The Iraq War

by John Keegan

The 2003 Iraq war remains among the most mysterious armed conflicts of modernity. In The Iraq War , John Keegan offers a sharp and lucid appraisal of the military campaign, explaining just how the coalition forces defeated an Iraqi army twice its size and addressing such questions as whether Saddam Hussein ever possessed weapons of mass destruction and how it is possible to fight a war that is not, by any conventional measure, a war at all.

Drawing on exclusive interviews with Donald Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, Keegan retraces the steps that led to the showdown in Iraq, from the highlights of Hussein’s murderous rule to the diplomatic crossfire that preceded the invasion. His account of the combat in the desert is unparalleled in its grasp of strategy and tactics. The result is an urgently needed and up-to-date book that adds immeasurably to our understanding of those twenty-one days of war and their long, uncertain aftermath.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military History, Military Fiction, Middle East, War, American History

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan, OBE, FRSL was a British military historian, lecturer and journalist. He published many works on the nature of combat between the 14th and 21st centuries concerning land, air, maritime and intelligence warfare as well as the psychology of battle.

Reviews

[Graham Cammock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good.

A very thorough, detailed and enlightening read about the 2003 Iraq war. John Keegan gives you a thorough background of the history of Iraq from antiquity, through the 20th century, right up to the 2003 war. The relation of the war itself is detailed and accurate. John Keegan also explains the philosophical side of the excuses for and against the war as well as the medias' coverage and opinions etc. I highly recommend.

[Gary · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Keegan is a noted military historian who has written comprehensive works on the First and Second World Wars, the Napoleonic War, and intelligence in warfare.
With all the pro-Arab anti-war hype that has dominated discussion of the Iraq War of 2003 by the USA and UK to liberate Iraq from the monstrous tyranny of Saddam Hussein, it is refreshing to find an objective account where actually gleans that the war to free Iraq was in many ways justified.

Keegan studied the war from various perspectives and conducted interviews with General Tommy Franks and the American Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld.
He successfully writes a history of the causes, complications and effects of the 2003 War, and investigates and explains the real reasons for the invasion, the successes of the American and British forces (with two fascinating chapters on the military campaigns of each) , the collapse of the Republican Guard, the complete lack of will of the Iraqi people to defend the Saddam dictatorship and the fall of Baghdad to Allied troops.

The Iraqi people had suffered from Saddam's bloody reign of terror for too long and apart form Saddam's own SS, the Republican Guard and loyalists of Saddam's Fascist Ba'ath Party, the Iraqi people had no reason to defend the Saddam regime.
The soldiers of the Iraqi army simply deserted in mass and became civilians. The terrorist fedayeen who opposed the Allied invasion were almost all non-Iraqis, they consisted of Syrian, Saudi, Palestinian, Pakistani and other Islamist who had infiltrated into Iraq.
The Kurds in northern Iraq or rather Iraqi occupied Kurdistan as I see it, were unanimous in their support for the allied invasion and the their was widespread support from the Shia in the south who had long been persecuted by Saddam. The media did not wish to report on these many inconvenient truths, in the pro-Arab, anti-war positions of neo-Marxist dogma. furthermore contrary to the accepted leftist-Islamist propaganda that there was a large casualty count, the count of casualties caused to Iraqi civilians as a result of allied actions was very low and the Allies were careful to minimize casualties among the civilian population to a scruulous degree.

The author discusses the anti-war hysteria and the marches across the world by the brainwashed minions of radical leftism,and notes that in Britain, the indigenous working class largely supported the war. It was Islamic and other Third world immigrant minorities and the privileged intellectual classes who opposed the liberation of Iraq.
The chattering classes of Britain hold on to a contempt for the Britain's white working class because the letter's patriotism is the major obstacle in turning the United Kingdom into an Islamic dominated state run by Islamists and Marxist elites.

The first three chapters of the book examine Iraq's history, and include the fact that Iraq itself was an artificial creation of British colonialism in the 1920s, an monstrosity of three separate nations forced together. I, a believer, in the self-determination of national groups, think that Iraq should be partitioned into a Kurdish, Shia and sunni Arab state, but due tho the world's unhealthy focus exclusively on the demands of the Palestinians,(because of the domination of world opinion by the anti-democratic left) Kurdish self-determination (like that of the Tibetans and countless other genuinely repressed and occupied nations) has been taken off the radar screen.
Sadly the great vision of self-determination of nations espoused by the great visionary Woodrow Wilson, after the First World War, has been effectively destroyed for now, by the United Nations.

[Sean Chick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Written almost right after the mobile campaign ended, and this is Keegan's most unpopular book. I think I would use the phrase Napoleon reserved for Talleyrand: “shit in a silk stocking.” The battle descriptions are lucid, but Keegan does for Blair and Rumsfeld what he did for Wellington. He takes them at their word on everything, making them heroes. For this reason he is over-awed at the quick conquest and concludes that “the reality of the Iraq campaign of March-April 2003 is, however, a better guide to what needs to be done to secure the safety of or world than any amount of law-making or treaty-writing can offer.” I wonder if Keegan is eating his words right now. Of course, he can, like many other British historians, claim that his are a peaceful people not seeking war.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

First off, the book discusses the development of the origins of Iraq from the demise of the ottoman empire and the history that led to the war focusing on Saddam Hussein's personality and background. Saddam political career began in 1957 by joining the ba'ath party while being poor and uneducated. He came to exercise absolute power using violence and political intrigue but he was also a social progressive. He followed in Stalin's steps, he saw that the ba'ath party should take control of every public party in Iraq and any significant private body.
Saddam launched three wars, Iraq-Iran war from 1980 to 1988 and the first and the second gulf war . In 1987-1988, Saddam used chemical weapons against his own people in Kurdistan.
The Iraq war on invasion-by other words- ended after 21 days! keegan then comes to a very point. He mentioned that thousands of ex-soldiers were demobilized and as a result the employment market couldn't absorb them. As being discontented and unpaid, some joined terrorist campaigns while others joined the resistance. Islamist groups from neighboring countries came to join the war against the united states,they aimed at undermining the american occupation and to kill Americans. Keegan gave a very space to the military process of the invasion.
Keegan ended his book by discussing the interests of the leading Arab countries in the region, Iran's focuses on the sh'ia issue and increasing its oil production, while all what Saudi Arabia cared for was maintaining its internal stability and the fear of the rise of shi'a power in Iraq, the same applies to Jordan.
Overall, it was a good read. the book deals more with the basics of the war . I hoped keegan would have discussed more the political and strategic information than the military details of the war, how the decisions were tackled leading to the war. Also, I hoped there will be more information concerning the aftermath of the war.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the 2004 edition of this book. I have found a 2005 edition and a 2007. They are probably more complete. However, as I write this, the Peshmerga and other troops are gathering outside Raqqa to slaughter the ISIS. The 2004 edition of this book represents the war as a short success, but I think we, in 2017, see how myopic this was. The 2004 edition of this book is great for contextualizing the Iraq War, and explaining the blow-by-blow action of the 21 day offensive. However, Keegan's conclusions inevitably fall short because he thought the war had ended by 2004. The decision to publish a book on the Iraq War in 2004 suggests how little he and the rest of the media understood of the war. Of course, he did not have a crystal ball, but he also did not really have real insights into what this war was about. No doubt the 2005 and 2007 editions amend many of these faults, but they cannot compensate. It may be a century before historians are really able to comment on Bush's misadventure.

That said, the book does a good job of explaining the Iraqi political history that led to the war. Beyond cutting off before the war ended, Keegan's failure is to occasionally give into orientalist bullshit about how the Arab mind is inscrutable and yadayadayada. "There were several elements underpinning Saddam's defience. Two were slient. The first, easily understood in the Arab world, almost incomprehensible to Westerners, is the power that rhetoric exerts in Arab public life. Arabic is a language of poetry - the Koran itself is the greatist work of Arab poetry - which easily tips into extravagence and then fantasy, without, in Arab consciousness, losing touch with reality." This kind of dogshit is sprinkled generously throughout the book. I wonder if he thought of German's in the 1930's in the same terms.

Despite this failure of Keegan to think critically about this issue, the book is still worth reading, mostly for understanding the events that led to the Iraq War and for understanding how it was understood in 2004, just as the real dogfight was about to begin.

[Devon Aguirre · Rating 3 out of 5]

John Keegan is usually very good about writing military histories. The big issue I had with this book is that he wrote it while the war had not finished yet. The history of the book does not hold up after all these years.

[Karl Kindt · Rating 4 out of 5]

The war in Iraq ended in 21 days. Why do kooks years later still refer to the war in Iraq as if it is still raging? I guess when you call something a War on Drugs, anything not nice can be called a war. Face it. The US won. Fast. 21 days. And even after all these years after the war, the US has still lost very few soldiers compared to any single battle of World War II! The democracy in Iraq may be ugly, but not as ugly as the genocidal dictatorship that threatened to set the Middle East ablaze. Where do YOU want to fight the War on Terror? Here? In the US? Or do you want to keep the crazies on their heels and fight them on their own sand?

[SHANKAR KRISHNAN · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reads like a Dick Cheney's report

[Nick Girvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely disappointing. Only reason The Iraq War getting 2 stars instead of 1 is because I was able to at least get through it and some of the raw information was good. But, John Keegan’s writing was bad in almost every other way. This seemed to lack any real direction, focusing maybe 1/3 of the book on the war and 2/3 of the region for the previous century. Context like that is absolutely important, except it was written with no narrative and the info was just a wall of text written in a way so boring I hardly retained any of it. The subjects jumped around and there was no real focus. Most of this was just a means to get to Saddam’s Wars.

Which, takes me to another problem. The narrative here focused way too much on how much the author didn’t like Saddam or the Ba’ath party. Which, fair, but it felt almost too opinionated at times, and there wasn’t much hard fact to back it up (much like Grover Furr books, the sources seemed sketchy). Moreover, like the other stuff it was so boring and matter-of-fact like with no tone. It also spent way too much time focusing just on the weaponry and drawing comparisons to other wars, that reading this was nearly impossible to stay engaged with. I can’t stay focused if the author can’t either, and I took so little new knowledge away from here.

This was rough. Do not recommend if you’re new to the subject. I’m a little hesitant to read the other book I own by John Keegan on WWI now.

[Zane Illingworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starting this book I knew very little about the Iraq and Gulf Wars. In this regard it was, for me, a good source of information about the facts of the war.
The issue I found was the negation of the views of the Iraqis which really hindered the depth of the book. At points it mentions that they were unfazed - but in comparison to the in-depth discussions of the British and American military figures it seems unbalanced and non-descriptive.

In saying this I did enjoy the factual recount of the events and learned a lot about the war itself.

[Ethan Rudd · Rating 1 out of 5]

Where do I begin? The book is uneven. It offers a compelling chapter on the history of Iraq, traversing through the days of Mesopotamia, the Ottomans, and European colonialism. There’s also a good chapter that provides biographical information on Saddam Hussein. The chapter on the fall of Baghdad is the best chapter of military history in the book.

Yet overall the book is dry as a bone, failing to utilize first-hand accounts, lacking quotes, and the narrative feels like it’s handled by someone shooting a movie scene from 400 yards away from the action. Furthermore, it’s impersonal and unbalanced. Keegan squeezes in WWII history unnecessarily wherever he can when talking about British and American units. Nearly a quarter of the chapters dedicated to British and American operations are just a summation of what units were involved. Far more applicable to the narrative is the discussion of British anti-terror and urban tactics across the globe.

The experiences of American and British servicemen and women, and Iraqi citizens are absent. Keegan glosses over Iraqi citizen losses, citing smart bombs and the overwhelming superiority of modern military weapons as reasons why losses were kept at a minimum, yet he never offers statistical evidence about the toll to back that blanket claim. More attention is payed to the anti-war movement in Britain than in the U.S. Hussein’s capture is never discussed in the book, nor is his trial, but there’s a picture of his capture that appears in the book. Was the manuscript written too early to account for that event?

Keegan effectively dodges the fact that WMDs were never found in Iraq when he makes an argument for support of the war, instead focusing solely on the need for “regional stability” in the Middle East and the lack of 100% certainty that there aren’t “small caches” of WMDs hidden within Iraq (citing the lack of evidence as evidence—great circular argument). It’s one thing to present both sides of an argument and to come to your own conclusion, but to fail to present both sides as a historian and reporter feels disingenuous. I say that regardless of Keegan’s support for or against the war. One can have an opinion.

In Keegan’s eyes the Iraq War was a smashing triumph. The conflict was an example of how superior firepower and combined forces could be brought to secure a new world order. However that vision conflicts with his own cursory conclusions about the shortcomings of the American reconstruction of the Iraqi government in Iraq, the arrival of terrorists in Iraq following the disposal of Saddam, and the fact that American casualties increased five-fold in the year after the fall of Baghdad. Still, Keegan has the temerity to claim “The reality of the Iraq campaign….is, however, a better guide to what needs to be done to secure the safety of our world than any amount of law-making or treaty-writing can offer.” He paints the picture of a widening conflict approaching a quagmire and then assures the reader that Iraq is a gleaming example of success.

This book was published far too close to the end of Iraqi Freedom and is unable to account for the entirety of the conflict and its impact on the world. Whose idea was it to rush this book out? The publisher? As a result, this feels rushed, incomplete, unfinished, and worst of all for a historian, perhaps somewhat irresponsible.

[Martin Koenigsberg · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love John Keegan. This is the lowest I have ever rated one of his books. Because it's HALF A BOOK!. This book gives you a great account of the the 21 days of initial combat, the march up to Baghdad and its fall in 2003. But the STORY of this war WAS THE BUNGLED OCCUPATION AND RESULTANT TERROR WAR, "the Surge", The "Arab Awakening" and eventually ISIS. So this book- even with its "NewPostscript edition of 2005" version- is like a WWII History that ends with Dunkirk . A great exposition about the opening moves is just that- and sort of even unimportant to the overall story.

It's a typical Keegan effort. Aside from the short focus, its well done. We get a lot of background to Iraqi history, a good description of the Second Gulf War(Kuwait), and then a description of the "No Fly Zone" efforts to the Crisis of 2002-2003 that started the whole debacle. Keegan's a little more gung-ho than I expected, although he does point out many of the friction points that led to only 4 allies joining this adventure, and the potential issues that were to dog the exercise. But just when things are beginning to go awry, he chooses to stop the narrative. Let's just say the cluster$%^& of the next 15 years (!!!!!!!!) is not covered or predicted. Nor is a running multi-decade disaster even on Keegan's outlook in the added postscript.

This is a fine book for the junior reader, although one hopes an adult will point out a few more complete sources for balance. The Military Enthusiast/Gamer/Modeller will find this an illuminating book, just an incomplete one. The pictures are good and compelling, and the Coalition Order of Battle is quite useful, but the yawning chasm of missing narrative is too large for me to fully recommend this book. It may help to improve some Dioramas and Scenarios, but one still feels a little shortchanged ....

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

The beginning of the book was especially insightful. It basically was a quick overview of the history of the region, including a more in depth look at the rise of Saddam Hussein. At times it was difficult to keep up with all the names and places, pretty dense material, but I do remember some of the major points. I would probably need some more exposure to the history before I could remember the details.
The second half of the book was not as good as the first. The second half focused on the invasion of Iraq in 2003. This part provided some detail as to the maneuvers involved in the war. I'm going to read "The Forever War" to get a better feel for the actual war.

[Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Decent description of the State of Iraq, just not what I expected from the title. Development of the origins of the country of Iraq from the demise of the Ottoman Empire, development of the rise of Saadam, and description of Gulf War I and II. But I was more interested in the decision making process of how we ended up going to war, what was really known, and by whom, and when, more than hearing about which brigade and which regiment from the U.S. or Great Britian was assigned to a particular sector, and how each handled their specific mini-assignments in the execution of the war. No criticism of the book itself, but it just wasn't what I was expecting, or looking for.

[Kyle · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is fairly limited in scope. There's a decent western perspective history of modern Iraq, followed by an unsatisfying coverage of the rhetoric leading up to the war and then finished with Keegan's typically excellent description of the actual campaign. It really limits itself as redards the post war story, so this book is already somewhat dated. I get the sense that this was dashed off in a bit of hurry to be one of the first accounts of the war, and in doing so, Keegan missed what we have now realized is the real war.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

The pre-war history was excellent.

[Aaron Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The pause at the end of March, which had slowed the advance of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force and halted the 3rd Infantry Division, encouraged many media commentators, particularly in Europe, to suggest that the campaign had run out of impetus. Particularly so in France, where the public and the opinion makers were as hostile to the war as the government. Enlisement was a term that began to be applied, a word with special resonance for the French since it had been used to characterize the bogging-down of their army in Indo-China, in the first European war against Ho Chi Minh and General Giap fifty years earlier. Le Monde, organ of official opinion and of the ruling class, announced on 27 March that President Bush had been 'forced to revise his plans in the face of Iraqi resistance'. The French provincial press gloated over even gloomier predictions, forecasting a lengthening war and heavier casualties.
Much was made of the forcing down of an American helicopter, allegedly by an elderly Arab with an antiquated rifle, who may merely have witnessed a case of engine failure. In Britain, too, there was a search by the media for sensationalist bad news. Antony Beevor, the author of a bestselling account of the battle of Stalingrad, was obliged to tell a newspaper executive who attempted to engage him to write about the coming battles of Saddamgrad, meanwhile swearing him to secrecy at the originality of the idea, that nine other newspapers were ahead of him and, anyhow, that he foresaw no Stalingrad in Baghdad.

The pause had causes quite different from those identified by anti-American journalists. It had been brought about by bad weather and the need for resupply. Minor military setbacks apart, such as the difficulty of negotiating passage through Nasiriyah and of suppressing ill-organized resistance in other towns on the roads up, the Americans had achieved a pace of advance unprecedented in history, far outstripping that of the Germans towards Moscow in the summer of 1941 and even that of the British from the Seine to the liberation of Brussels in the victorious summer of 1944, following the breakout from Normandy. The Americans had suffered almost no casualties—so much for French predictions of 'heavier casualties'—and virtually no equipment losses. Their generals, moreover, were in no way discountenanced by the need to pause. Even as they accepted the necessity and organized the rush forward of resupply, they were planning the next stage of the operation.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is interesting as it’s almost a period piece before things went so terribly wrong. Meaning it was published before the counter insurgency really got going.
The author was a supporter of the attack, which I think has led to this being a lower rated book combined with the emotions people feel about this war.

However, it is a fascinating account of the history of modern Iraq up until the invasion and toppling of Saddam. The author had high-level sources which detailed the plans sometime day to day.

There is also a fascinating history of what I hesitate to call the remnants of the British Armed Forces. How they have specialized and become lead in special forces and counterinsurgency, as well as any kind of urban operation, dealing with the problems in Northern Ireland.

He briefly touches on events after the initial invasion. He makes an interesting argument that the British, with their long experience in counter, insurgency operations were able to establish law and order and all services very quickly by taking a pragmatic approach dealing with the people that you have. In contrast, the Americans took an ideological approach to spend the army tried to remove all remnants of the party of Saddam Hussein. I’m just wondering if this is true then at some point why didn’t the Americans talk to the British?

I think it is a worthy quick read if one is able to get past any lingering feelings of disgust about the period and time.

[Jeroen van Deelen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really good book. This was my introduction to the author, John Keegan, and after finishing this I’m eager to familiarise myself some more with his other work. As it happened, the other day I came across his biography of Churchill at my local bookstore, so that was a happy coincidence. The only real criticism I can give of this particular book - and this is the main critique of other Goodreads reviews I’ve seen - is that it was published in 2004, only just after the end of the war. The book therefore didn’t fully take into account - nor could it have - the extensive aftermath of the Iraq war. Keegan, however, does take a critical stance towards America’s post-war policies with the information he had at his disposal at the time. Already then he realised what arguably turned out to be one of America’s biggest foreign policy mistakes, namely the disbanding of the Iraqi army.
So, again, this was great. Definitely recommend!

[Evan Þ. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This's a short history of modern Iraqi politics and military from World War I (and resulting independence) up to the 2003 invasion, coupled with a longer military history of that invasion. It barely touches on the insurgency and aftermath, choosing instead to focus on the invasion itself - which on the one hand leaves me wanting more, but on the other hand reminds me of the separation between the two.

Much of this was new to me - even the invasion which had happened while I'd been alive, I'd been too young to really pay attention to.

Keegan is generally objective in his point of view, but he reserves his disdain for those who would sacrifice practical politics to idealistic goals - whether the Europeans and leftists who opposed the 2003 invasion, or the American pro-democracy advocates who delayed getting Iraq into order to immediately start building a new government.

[Shawn Nonya · Rating 1 out of 5]

As this is Presented as a Historical non-fiction from (I think) a well respected Historian, I can't help but feel I have to give it a 1-star even though in general I enjoyed it. My reason is because there is a very clear bias. Keegan is very clearly in favor of the Iraq war and seems to have had some bones to pick with people who weren't. I feel it's important to note that I for the most part share a lot of Keegan's views on the Iraq war but feel that if you are going to write a non-fiction historical book you should either write in as neutral a way as possible and/or make very clear where you stand.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a pro-war propaganda book where Mr Keegan shamelessly offers cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq, claims that the war was justified even though evidence supports otherwise (for example no WMDs found in Iraq) and says that Europeans criticized this war only because they are anti-Americans and that they hate America.

Also, the book is supposed to be about Iraq War but only about a small section of the book talks about the actual war. Most of the book is devoted to pro-war propaganda.

I can't help but think that if this author was around in 1939, he would have defended invasion of Poland in a similar fashion.

[Emylie]

very good look at Iraq history and the build up to the war. the war itself and after might need another look by me

The definition of 'legs' and the discussion of the confidence of the 82nd Airborne Division stuck out to me-sounds like the author spent some time with them.

It's unnerving how familiar all of Saddam's nonsense feels-the lack of a military career, nepotism, his desire to destroy rivals, etc. He was ruthless in his silencing of critics. The death and violence was disturbing.

Has me wondering how peace in the Middle East will ever be possible due to the Sunni/Shia divide.

[Marc Altman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read the 2005 version of this book, I know there were updates in 2007 and 2008. I will guess some of the concerns were addressed in the later editions.

Moreso than Keegans previous war books ( {American} Civil War, First World War, Second World War) I found the unit designation information distracting.

That being said, the first section, covering the history of Iraq was very informative and helpful.

[Sequoyah · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short work detailing regional history from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the time period of the Iraq War.

Keegan dots through this work the negative impact biased journalism has on people with no other means of information, and then really lays it down at the end. It truly is the enemy of the people and of a true history, if we ever want to truly know the facts.

[Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keegan is an incredible military historian. If this book limited its scope to just to conflict, it would have been five stars. He covers the underlying causes, build up, and fighting brilliantly. But he delves too deep into politics and, having written it so soon after the war, doesn't have the hindsight we do now. Still, an excellent book worth reading!

[Gyorgy Kalman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Keegan gives an overview of the Iraq war with motivations explained from the UK and US viewpoints. There is more emphasis on the political relations rather than the actual acts of war. I likeed Keegan's other works more.

[Paul Eberhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

20 years….this was a good review of many, many facts as only John Keegan can provide. It’s a text book that hits many wave tops and a nice British perspective. Not quite a history it’s more of a record of events. Nice to recall without a lot of spin.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

an ok history but Keegan let some personal bias show through that seemed inappropriate.

"Tony Blair is the rare politician energized by his sense of morality."
"The military under Reagan regained its morale"

[Kevin Koppelmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

The information about Saddam coming to power and the change in the Muslim religion in the area were the only interesting parts of the book.