21 Days to Baghdad: General Buford Blount and the 3rd Infantry Division in the Iraq War

by Heather Marie Stur

An authoritative military history of the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Operation Iraqi Freedom , describing the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the siege and fall of Baghdad, and the nation-building mission that followed.

In 21 Days to Baghdad, historian Dr. Heather Stur describes the commitment of the division to Kuwait, the invasion of Iraq and the three weeks of violent desert conflicts on the way to Baghdad before the siege and battle for the city itself, and the “thunder runs” that saw its fall to U.S. forces. She then details the complex security mission that required the soldiers and their commanders to convince Iraqi citizens that the U.S. was there to help them, while at the same time they continued fighting Saddam Hussein's elite Republican Guard, paramilitary forces, and terrorists.

This new history is based on exclusive, extensive interviews with General Buford “Buff” Blount, the U.S. Army two-star general who led the 3rd Infantry Division. His years of experience in the Middle East led him to question the recall of his division from Iraq at the end of 2003 and its replacement by a less experienced unit. President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld did not believe that peacekeeping and humanitarian assistance were worthwhile uses of a conventional combat force like the 3rd Infantry Division. The division had destroyed Hussein's government. Mission accomplished, or so Bush and Rumsfeld thought.

21 Days to Baghdad illustrates the long reach of the U.S. military, the limitations of nation building in the wake of war, and the tensions between policymakers in Washington, DC, and troops on the ground over the purpose and conduct of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

First published September 12, 2023

Reviews

[The Book Was Better · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was in a unit in 3rd ID back in 2003. I've been waiting for a book like this to be published for a long time and finally after 20 long years, here it is. It's also informative to read about what the other two brigades did.

[#moluminary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just another book that conforms to US aggression in Iraq is justified, the US Forces acted honourably, while loudly proclaiming the victory of the US Forces, the unmistakable chest-thumping one would come to expect from such a book.

Perfectly targeted towards the ultra-patriotic US readership that’s also mostly ignorant of what happens outside their own borders and what the local media feeds them.

This maybe a spoiler- the General while happily taking credit for the wins, leaves wide room between him and the grave crimes, injustices and overall mismanagement of the whole war-crime project that was the Iraq saga, from the creation and placement of Saddam the dictator, proxy war against Iran, behind-the-scene green-light to invade Kuwait, the first invasion, crippling sanctions that resulted in the death of at least half a million Iraqi children, pinning of disproven allegation of Saddam that was aiding and abetting OBL and the Gang, allegations of harbouring WMDs that was in fact largely provided by the US during it’s proxy war with Iran through Iraq (Saddam had destroyed what was left of it fearing a full on US reprisal) and the eventual second invasion that ultimately annihilated and decimated what little that was left of after the first invasion and the sanctions once this cradle of civilisation.

Let Saddam and other such cronies be a life lesson to all the dictator wannabes because you’ll be used, abused and then discarded for the benefit, and the wish and whims of the Military Industrial Complex!