How we lost Iraq

If you want further confirmation that the U.S. bungled the Iraq invasion, Michael Gordon and Gen. Bernard Trainor have written the book for you.

By Paul McLeary

Read more: Books, Reviews, Book reviews, Iraq War

May 9, 2006 | Just past the three-year mark of the invasion of Iraq, an already considerable literature has sprung up around the war. We've seen big, ambitious books like "The Assassins' Gate," George Packer's history of the war's complex genesis, the hawks' failure to do any postwar planning and the critical missteps and squandered opportunities that plagued the Coalition Provisional Authority during the first year of the occupation. Packer wrestled with the historical implications of the war, and charted the sometimes tortured paths some of its initial supporters, including himself, have traveled in owning up to (or not) their mistakes.

There are also a bevy of less overtly political works, like Anthony Shadid's tragic portrait of a people under siege, "Night Draws Near," that examine the toll the war took on individual Iraqis. Perhaps the most personal, heartbreaking (and sadly overlooked) of these books is Michael Goldfarb's "Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace," an American reporter's tender eulogy to his Iraqi translator and friend, Ahmad Shawkat, a frustrated intellectual and dissident who was tortured by Saddam's henchmen for refusing to bend to the strictures of the state. Ahmad's tragedy is endemic of the occupation as a whole: Once freed from the repression of the state, he starts a pro-democracy newspaper, only to be killed by Islamic fanatics for his liberal views, leaving behind a wife and several children.

Over the next several weeks we'll see more: "In the Belly of the Green Bird," by journalist Nir Rosen, who infiltrated the insurgency in Iraq, is set to be released, along with freelancer David Axe's "War Fix," a graphic novel exploring his experiences as an embedded reporter in Iraq. These books join those by a host of retired generals, former government officials, reporters and soldiers who have added their voices to the chorus surrounding what was at one time billed as our generation's grand adventure, and which has instead devolved into a festering sore, tearing the nation apart.

Entering the mix is "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq," by the New York Times' Michael Gordon and retired Marine Gen. Bernard Trainor. It has none of the fleshy humanity that Shadid and Goldfarb -- and to a certain extent Packer -- brought to the story of Iraq. Nor should it. Gordon and Trainor, well situated with a bevy of sources inside the decision-making process at the Pentagon, never avert their gaze from the often politically inspired recklessness of the Pentagon brass leading up to the invasion; nor do they neglect to notice how the grunts on the ground carried out their orders with courage and professionalism. A good portion of the book is taken up with relating the smug, detached war plans hatched at the Pentagon by civilian commanders -- led, of course, by Donald Rumsfeld -- convinced the war could be fought cheaply and quickly. While the outcome of the conflict was never in doubt, in Gordon and Trainor's account, Rumsfeld, Gen. Tommy Franks and the ideological yes men they surrounded themselves with at the Pentagon often come off as almost fictional in their self-delusion.

If you thought you knew everything about the planning mistakes that allowed the American military -- through no fault of its own -- to charge into Iraq uncertain of the fight they would face, "Cobra II" will deepen your knowledge, and validate all of your worst fears, about what went wrong. At the very least, the book acts as a collection point for three years' worth of stories of incompetence, hubris and delusion on a grand scale. All the things we've taken as conventional wisdom about what went wrong in Iraq are here proved true, with firsthand evidence to back it up: The lack of men and materiel, the aversion to "nation building," the ignorance of local culture and customs, the underestimation of Iraqi paramilitary units and the desire to pull out quickly are here writ large. Indeed, the Pentagon, through Rumsfeld's insistence on going into the war fast and light -- ignoring the recommendation of Gen. Shinseki and other top officers that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to pacify the country after initial combat operations -- caused the military on the ground more problems than it solved. In the end, the fighting men and women and their creative and dogged officer corps, sloshing through the mud and the sand and the grime of combat, rose above their leadership and succeeded the best they could. "Cobra II" tells their story like no other book has, honoring their courage even as it savages the arrogance of the top brass.

One of the key points made by Gordon and Trainor is that Franks and Rumsfeld ignored early evidence that the real battle for Iraq would take place after Saddam's regular army was defeated. Just days after the invasion began, Iraqi Fedayeen forces and paramilitary fighters were harassing American convoys, staging hit-and-run assaults from pickup trucks, melting into the civilian population and engaging in other classic forms of irregular warfare. On March 27, 2003, Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, serving under CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks and tasked with running the ground war, called for a temporary halt to the push north in order to shore up the rear. With the lead units outrunning their supply lines and facing a series of unexpectedly brutal fights with an enemy often wearing civilian clothes, it was quickly becoming clear to ground commanders that the "enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against," as Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, head of the Army's V Corps, told reporters at the time.

The halt, and the fact that Wallace broke from message discipline, so infuriated Franks that McKiernan was forced to fly to CENTCOM headquarters and "eat a shit sandwich" in order to set things straight and to convince Franks not to relieve Wallace of his command. Gordon and Trainor report that Wallace's comments "shook the Pentagon," and led Rumsfeld to publicly disavow responsibility for the war plan, essentially shuffling any blame for missteps onto Franks and Gen. Anthony Zinni, who had been excommunicated by the Pentagon for refusing to support Rumsfeld's fast and light approach to waging war. More important, neither Rumsfeld nor Franks concluded that the guerrilla-style attacks were a sign of things to come.

With the holdup at the front riling the Pentagon, and Rumsfeld enraged, Newt Gingrich stepped in to calm the defense boss. Gingrich asked Army Col. -- and Rumsfeld favorite -- Doug Macgregor to write a memo fantasizing about how the war should be going. Macgregor had earlier proposed a ridiculous plan that called for an invasion force of about 16,500 soldiers, buttressed by another 15,000 to be flown in to maintain order once the fighting was done. Rumsfeld found the memo inspired and forwarded it to Franks during the planning phase of the operation, "as an example of the creative thinking the CENTCOM commander should consider."

Macgregor's new memo showed much of the same bluster, and again, Rumsfeld -- who was still convinced that the invasion force was too big and should be moving faster -- gushed over it. Safely ensconced in Washington, Macgregor and Rumsfeld seemed to be in the dark about the fierce fighting, stretched supply lines and paramilitary action hitting the American advance from all sides. Displaying the nerve of a true armchair general, Macgregor wrote that "The advance must continue without pause. There is no reason to stop ... Holding one's nerve is fundamental ... Stopping will be a betrayal." Most important, perhaps, Macgregor finished with a nod to the political realities of the invasion: "Stopping will open the door to destructive partisan politics. Public support could well evaporate."

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