good or bad.

Robert Young Pelton is extraordinary, and this book is the cutting edge of reality: PMCs. He is unique for his preparation and for walking in the PMC shoes.

2006/07/202009/12/04

Review: The End of Iraq–How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (Hardcover)

Congress (Failure, Reform), Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Executive (Partisan Failure, Reform), Iraq, Military & Pentagon Power, Stabilization & Reconstruction, War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page

Lack of Balance,Good Detail, First-Rate Personal Perspective,

July 20, 2006

Peter W. Galbraith

I recommend the other reviews, including the negative ones, for they accurately depict a lack of balance that might normally cause me to give this book one less star. However, because it has first-rate personal perspective including extraordinary travel that most US officials and journalists cannot claim, it gets the full five stars. I especially liked the “cast of characters” at the end, with names and titles and dates. A fine review.

The book can be quickly summed up by a quote from page 7: “Insurgency, civil war, Iranian strategic triumph, the breakup of Iraq, an independent Kurdistan, military quagmire.”

As the Administration continues to deny that Iraq is in a civil war, the author is compelling in citing the Iraqis themselves saying that they are–and that America lost it when it turned from liberator to occupying power. Two people come out of this book looking colossally ignorant: George Bush, who never heard of the Sunni-Shiite split before the war, and Paul “Jerry” Bremer. The author's basic proposition is that the American Republic has been undone by extraordinary arrogance, ignorance, and political cowardice.

The author is a good writer with a gift for clear phrases. He concludes that the White House and the Pentagon's politically-appointed leaders consistently “ignored inconvenient facts.” He concludes that Iraq may actually be better off in the long run, but the US is clearly not–we have gored ourselves near fatally.

I agree with the critics that suggest the author is in love with Kurdistan and overlooking some of their less rosy realities. The book is a clearly partisan document that admires the Kurds and makes the case for a free Kurdish state within Iraq (three states, one nation, not a division of Iraq as some critics loosely interpret). He is considerate of Turkish concerns and how a Kurdistan inside of Iraq but independent within Iraq, can meet their needs for a secular buffer.

There are some gems in this book that I have not found elsewhere, including a detailed accounting of the atrocities committed by Hussein against the Kurds, the Kurds rebuilding including English-speaking universities and doctors certified by the British Medical Board.

I was shocked to learn that the White House employs a CANADIAN speech-writer (who may well be one of the new Canadian clandestine case officers they are starting to field), and that this CANADIAN inserted the “axis of evil” line (which the author points out is ignorant both geographically and historically).

Overall the author could help inspire the impeachment of the Vice President. His book complements that of Ron Susskind, “The One-Percent Doctrine” and is replete with lines like “logic and facts did not stop the Bush Administration…” (page 80), “wishful thinking substituted for knowledge” (page 88, describing Undersecretary Feith), “contrary views were not just rejected, they were banned” (page 89), and “the ignorant are always surprised” (page 101).

In terms of historical documentation, the author is strongest in his detailing the incompetence of the Bush Administration in failing to plan for the war, and he lays much of the blame on Cheney for falling prey to Ahmad Chalabi's lies. The author says on page 86 that Chalabi's role cannot be overstated.

He trumps that with detail on the idiocy and arrogance of Paul “Jerry” Bremer who decided to run Iraq as his own fiefdom, and in his first two decisions, banned all Baaths from leadership positions, and dismembered the army and all security services. If there is one man to blame for all the American dead and disabled since the war “ended,” it is this well-intentioned but contextually inept person, who acted against the specific advice of the senior Army generals then serving in the field.

From an intelligence perspective, the author is credible when he points out that in the aftermath of the war and before the break-down of all order in Iraq, neither the Pentagon nor the CIA seemed to be aware of, nor interested in, the treasure trove of intelligence materials scattered in various locations throughout Iraq. This tracks with my own intimate knowledge of civilian and military intelligence, both preferring to stay in the Green Zone and not miss their evening cocktails, Robert Bauer and a few others excepted.

On page 118 the author absolutely floors me by pointing out that the Department of State spent an entire year creating a blueprint for securing the peace in Iraq, but the Department of Defense, which insisted on controlling “diplomacy” in Iraq, did not tell Bremer the detailed plan existed until a year after he arrived on the job. On page 117, the author details how the US inter-agency bureaucracy was and is out of control, with rival US factions pursuing policies that are diametrically opposed. He is particularly caustic in slamming the grotesquely incompetent manner in which the Administration threw together the nation-building team, including six young people from the Heritage Foundation who ended up running a $13 billion a year budget.

The author condems Bremer's gratuitous humiliation as having broken Iraq apart and spawned the insurgency. In the author's view, Bremer blew it in that he was a naked Emperor hiding in the Green Zone, and neither the Shiites in the south nor the Kurds in the north ever gave up their militaries or their power over their own terrain.

The book ends by stating that the US needs a strategy based on reality, not wishful thinking or ideological fantasy, and he concludes that three states comprising one nation, is the fastest way out of Iraq. I agree.

This is a solid professional account. I disagree with those critics who consider the author to be self-serving, embellishing, or otherwise deceiving the public. While he emphasizes some things more than others, and would clearly like an independent Kurdistan, on balance I consider this to one of the better first-person stories, right up there with “Squandered Victory.”

2006/06/042009/12/04

Review: Tiger Force–A True Story of Men and War (Hardcover)

5 Star, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, War & Face of Battle

Amazon Page

In Context, a Shameful Story with Two Sides,

June 4, 2006

Michael Sallah

EDITED 16 Jun 06 to add heat stress hypothesis below.

I ordered this book when I first heard that the Marines had gone bezerk and killed several families in cold blood in Iraq, an action that caused me as a former Marine to weep silently for a time.

I certainly recommend that the reviews titled War Crimes and WAR CRIMES, and Hatchet Job, be read, for they have at least two good points that must be remembered and respected:

1) Indiscriminate air strikes are vastly more of a war crime than isolated incidents of ground forces going bezerk.

EDIT of 16 Jun 06. I met a really fascinating individual in Louiseville, Kentucky, H.C. (Bud) Meyer, ex NASA, now Advanced Systems Integrators, who in a very active retirement is doing everything he can to help fire fighters not die at an average age of forty. It turns out that heat stress on their hearts over the course of twenty years is killing them. He developed a new suit that uses the backback (lessned in weight) to both feed them oxygen and to cool their suits, and the preliminary results are nothing short of sensational. I'be been a Marine and seen combat but never had to “do” combat with a full load and all the body armor, in the desert. I am absolutely convinced that a “heat stress defense” would be plausible. As much as I believe that Marines should be punished for indiscriminate murder of civilians, I also believe that Bud had brought forward an objective factor that is both relevant to to ground troop war crimes evaluation, and relevant to national-level leaders looking for ways to increase discipline by lessening the stress of combat in heat with a full load.

2) The failure of Pentagon, theater, and service leadership to investigate and prosecute may be understandable from a total force morale perspective, but is unconscionable in the larger global hearts and minds or “Information Operations” perspective. We have lost the moral high ground in the Middle East for many reasons, but Abu Grahib and the indiscriminate Marine executions of several families shame America and make it more likely that more America soldiers will die than otherwise.

A few things jumped out at me:

1) Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, then serving as President Ford's Secretary of Defense, refused to investigate and prosecute this matter. We should not expect him to be morally aggressive with respect to atrocities committed by Americans in Iraq and elsewhere.

2) There are clear signs when troops are beginning to “lose it” and are more likely to go bezerk, including body mutilation, and bodies without weapons (and very little bodies, such as the beheaded baby featured in this book). It should be possible for our generals to keep a pulse on the troops by having medical forensics and simply “paying attention.” Just as genocide has eight stages and can be predicted, I believe that ground force war crimes can be anticipated and personnel rotated and calmed.

3) Finally, I share the author's concluding view, that writing this book and bringing these atrocities to light, is valuable as a vaccination for the future. I believe in retrospective indictment and retospective impeachment, not necessarily in the serving of sentences past the statute of limitations (although war crimes have no such limitation). There are in my view three levels of war crime: strategic (elective wars, lying to the public); operational (indiscriminate air campaigns, focusing on nuclear proliferation instead of the control of small arms); and tactical–indiscriminate murder without honor, especially of women and children.

It merits comment that this book could not have been written without the emergence of a new file following the death of a key person. I believe that we will see a great deal of historical information come out in the next ten years that will, with the power of distributed processing, allow the people to judge their elected and appointed officials, in detail. I sense a new passion for justice and accountability being made possible by books such as this, and the Internet, and it is my hope that this will overtime reduce the “culture of cheating” as well as the likeliness of “going bezerk.”

The war crimes in this book were isolated, and are vastly surpassed in evil by things we are doing now and are planning to do, but I cannot shake the feeling that the men in this book are “us.” This is not a war story for wanna-be warriors (some of the reviews really cause me sadness, as if this book were entertainment)–it is an ethics lesson for future and present leaders of all ranks, because there but for God's grace go I, or you.

2006/03/292009/12/04

Review: Cobra II–The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (Hardcover)

3 Star, Iraq, War & Face of Battle

Fascinating Authorized Details, Missing Core Information,

March 29, 2006

Michael R. Gordon

EDIT of 11 Dec 07: my original comments have been validated. Adding links now that this feature is available, and a few additional references.

The index in this book is *terrible*, my first clue, as the #1 Amazon reviewer of non-fiction about national security, that something is amiss. There is no bibliography. That's my second clue. The footnotes are solid on interviews and Op-Eds, and abyssmal on books by other people–we'll give them a bye on that one, considering this a primary reference that is a partial picture.

The one theme that comes across, and it is partly motivated by a proper sense of restoring honor and reputation for the Army, is the constant degree to which Army officers gave the civilians good advice, only to see it ignored. The Army Chief of Staff got it right on post-conflict nation-building and needed manpower; the Army flags got it right in telling Bremer that that single dumbest thing he could do was disband the Army and put 100,000 pissed off Iraqis with guns on the street–but by golly, Bremer went ahead and did it.

Overall I do not find this book worthy of four stars (not even close for five) for the following reasons:

1) It is largely a white-wash, granted with lots of excellent detail, but it tells the story from the CINC and DCINC points of view, and I have previously reviewed those books and found them lacking in complete candor and full detail.

2) The book completely ignores all the negatives that have long-since been documented–the fact that Charlie Allen at CIA did send in 35 line-crossers and proved conclusively there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction; the fact that Chalabi was a thief and a liar fired by CIA and then used by Iran as an agent of influence to lick the ears of the neo-cons and persuade Rumsfeld (with help from the Mossad, which knew a coincidence of interest with the Iranians when they saw one) that it would be roses in the streets and a cheap war. The book completely ignores the peak oil imperatives that drove Cheney and the ugly post war realities including Paul Bremer “losing” $20 billion in loose cash, and Afghanistan becoming the source of 80% of the world's heroin (turned into #4 quality by our ally Pakistan).

2) The book ignores technical details that are my litmus test for full veracity. The fact that the White House and the military refused to put a Ranger battalion in to block Bin Laden's ground escape, tracked by CIA for four days (see my review of Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander), the fact that Rumsfeld very stupidly gave the Pakistani's an air corridor to evacuate their officers and they instead evacuated 3,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda from Tora Bora in one night)….the list goes on.

The book gets the high points right (misreading of the foe, dysfunction of US military bureaucracy, over reliance by Rumsfeld on technology, the failure to recognize reality once in (insurgents instead of parades), and the Bush disdain for nation-building) BUT the authors also soft-shoe all the other issues, of which I see three:

1) The Administration lied to Congress, the American People, and the United Nations. A memo is now out in Lawless World that shows clearly that Bush and Blair agreed to go to war and all that followed was posturing–certainly an impeachable offense if ever there was one. See Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq.

2) Tommy Franks did not give a rat's ass what the Joint Chiefs thought, and Franks was chosen to do exactly that, while the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was chosen because he would accept the role of floor mat rather than doing what any self-respecting officer should do, which is resign and be noisy in public.

3) The book fails to do as good a job as The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill or State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration in showing just how mendacious and dysfunctional was the Cheney-Rumsfeld coup d'etat within the White House. David Ropkoph's Ruling the World, several other books, make it quite clear that Condi Rice and Colin Powell were rolled, George Tenet was a raving sycophant, and our military was too eager to please, while Congress was pathologically absent without leave (AWOL).

The authors really would have done a vastly superior job had they actually read and integrated the varied books, e.g. Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq, the various books readily available on the web of lies that led to war, on the incompetence of George Tenet, etc.

In all of this we do not see an adequate assessment of the role of Iran in carrying out what may be the greatest strategic deception of modern history, nor do we see any evaluation of the political-legal, socio-economic, ideo-cultural, or techno-demographic cost to America. This book closes as if the war is virtually over, the Army is reconstituted rather than hollow, and its time to discuss the lessons learned over a double scotch. Not so fast, bubbas.

In 2007 we have, apart from multiple books detailed how and why Bush and Cheney should be impeached, an entire literature on their alledged high crimes and misdemeanors on 9-11, and the follow gems:

Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11
A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies
Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It
The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track (Institutions of American Democracy)
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

This is not all on Cheney and the neo-cons. Any Congress stupid enough, limp enough, to allow Paul Wolfowitz to contradict the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army on a topic about which Wolfowitz remains copmpletely ignorant, is not a Congress fulfilling its Article 1 responsibilities. The whole lot of them should be dismissed in 2008, and we should start over with Independents in charge and leadership psotions in both the Congress and the Cabinet aportioned across at least five distinct parties.