Iraq War was a "Fiasco" with lessons to tell

"Fiasco," a book I've wanted to read for a decade, finally came my way, and I found time to read it. The book is a history of the Iraq War by Washington Post reporter Tom Ricks (a Pulitzer Prize winner), and its title aptly describes the foolishness and incompetence of the political administration that blindly pushed the nation into that war and the military officers who wasted American, allied and Iraqi lives because they failed (with some exceptions) to plan strategically, to understand the country they invaded and to foresee the post-invasion chaos that their decisions caused.

At the end of 2002, members of the George W. Bush administration set their minds on invading Iraq, ousting Saddam Hussein and turning the large, diverse and moderately wealthy country into a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. To justify their plans, they claimed that Saddam had nuclear, chemical and biological "weapons of mass destruction," constituting a clear and imminent danger to the United States and its allies.

It turns out there were no such weapons. Saddam had given up his WMD program years earlier. Administration claims that Iraq was responsible for the 9/11 attacks carried out by Al Qaeda should have been clearly seen as false, but the warmongers were determined to take over Iraq for whatever reason, or no reason other than, "we can."

The U.S. military, by far the strongest on Earth, had little problem pushing through Iraq in a matter of days, but no one in the administration had a plan for what would then become of Iraq. Crucial errors were made. The Iraqi army was disbanded, leaving no infrastructure for an orderly transition. The Pentagon insisted that few troops would be needed to conquer and occupy Iraq, despite studies that said hundreds of thousands more troops would be needed. Huge weapons caches filled with artillery shells, mortars, rifles, etc. were bypassed by invading troops in their narrowly focused search for WMD. Those caches would serve as warehouses for insurgents who turned the explosives into improvised explosive devices. These IEDs killed and maimed thousands of U.S. soldiers. Oops! American commanders (with few exceptions) never won the trust of the Iraqi people, thus the insurgency grew more and more powerful.

Fiasco! Debacle! Call it what you will; it has been called the single worst foreign policy decision in American history. Iraq today is, by many measures, worse off than it was before the invasion and is not a "beacon of democracy."

Rick's book, though on used-book shelves (where I found a copy) today, still has lessons for American leaders and American voters. President Trump repeatedly says the U.S. military is in terrible shape and needs billions of dollars more in funding. Military units are suffering, but they are suffering because of the demands being put on our service personnel. We have had troops in Iraq since March 2003. U.S. involvement in the Afghan War has gone on for more than 16 years. Troops are getting out because they have tired of one deployment after another. Politicians and voters are demanding too much of our military personnel. The United States has become a nation that looks to war first, knowing that our wars will be fought by volunteers from low-income families and circumstances. The sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful will not have to risk their lives. Generals who contribute to fiascos like Iraq are not fired (as several in World War II were); they are given presidential medals.

"Fiasco" is a book well worth reading, and well worth thinking about any time some politician suggests sending U.S. troops into some woebegone country to keep America safe.

'Fiasco' or 'Debacle' by any other name

At the Wilson County Public Library a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a book I'd been wanting to read for several years but had never gotten around to. Part of the problem was I kept getting the title wrong: I kept thinking "Debacle," but the title of Tom Ricks' 2006 book is "Fiasco." It's an apt title for his thorough history of American errors in the Iraq War.

Ricks' analysis of all the things that went wrong — and almost everything went wrong or was based on false assumptions — is devastating. From the initial decision to launch the invasion, based on the mistaken belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or that he was tied to the 9/11 attacks, to the failure to secure weapons caches that later supplied the insurgency, to the failure to plan for post-invasion governance, the Bush administration misjudged and mismanaged everything.

In one sense, the history of the early years of the Iraq War, which is still not over (we still have 100,000-plus troops there), is a Greek tragedy. Hubris, that personality flaw that drives so many Greek tragedies, is evident aplenty in this history. The neo-conservatives in the Bush administration were so absolutely certain that they knew what was best for Iraqis and how Iraqis would react to an invasion that they never considered what might happen if Iraqis did not welcome invaders with open arms or if the toppling of Saddam's regime resulted in anarchic chaos. The planners of this war apparently never considered the impact of sectarian hatred or the absence of any history of democratic institutions. The key players in this tragedy — Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle — stubbornly stuck to their preconceived notions of how this adventure should end, despite the devolution in other directions.

The invasion of Iraq has been called the worst foreign policy mistake in American history, and Ricks' book does nothing to rebut that assertion. In fact, his history of this debacle, revealing the short-sighted assumptions and the failures to face reality, adds support to that accusation.

I've read that Ricks' follow-up book, "The Gamble," is kinder toward the Bush administration. "The Gamble" reports on Bush's decision to order a "surge" in troop strength in 2007 — a reversal of the 2003 doctrine to use minimal manpower — which succeeded in dramatically improving security in Iraq and making possible national elections and, it is hoped, the withdrawal of American troops. If "The Gamble" is as thorough, revealing, interesting and well-written as "Fiasco," it also will be worth a read.