false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1255874959m/4580836.jpg 4580836 5 <B><I>Fiasco</I>, Thomas E. Ricks’s #1 <I>New York Times</I> bestseller, transformed the political dialogue on the war in Iraq—<I>The Gamble</I> is the next news breaking installment</B><BR><BR> Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.<BR><BR> Since early 2007 a new military order has directed American strategy. Some top U.S. officials now in Iraq actually opposed the 2003 invasion, and almost all are severely critical of how the war was fought from then through 2006. At the core of the story is General David Petraeus, a military intellectual who has gathered around him an unprecedented number of officers with both combat experience and Ph.D.s. Underscoring his new and unorthodox approach, three of his key advisers are quirky foreigners—an Australian infantryman-turned- anthropologist, an antimilitary British woman who is an expert in the Middle East, and a Mennonite-educated Palestinian pacifist.<BR><BR> <I>The Gamble</I> offers news breaking information, revealing behind-the-scenes disagreements between top commanders. We learn that almost every single officer in the chain of command fought the surge. Many of Petraeus’s closest advisers went to Iraq extremely pessimistic, doubting that the surge would have any effect, and his own boss was so skeptical that he dispatched an admiral to Baghdad in the summer of 2007 to come up with a strategy to replace Petraeus’s. That same boss later flew to Iraq to try to talk Petraeus out of his planned congressional testimony. <I>The Gamble</I> examines the congressional hearings through the eyes of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and their views of the questions posed by the 2008 presidential candidates.<BR><BR> For Petraeus, prevailing in Iraq means extending the war. Thomas E. Ricks concludes that the war is likely to last another five to ten years—and that that outcome is a best case scenario. His stunning conclusion, stated in the last line of the book, is that “the events for which the Iraq war will be remembered by us and by the world have not yet happened.” 4630231 10 2 2009 The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 total:149|5:50|4:73|3:23|2:2|1:1| 149 616 363 49 5 1 false false Sun Feb 22 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 19:55:06 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 19:58:10 -0800 2009 Fiasco with the story of the way forward in the Iraq War. While this is probably a war that didn't need to be fought, it is one that we need to finish.

In spending a lot of time with those responsible for the new way we fight in Iraq, General Petrae...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Feb 10 15:40:26 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 27 20:40:21 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sat Mar 14 18:37:07 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 14 18:52:32 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Feb 27 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Tue Mar 10 19:34:27 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 20:10:22 -0700 2009
This book describes how a group of active duty and retired generals, and colonels and civilian experts (Petraeus,et.al) who were against the war in the first place were able to redirect the Iraq war, because the Republicans got...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Jul 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 11:09:12 -0700 2009 Sat Jul 25 11:40:04 -0700 2009
In 2006 American casualties were very high, the Iraqi government was not holdin...more...]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu May 07 15:54:26 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 18:57:22 -0700 2009
Great writing, and great analysis. At one point the author observes that in World War II it took Roosevelt just three months to figure out...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Apr 15 12:44:21 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 15 12:44:21 -0700 2009 By and large, critics were less eager to assess Ricks's work as an author and more interested in his opinions about the success of the "surge" and the future of Iraq. But this is perhaps the book's greatest endorsement; whether they were liberal or conservative, American or British, critic...

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For those who read the book as a weather forecast, the epilogue will provide all that you seek. For those that r...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Mar 07 19:35:24 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 18 19:41:34 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Apr 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 25 14:52:34 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 05 18:24:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 02 21:13:08 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 16 18:15:44 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Sep 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 24 11:17:54 -0700 2009 Thu Sep 24 11:29:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Apr 03 17:35:34 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 20 11:35:17 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat May 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Apr 07 06:36:05 -0700 2009 Sat May 02 13:13:53 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Apr 08 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 30 05:39:15 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 13 05:27:36 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Apr 11 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Feb 27 08:29:48 -0800 2009 Sun Apr 12 08:34:12 -0700 2009 Fiasco and has now written about the huge change in strategy and tactics that occurred with the surge.
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Surprises: Bush virtually stood alone, though as...more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Apr 09 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Mar 18 13:53:15 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 22:45:03 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 20:13:02 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 04 20:15:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=4580836