Fiasco

According to Thomas Ricks, after fighting so hard for its pet war the Bush Administration began to disengage, most notably Secretary Rumsfeld. But so too did the American people, as in 2005 and 2006 the news waxed monotonous and depressing. Even reporters succumbed to 'attention deficit disorder' in recording the incredible second battle for Fallujah. Although to be fair, journalists have taken an unprecedented pounding in Iraq and have become increasingly restricted in their movements... so much so that all the Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran could do was to write a 'scather' about the Green Zone called Imperial Life in the Emerald City before throwing in the towel and quitting Oz.

The bulky Fiasco, at 450 or so pages, is not exactly a page turner. It is unpleasant to revisit the selling and whitewashing of the war. But in my opinion, it would be a tragedy if after going from 75% to 35% approval for the war, Americans do no show an introspective spirit.

Ricks does a decent job describing the people and events that led to war, but this is not new and serves really to set the context. He assigns blame where it is due, but does not go overboard and generally develops his own credibility as an observer.

The important stuff is found in the second half of the book which is essentially the definitive military history of the Iraq war from 2003-2005. Be that as it may, the second half of the book is not particularly energizing either unless you are a military buff. It focuses on the question of strategy versus tactics and creating an accurate portrayal of US forces in action at all levels from the enlisted to junior officers to generals.

"So, what does this highly acclaimed book have to offer?" you ask.

I'll start by telling what it does not offer. It does not offer a solution or a prediction. Ricks does not claim to be a middle east expert. As a military journalist, he does not waste his time with the Iraqi population where access is limited and risky. On the other hand access to US military personnel is unprecedented and this is where he shines. He is essentially trying to download in a condensed and digestible format reams and reams of information he has accumulated. So Fiasco is intentionally one-sided in that it is only about the US military and not about Iraqi or other actors. In my edition, which was published a year after the first edition came out, Ricks writes a postscript in which he expresses satisfaction that the book was well received in military circles as an accurate account. He is proud that a battalion commander thanked him for "saying publicly what we've been saying privately" and a Defense official told him it was as though Ricks were listening in on the conversations held in his office for three years (and you thought it was only the NSA that does that).

In my view, Ricks' most important contribution is to contrast successful units and their commanders with unsuccessful ones. "There were successful ones?" you say. Yes, this came a surprise to me as well, but there were. For example David Petraeus, James Mattis and H.R. McMaster, who interestingly enough all hold PhD's, led successful operations in various corners of Iraq. I learned the following about them.

Petraeus, an army general who now needs no introduction, was instrumental in the early stages of the occupation in saving Mosul from the type of violence that would be expected of one of Iraq's largest and most mixed cities. His counterinsurgency hearts-and-minds approach was contrasted with the heavy handed tactics of the commander and forces that succeeded him but did not succeed.

The marines and special forces were generally better suited to counterinsurgency operations than regular army forces. James Mattis was a marines general who understood very early on the type of strategy necessary to succeed. "Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet" he told his troops. Mattis is an unusual combination of a gritty warrior and an intellectual eccentric. In one press conference he said, "You know its a hell of a hoot. I like brawling." But even among the military's ivory tower echelon he stands out as "one of the most urbane and polished" according to another phd-general, "he can quote Homer as well as Sun Tzu". Reportedly he carries a copy of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius on all his deployments.

Mattis prepared carefully for his deployment to al Anbar in late 2003. He told his troops not to wear sunglasses when talking to Iraqis, encouraged them to grow mustaches to fit in better and told them not to overreact to religious leaders who blast the occupiers in their weekly sermons. He was all about cultural sensitivity. Furthermore he gave his officers a thousand pages of reading on a broad range of subjects prior to going in.

At a more junior level there was the army colonel H.R. McMaster. His assault on Tal Afar, which might have been another Fallujah, will go down as a textbook counterinsurgency operation in military annals. Indeed an internal review ranked this episode on top and David Petraeus has modeled his Baghdad strategy in the 'surge' on it. McMaster's soldiers were under orders to "treat detainees professionally" and he visited every regiment to drill this message in. This is not only humane but part of classic counterinsurgency doctrine. The goal is not to kill and capture the enemy. 'The Iraqi people are the prize.' Like Mattis, McMaster gave his officers a reading list which included Arabian history and culture as well as counterinsurgency doctrine. (On an interesting side note, he also banned PowerPoint briefings.) McMaster dismantled the insurgency in Tal Afar patiently and humanely because he understood that he was not fighting for soil, but in order to win the residents over.

The thing that I learned from these three commanders is that success is not necessarily precluded. I have at times given in to a fatalist attitude towards the ability of our troops. Especially at times when the Abu Ghraib scandal broke or with the killings in Haditha and elsewhere. These episodes seem to say that our young men and women are in over their heads and the strain will inevitably bring the more malevolent urges to the surface. But I no longer see it that way. Mr. Ricks has changed my mind. Good leadership can in fact prevail over the 'bad apples'. Among other things, I read Fiasco as an indictment of the abuses that went on and the failure to punish commanders. Nevertheless, it will take more than good commanders to succeed in winning over Iraqis at this point. Unfortunately it probably requires more troops.