From Planning to Warfare to Occupation, How Iraq Went Wrong

From the NYT Books Section:
The title of this devastating new book about the American war in Iraq says it all: “Fiasco.” That is the judgment that Thomas E. Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, passes on the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and its management of the war and the occupation. And he serves up his portrait of that war as a misguided exercise in hubris, incompetence and folly with a wealth of detail and evidence that is both staggeringly vivid and persuasive. Article continued here.

July 25, 2006 by Bibliofuture Uncategorized 5

GregS* says:

July 25, 2006 at 9:46 pm

fiasco
fiasco = 10 years of flyovers to protect the Kurds while getting shot at

fiasco = oil-for-food

fiasco = over a dozen UN resolutions

fiasco = not finishing the first Gulf War

fiasco = every know-it-all who wants to complain about Iraq but not offer an alternative

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Anonymous Patron says:

July 26, 2006 at 12:17 am

Re:fiasco
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.

Could not have said it better myself.

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mdoneil says:

July 26, 2006 at 1:02 am

Come on now!
He is a correspondent for the Washington Post, he has the backgrou….oh nevermind.

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Christina says:

July 26, 2006 at 1:55 am

not relevant to LIS news
This posting is political and not relevant. Just because a book was mentioned doesn’t mean it belongs on LISnews.

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michaelkpate says:

July 26, 2006 at 2:45 am

Problems but…
I am in the mood to write some fiction myself:

In 2002, after years of diplomatic pressure from Europe, the Security Council votes to lift the sanctions against Iraq. Saddam immediately assembles the various pieces of WMD manufacturing capability he has scattered around the country. By 2005, he amassed huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. Continuing his reign of terror, Kurds and Shia Muslims have been wiped out in droves. Now in July 2006, Iran and Iraq (both with strong research ties to North Korea) are on the brink of nuclear war. Pakistan and India are beefing up their own capabilities because neither trust either of the other two. Israel is within days of launching a preemptive strike against both countries with their own long-rumored nuclear capability.

In the United States, Democrats are demanding answers as to why the Bush Administration had let the situation get this far out of control. DNC Chairman Howard Dean is daily accusing Bush of forming a secret alliance with Saddam in order to keep him in power. The Press regularly regales us with more and more evidence of the close ties betweens Iraq and al Qaeda; especially since bin Laden began issuing public statements from Baghdad in 2004. With hostility brewing on both borders, the American people are feeling the situation in Afghanistan is hopeless and many are demanding the troops be brought home.

Oh, and Thomas E. Ricks has just written a new book, “Fiasco: How the United States completely underestimated the threat of Iraq.”

Now, can we try and get LISNews back on topic?

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