Frontline: The Lost Year in Iraq

GTKeeper

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Apr 14, 2005
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I watched the PBS documentary on how the U.S handled the first year of the Iraqi war.

Although I knew about the 2 crucial mistakes made by Bremer and company, that is disbanding the Iraqi army and dissolving the Baath Party I was shocked by something quite different.

It seems that Bush, Rummy, Condie, Chaney kind of do 'their own thing'. I mean the saddest part about it all is that there were decisions made without key people being informed.

We can see that we have a divided country, but it really is sad to see we have a divided White House. I just don't see how our leaders are so out of touch with each other, I mean isn't it their collective responsibility to lead this country?
 

DeadByDawn

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Dec 22, 2003
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I was only able to catch the first half of it, but I thought it was great. Can't believe how they bungled so many things.
 

Thump553

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Jun 2, 2000
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I just finished reading "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks, which this show was apparently mostly based upon. The show was good, but was extremely superficial compared to the book, which I highly reccommend. The show is well worth watching (you can get it on the NPR site) if you aren't going to read the book. The only major criticisms I have of the book is that it totally ignores the effects of the whole beheading situation and Al-Quida's (sp?) plan and efforts to forment civil war in Iraq.

I ordinarily ignore books with titles like Fiasco, or Why All Lefties Are Godless, etc. as they are almost always empty screeds. Fiasco is different-it explains how the civilian heads of the government totally ignored sound military advice, threw out a well thought out plan to rebuild Iraq (because it came from the Clinton era, even though it came from the military) and didn't even start planning on how to deal with post-war Iraq until a few weeks before the start of the shooting war. It also pointed out the pitched battle between Powell's State Department and Rumsfeld's Dept. of Defense at the time. For example, Rummy made the general leading the post-war planning group fire all members of the group from the State Dept, including the leading expert.

Somewhat surprising to me is that the book pointed out the Marines did a much better job of counter-insurgency than the Army, because they were more touchy-feely (they avoided blanket sweeps and incarcerations, and worked hard at needlessly avoiding attacking Iraqi's dignity and stressed that the goal was winning the general population's support, not killing all the insurgents).

Fiasco is a moderately dense read-it goes back to the history of the British in battling insurgency in forming Iraq in the 1920's, for example, but it is well worth it. It is critical of Bush and his adminstration without being an empty partisan attack.

My conclusions from reading this book are that the villians most responsible for screwing up Iraq are (in descending order): Wolfowitz (for pushing for the war and making totally inadequate and unrealistic planning) and Bremer (for loose cannon, ineffective, partisan adminstration) to a very large degree, with ample contributions from Rumsfeld.

 

GTKeeper

Golden Member
Apr 14, 2005
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Originally posted by: Thump553
I just finished reading "Fiasco" by Thomas Ricks, which this show was apparently mostly based upon. The show was good, but was extremely superficial compared to the book, which I highly reccommend. The show is well worth watching (you can get it on the NPR site) if you aren't going to read the book. The only major criticisms I have of the book is that it totally ignores the effects of the whole beheading situation and Al-Quida's (sp?) plan and efforts to forment civil war in Iraq.

I ordinarily ignore books with titles like Fiasco, or Why All Lefties Are Godless, etc. as they are almost always empty screeds. Fiasco is different-it explains how the civilian heads of the government totally ignored sound military advice, threw out a well thought out plan to rebuild Iraq (because it came from the Clinton era, even though it came from the military) and didn't even start planning on how to deal with post-war Iraq until a few weeks before the start of the shooting war. It also pointed out the pitched battle between Powell's State Department and Rumsfeld's Dept. of Defense at the time. For example, Rummy made the general leading the post-war planning group fire all members of the group from the State Dept, including the leading expert.

Somewhat surprising to me is that the book pointed out the Marines did a much better job of counter-insurgency than the Army, because they were more touchy-feely (they avoided blanket sweeps and incarcerations, and worked hard at needlessly avoiding attacking Iraqi's dignity and stressed that the goal was winning the general population's support, not killing all the insurgents).

Fiasco is a moderately dense read-it goes back to the history of the British in battling insurgency in forming Iraq in the 1920's, for example, but it is well worth it. It is critical of Bush and his adminstration without being an empty partisan attack.

My conclusions from reading this book are that the villians most responsible for screwing up Iraq are (in descending order): Wolfowitz (for pushing for the war and making totally inadequate and unrealistic planning) and Bremer (for loose cannon, ineffective, partisan adminstration) to a very large degree, with ample contributions from Rumsfeld.

I'll have to check that book out.