A huge book is coming out Tuesday.

[kstewart33]

It’s called Fiasco, written by the Washington Post’s senior Pentagon correspondent and Pulitzer winner Tom Ricks. From what I’m reading from those who’ve read the book, its political impact is expected to be tremendous.

Here’s the promo on Amazon.com:

Book Description
The definitive military chronicle of the Iraq war and a searing judgment on the strategic blindness with which America has conducted it, drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondant Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco is masterful and explosive reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on the unprecedented candor of key participants.

The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.

As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. But the officers who did raise their voices against the miscalculations, shortsightedness, and general failure of the war effort were generally crushed, their careers often ended. A willful blindness gripped political and military leaders, and dissent was not tolerated.

There are a number of heroes in Fiasco-inspiring leaders from the highest levels of the Army and Marine hierarchies to the men and women whose skill and bravery led to battlefield success in towns from Fallujah to Tall Afar-but again and again, strategic incoherence rendered tactical success meaningless. There was never any question that the U.S. military would topple Saddam Hussein, but as Fiasco shows there was also never any real thought about what would come next. This blindness has ensured the Iraq war a place in history as nothing less than a fiasco. Fair, vivid, and devastating, Fiasco is a book whose tragic verdict feels definitive.

About the Author
Thomas E. Ricks is The Washington Post's senior Pentagon correspondent, where he has covered the U.S. military since 2000. Until the end of 1999, he held the same beat at The Wall Street Journal, where he was a reporter for seventeen years. A member of two Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national reporting, he has reported on U.S. military activities in Somalia, Haiti, Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Kuwait, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He is the author of Making the Corps and A Soldier's Duty.

[Hissyspit]

1. Some people, including journalists, knew the definitive tragic verdict

pretty much before the war happened. Wouldn'be been nice if the Post had helped get this across before the war.

Looks interesting, though.

[tlsmith1963]

12. I Heard...

...all sorts of warnings before the war that it was going to be a disaster. Too bad Bush didn't listen.

Tammy

[Arugula Latte]

31. Probably in Bush's tiny little mind, the war has been a success.

He got to prance around in a flight suit, we have permanent bases in Iraq, and Halliburton is rolling in dough, with the gravy train on track to deliver millions and millions more. That tens of thousands of innocent people have been killed and maimed is of no consquence to him.

[whistle]

2. Link please

[wtmusic]

3. Strategy in this war is 100% irrelevant

The war couldn't have been won with the best strategerizing on the planet. :(

[joemurphy]

8. You are absolutely correct.

Our intent in attacking Iraq was to turn it into an American puppet democracy and garner a huge supply of oil.

It was doomed from the start. It was, essentially, colonialistic. That era ended in the 1960s. We were pushing an idea that failed 40 years ago.

After our army pulls out, the neocon geniuses that gave us this little jewel of a war should be left to the mercies of the Iraqi government they created. If they love their little democratic creation so much, let them live there.

[wtmusic]

28. Sadly and ironically

any "new" government which materializes in Iraq will be far more likely to develop nukes (and use them) than a contained Saddam ever was.

[theanarch]

20. i'm not so certain of that...

...of course, the planning for the occupation would have had to be on the Marshall Plan model, and backed up with enough troops to maintain the peace until the Iraqi economy recovered to the point where a political (e.g. peaceful) settlement between all parties could be achieved. Ditto Afghanistan. Of course, it goes without saying that this was far beyond the capacities of the regime in Washington so desparately in need of (diaper) changing.

[wtmusic]

27. Not analogous to the Marshall Plan

Japan surrendered four years after starting WWII in the Pacific. There is justice.

America launched a unilateral invasion of Iraq killing over 100K Iraqis who each have sons, daughters, mothers, fathers...there is no justice and hence no possibility of a peaceful "settlement".

If another country invaded the US and killed your family would you settle peacefully?

[tech3149]

4. I hope the book gets some high-profile coverage

Even more, I'd like to see even more people reading.

Kill your TV, it's good for the brain.

[RamboLiberal]

42. The author was on Meet the Press for a few minutes yesterday

You can watch it at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13904922/page/5/

MR. RUSSERT: And we are back, talking to Tom Ricks, the Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post.

“Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.” That sounds like a very harsh assessment. Who did you talk to? What documents did you see?

MR. THOMAS E. RICKS: I talked to over 100 senior military officers and, and soldiers of all ranks, from private to four-star general for the book. I did five reporting trips in Iraq and also talked to a lot of people back here. I read 37,000 pages of documents. Enormous amounts of information are available. And guys at the end of interviews would say, “Here’s a CD-ROM with every e-mail I sent to Paul Bremer when I was out there.” So there’s an amazing amount of information available.

<snip>

Russert: Let’s talk about the intelligence first. And, you write about the national intelligence estimate. And this is how you described it. “In September of ‘02 the U.S. intelligence prepared a comprehensive summary, called the National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, of what it knew about ‘Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction.’ ... It was prepared at the request of members of Congress who expected to vote on going to war with Iraq and wanted something on which to base their vote. ... As a political document that made the case for war the NIE of October ‘02 succeeded brilliantly. As a professional intelligence product it was shameful. But it did its job, which wasn’t really to assess Iraqi weapons programs but to sell a war. There was only one way to disprove its assertions: invade Iraq, which is what the Bush administration wanted to do.”

You’re suggesting the intelligence community was an accomplice in providing information to Congress that wasn’t accurate?

MR. RICKS: Yes. That document did not accurately reflect the information available inside the intelligence community. But you had a process of narrowing; as the information moved its way upward, doubts were stripped away. And so what you finally had in that document was something very different from what the experts actually thought. And it kind of just all veered off in one direction. It wasn’t like all the doubts were, were stripped off, it was all the doubts that said, “This may be wrong, they may not have WMD.”

[rurallib]

5. Ain't Ricks a 'blame America first' follower?

Wall Street Journal? Must've been undercover.
It is simply amazing that over the past 5.5 years there has been book after book about what total fuckups these guys are and how they have abused the constitution etc. Yet thaey are still in power. No doubt as soon as this book comes out, Mr. Ricks will be subjected to the usual smear campaign. Heck it's all in a WFW document. All they do is replace the name.
And let me add that the public accepts that shrubeenie's admin is a total fuck up, so it is not really news. Just like the Downing Street memos - not really news because we expect shit like this from Bush.

[BrklynLiberal]

25. They are not legitimately still in power. If the voters had had their way

in 2000, they would NEVER have been in office, and they would not had been back in 2004 if all the voters would have been allowed to vote, and all the votes had been counted, and/or counted accurately.

[Stevepol]

29. The public doesn't accept **. His ratings are as low as it's possible for

any prez's popularity to be in any country as big and diverse as this one. In polls about 11% of Americans will say that the US never got to the moon, that it was all a Hollywood productioin. That same percentage will profess a belief in almost anything you want to put out there, a flat earth or whatever. So that's a solid insanity bottom in the US and in any other country. The 30% is about rock bottom for any political party or attitude.

What do you think the American people can or should do that they're not already doing?

It just takes time for these things to come round. The machines have given us the worst crop of legislators in our history. They're not capaple of doing anything good in a sustained way. Maybe some good things will come, but it will only come from the Dems getting some spine and the signs are perhaps improving.

[jonnyblitz]

33. I can't keep up with all the books that come out.

Ironically, not all of the books are left wing critique. I just finished one book by an author who claims he is a conservative (according to the book jacket). he was critical of Clinton and Wesley Clark but he tore Bush and his crowd a new asshole. It is called 'THe New American Militarism" by Andrew Bacevich. I am glad I wasn't aware of the author's political leanings because I am not inclined to read books by conservatives.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195173384/102-7317459-4928923?v=glance&n=283155

[Pierzin]

36. I'm right behind you on that one jonnyblitz

In fact, I almost got Kevin Phillips book, and he worked for Nixon. He's a real Eisenhower Republican, and warns of the theocracy these nutballs are trying to send us into. If I only I had enough dough to buy and time to read all the books that come out, wow! That would be awesome!
I guess I can look for at the second hand stores, cause that's all I can afford.

[Tinksrival]

6. Hey Bush, Rummy, Cheney ect......

Looks like history is starting to be written on your Fiasco! So how ya like it so far?????
Life's a bitch and then you die and history will record what miserable failures you are. :mad:

[SoCalDem]

7. "Buying" news is what's really wrong with the US

I will buy the book and enjoy it ...BUT the very FACT that we HAVE to buy "news" is exceedingly irritating to me..

The guy's a journalist, he works for a premiere news organization, BUT either they refuse to fund his research, or report his findings.

What we GET from the "news media" is pabulum...watered down, sound-byted, politically oh-so-correct NONSENSE..

It's no wonder that we are divided. No one has any faith that they are getting "what really happened".

Facts are ..they just ARE.. they need no interpreting, sculpting, massaging, spinning.

The media's JOB is to investigate..find out what's going on, and then just PRINT/AIR/BROADCAST it.

Look at how many reporters are writing books these days..look at the subject matter.. MOST of what they write about is stuff that had we KNOWN, and had it been reported, wars would have been prevented, terrorism might be being addressed properly, and we certainly would NOT have that uncouth, vile little TWIT in the white house..

[kstewart33]

10. You make a very good point.

It raises questions about the credibility of his employer, the Wash Post.

[Old and In the Way]

14. The delusion is free, you pay for the truth. nt

[SoCalDem]

15. THAT'S a fact, Jack

:)

[AlwaysQuestion]

17. Well, you summed it up all very nicely!!

And you're right, of course. So how many will even find out about the book and how many can afford to buy it, and will it hit all the librarians' lists. I think it's sheer effrontery to have to buy the truth. But there we are. I wonder if the author reveals why his paper did not get this information out from the get-go?

[young_at_heart]

18. Many critical books around recently and those who need to read them, don't

I completely agree with you about what I call "The Twilight Zone" news these days. It's simply pathetic that our country has an entity called Fox News that is, evidently, taken seriously by many. I find myself, at age 67, feeling pretty depressed these days.

[SoCalDem]

19. Especially since we have whole NETWORKS devoted to

24-7 "news".. yet they package everything into "shows"..complete with dogs and ponies.. It's annoying to think of all those hours wasted with screaming heads and shrieking buffoons

[young_at_heart]

21. The "dumbing down" of America

News that isn't news, reality shows, Bill O'Rellly, Rush.....

[Clyde39]

22. We watch The Daily Show and KO for "facts"

Haven't found them elsewhere.

[file83]

35. It's almost as if they save the good stuff for the books...

...and leave the bad stuff for the masses. Hmmm... could that be by design?

[SoCalDem]

41. Would there be a market for their books if "all" the news

was shown on tv...(the FREE airwaves we give them in exchange for telling/showing us the IMPORTANT stuff we need to know?

If the research and time needed to write these books is affordable by an individual newsperson, why is it seemingly "too expensive/time consuming" for the mega-rich corporations who OWN the media?

something to think about..


I think a lot of it is sheer frustration by the reporters, who after getting "dead-ended" over and over, finally just do it on their own.. They may be afraid to push too hard on their employers for fear of being fired..

As long as they don't trash their employers they probably have a green light to write books, because the parent companies probably have figured out that the raised stature of the reporters benefits them, and even with a best seller, not enough people will read the book to apply "dangerous" pressure on them ...(just my hunch)

[wakeme2008]

9. Link here

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159420103X/sr=1-1/qid=1153620230/ref=sr_1_1/103-5165076-4411003?ie=UTF8&s=books

[TomClash]

11. Everyone already knows this

Why is this book so important?

[kstewart33]

16. It's important because

for the first time, Ricks will lay out the details on specifically how dissent within the Pentagon was handled, how careers were destroyed, how the civilian leadership mercilessly destroyed people who dared to think differently and speak out.

I have read every book on Iraq that has been published in the last 3 years or so. No book, not even Cobra II, has told this story.

Essentially, the Pentagon has opened the Pandora's box, at least Rummy's secret one.

[Hardrada]

13. We need more hugh books.

Seriesly to confront all these morans!

[bbgrunt]

23. there are sure a lot of truth-telling books, and yet I turn on CNBC

and see an potato face Russert interviewing dick head Tom Friedman again about his book "the world is flat"--in a new updated version.

Great that everyone is writing a book these days. What the f*** are all these important people actually DOING about it?

[oldlady]

24. Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast

sums it up nicely in Chapter 2 -- when I read his work I can't help but be horrified by the disparity between what US citizens hear in the media, compared to outside the US.

[BrklynLiberal]

26. THAT is the truth. Go to any foreign news site and see what is actually

going on in the world. You would never see it on the US TV or in the US papers.

[young_at_heart]

30. Who do we blame for "never any real thought"?

The ineptitude just continues.........Condi's trip to the ME, for example, and it seems they have the ability to ratchet it up on a daily basis without ANY accountability!

[HongKonger]

32. I won't be buying his book.

...skill and bravery led to battlefield success in towns from Fallujah...

Battlefield slaughter - more like it... Fallujah was an abhorent violation of International law and wholesale collective punishment of civilians - not unlike what is happening in Lebanon today.

I won't be buying his book.

[file83]

34. Welcome to the DU!!

:hi:

I skimmed over the "promo" so quickly that I missed that Fallujah part. Your point is well taken. I think this book sounds less like a political attack on Bush, and more like a military puff piece. Of course, I haven't read it yet, so I'll let you know.

[HongKonger]

40. Cheers and Thank you!

Best!

[Justice Is Comin]

37. The insurgents used to offer a thousand dollars

to anyone who would bring proof of a killed American. Now people are volunteering to do it for twenty.

[Stardust]

38. He's on MTP this weekend//

[Gman]

39. Well, I guess Ricks won't be embedded anytime soon

[faithnotgreed]

43. kick