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Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Thomas E. Ricks,

James Lurie (Read by)

4.11 · Rating details · 6,409 ratings · 456 reviews

From the "Washington Post"'s two-time Pulitzer-winning senior Pentagon reporter, the definitive military chronicle of the Iraq War-and a searing judgment of its gross strategic blindness-drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time.
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Published August 1st 2006 by Penguin Audiobooks (first published July 1st 2006)

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Feb 12, 2009 Will Byrnes rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: military-and-intelligence-non-fic, american-history, terrorism, history, the-bush-administration, nonfiction

Thomas Ricks - image from the Bangor Daily News

Fiasco offers a very detailed look into the disaster that has been the US invasion of Iraq. For those of us who have read more than a few books on the subject there is an unavoidable repetition of information seen elsewhere, but there is sufficient new material to justify one’s time. Ricks covers the range of errors from the political to the strategic to the tactical to the diplomatic and offered analysis as to what went wrong and why. But he also ...more

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Jul 30, 2019 Max rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-recent-history

The failure of the 1991 Gulf War to take out Saddam Hussein left a small contingent of hawks looking for redress. Most notable among these was then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz who reported to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. As a policy of containment took hold, Wolfowitz complained for more action against Saddam but in the Bush 41 administration he did not find a receptive ear from Cheney. Wolfowitz’s disdain for containment may have been due to the loss of most of his Po The failure of the 1991 Gulf War to take out Saddam Hussein left a small contingent of hawks looking for redress. Most notable among these was then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz who reported to Defense Secretary Dick Cheney. As a policy of containment took hold, Wolfowitz complained for more action against Saddam but in the Bush 41 administration he did not find a receptive ear from Cheney. Wolfowitz’s disdain for containment may have been due to the loss of most of his Polish extended family in the holocaust. Wolfowitz compared Saddam to Hitler and his security forces to the Gestapo. Another advocate for action was Donald Rumsfeld who along with Wolfowitz, and John Bolton belonged to an advocacy group that issued a letter to President Clinton in 1998 demanding regime change in Iraq. Even though in the 2000 presidential election Bush and Cheney doubled down on a non-interventionist policy, Bush made Donald Rumsfeld Defense Secretary and Wolfowitz Deputy Defense Secretary. Initially, however, Wolfowitz’s only strong interventionist ally in the Bush administration was “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff.

9/11 changed everything. Rumsfeld became disillusioned with the intelligence community and again sided with Wolfowitz. Then the New York Times chimed in with reporting by Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Judith Miller claiming Iraq had a WMD program housed in multiple hidden sites. None of it was true, but it had a big impact. Bush made sure everyone knew that his administration’s attitude had changed in his 2002 state of the union speech when he declared Iraq along with North Korea and Iran to be “an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world…time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather.” Cheney reiterated in August 2002 saying “We must take the battle to the enemy.” claiming “There is no doubt” Iraq has WMD.” This would be proven false and to have been based on cherry picked bits of intelligence selected to prove what the hardliners already believed. Cheney radically changed after 9/11, perhaps from fear of a repetition, but also perhaps because he was suffering from serious heart problems. The hardliners reinforced each other and Cheney in particular intimidated the intelligence community. Cheney’s pressure culminated in CIA Director George Tenet releasing a made to order National Intelligence Estimate summary supporting the WMD case that heavily influenced President Bush. The detailed report was far less clear than the summary. In September 2002, NY Times columnist Judith Miller struck again this time on page one writing that Saddam Hussein was actively searching for A-bomb parts, later proven false.

By the fall of 2002 with the decision to go to war made and Congress offering no serious opposition, Rumsfeld began planning. Unlike Cheney in the Gulf War Rumsfeld overrode his military scaling back required force estimates, particularly for the aftermath. Calling it planning is really a misnomer. Inexperienced civilian hardliners put together PowerPoints on what to expect. Input from experienced people in the State Department or military was largely ignored. Those that objected such as knowledgeable former generals Shinseki and Zinni were vilified. The official line was that the troops would be welcomed as liberators, quickly turn the government back over to the Iraqis, and leave. It was all politically generated and naïve. In February 2003 Secretary of State Colin Powell with Tenet sitting behind him gave a speech at the UN offering “evidence” of Iraqi WMD. This abysmal low point in his career came about because he accepted the CIA summary and unverified input from the administration, all of which was crafted to support a decision already made.

The US attacked in March 2003. Taking Baghdad proceeded pretty much as planned. Little else did. The Iraqi troops didn’t defect in mass and support the Americans as the administration had predicted. Once defeated, most waited to see what the Americans would do. Some melted into the civilian population and began organizing resistance starting by stocking up on arms that Saddam had stashed around the country. General Franks did not take responsibility for what followed in Iraq after his “victory” in taking Baghdad. The U.S. had no plan to administer Iraq after Saddam’s fall. U.S. forces didn’t secure the borders, seize Saddam’s arm stashes or maintain order. Chaos ensued with widespread looting and vandalism. American troops never expected to be an occupation force, for which they were severely undermanned. Some were busy hunting for WMDs that didn’t exist. Others were getting ready to go home as they had been promised. Iraqis figured Americans didn’t care or simply were incapable of taking control. They soon lost any faith they may have had in their “liberators”. Meanwhile on May 1, 2003 Bush was quick to claim victory flying in a combat jet onto the deck of an aircraft carrier over which a banner claimed “mission accomplished”.

In May 2003 as the situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate, Paul Bremer was appointed to head the Coalition Provisional Authority. He technically reported to Rumsfeld, but Rumsfeld thought he reported to the White House National Security Council. It didn’t matter because Bremer did what he wanted. General Franks was replaced by General Sanchez who reported to Central Command in Tampa which reported to Rumsfeld. No single person in Iraq was in charge and Bremer and Sanchez could barely stand each other. Bremer wasted no time disenfranchising Iraqis. First he fired all “senior” Baathist party members from government run organizations. That put 85,000 people who knew how to operate the country’s infrastructure on the street without jobs. Next he dissolved the Iraqi Army, putting 385,000 men on the streets with no income and plenty of time to express their resentment. Then he let go the 285,000 working for the Interior Ministry which included police and security forces. The U.S. Army had not been notified in advance of these decisions. Even Rumsfeld didn’t seem to know about these decisions. Bremer’s actions ensured the occupation would be a long one and proved to be an excellent way to get the Iraqi insurgency up and running. Bombing and sniping increased and was widespread within a couple of months. But back in Washington the Bush administration denied that there was a serious problem and still expressed confidence that that they would find WMD. In July when asked about Iraqis attacking U. S. forces Bush said, “My answer is: Bring ‘em on.” A year later the Islamic Jihad Army replied, “Have you another challenge.”

Bombings increased. Particularly significant was the bomb laden truck that crashed into the UN mission in Iraq in August 2003 killing twenty-two and wounding seventy. The blast broke windows a half mile away. The UN reduced its presence to a token and ceased being the mediator between the U.S. and Shiite leaders. Other international organizations took note and began leaving. The insurgency was being strategic cutting Americans off from constructive contact with Iraqis. American forces were a hammer in search of a nail. The U.S. employed counterproductive conventional war tactics with armored vehicles patrolling through Iraqi neighborhoods, mass roundups and imprisonments, nighttime raids on personal residences humiliating men in front of their families, physical and mental abuse of detainees; all guaranteed to alienate everyday Iraqis. As Iraqi animosity intensified, the IED, the low tech roadside bomb, became the weapon of choice for the insurgents. The IED was very effective. It was responsible for one-third of U.S. troop deaths in the insurgency’s first year and two-thirds of casualties requiring medical evacuation out of Iraq. IED attacks would steadily increase throughout 2004. The IED further isolated U.S. troops who became very reluctant to venture out among the Iraqis except as ordered on combat style missions. General Sanchez provided little central direction thus area commanders used varying tactics, some particularly harsh and alienating but a few such as General Petraeus in the Iraqi north employed proven counterinsurgency measures to good effect. Counterinsurgency calls for winning over the people by engaging with them and respecting them, the opposite of what most U.S. divisions were doing.

In early October 2003 Bush still had the blinders on saying “The situation is improving on a daily basis in Iraq. People are freer, the security situation is getting better.” That month the Ramadan offensive got underway. The insurgents sent a message to the U.S. by launching rockets into the heavily protected American Green Zone. Rockets struck the hotel where Wolfowitz was staying killing an Army officer on the floor below. They also sent a message to Iraqis working with the Americans assassinating one of the Baghdad mayors. Violence dramatically escalated to 45 attacks per day on American forces. U.S. helicopters were shot down. 60 U.S. troops were killed in two weeks. All in all by November more U.S. troops had been killed from May to November 2003 than in the U.S. invasion. Rumsfeld and the Bush administration’s plans still called for reducing U.S. troop strength based on their belief that things were going well but now doubts crept in. Finally Rumsfeld changed his tune saying publically “We’re in a low-intensity war that needs to be won.” Even the capture of Saddam Hussain in December didn’t help. Many Iraqi’s felt now they could join the resistance since they would no longer be fighting for Saddam.

The U.S. Army was given the unexpected role of administering Iraqi prisons including tens of thousands of detainees collected in the growing number of cordon and sweep operations. While targeting known insurgents, many innocent suspects were routinely detained in the sweeps and sent off to prison. Abu Ghraib, the main prison, was overwhelmed. Prisoners waited weeks and months to be interrogated. Many were simply lost in the system. The reserve MP troops running the prison were not properly trained or supervised and abuse was prevalent, not that abuse was confined to the prisons. Individual field divisions varied widely in their treatment of detained Iraqis. Detainees were frequently subject to violence and humiliation before entering prison. Ricks spends many pages describing the myriad ways prisoners were mistreated, injured and sometimes killed and much became public. Then the news about abu Ghraib broke in April 2004. Americans, Iraqis and people around the world were stunned. Military leaders could claim they were unaware of much of the abuse in the field and prisons, largely because many commanders had let it be known that they didn’t want to hear about it.

As 2004 unfolded the Iraqi insurgency hardened and spread. Now the insurgents were better equipped and experienced. But U.S. forces rotated out after one year. Their replacements had to learn all over again how war in Iraq was fought. It wasn’t the war they were trained to fight. The few good working relationships between Iraqi and U.S. forces were lost. A significant failure of those leaving was not properly training, equipping and supporting Iraqi forces the U.S. had recruited. This was essential given the inability of Americans to understand and deal with people of a different culture and language. Another failure that undercut attempts to implement counterinsurgency doctrine was not providing security for the majority of Iraqis who were not insurgents. The average Iraqi was terrified by uncontrolled crime. Kidnappings, robberies and rapes were commonplace. If the U.S. couldn’t protect them, better to align with the insurgents. Another failure was not getting basic services up and running. What were Iraqis with no electricity to think when they saw the bright lights emanating from the green zone?

In March 2004 Fallujah exploded. A group of Blackwater security contractors bypassed a marine checkpoint, were ambushed, dismembered, hung from a bridge, then burned to cheering crowds. General Mattis and his Marines had taken over from the army in Fallujah just days earlier. Mattis saw this as a ploy by the insurgents to draw them into a major battle. Mattis who had trained his troops in counterinsurgency tactics wanted to wait then go after just the insurgents responsible to maintain relations with city residents. He and his military bosses including Sanchez were overruled. President Bush demanded major action immediately to offset the images on TV. Without time to gather intelligence the marines went in clearing the city block by block in intense fighting. The fighting spread to nearby Ramadi, then Shiite militias attacked the south of Iraq and in Shiite enclaves in Baghdad. Sunni and Shiite attacks spread to other cities. Attacks on convoys increased sharply. Iraqi troops that Americans had recruited refused to fight other Iraqis. In April President Bush inexplicably said “Most of Fallujah is returning to normal”. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The marines were forced by Bush to turn the city back over to those they had been fighting, so he could claim victory. The war strategy was being directed politically and ineptly from the White House. Iraq was on fire, the insurgents were winning battles and the people fell in line. At one U.S. battalion HQ, a sign read “Dilbert of the Day: The key to happiness is self-delusion.”

Ricks goes on to describe many other battles. As 2004 rolled into summer both sides improved their tactics, but the U.S. still lacked a strategy to win or end the war echoing Viet Nam. Special Forces were not being used effectively, but given the debacle of conventional warfare in 2004, by 2005 they would be seen as the answer. Special Forces were designed to engage in small scale precise actions designed to eliminate the enemy without alienating the people. By 2005 two pillars of the rationale for invasion were laid to rest. There were no WMD and no linkage between Saddam Hussain’s regime and al Qaeda. The third pillar of the rationale, liberation, also looked incredibly weak. After abu Ghraib and the toll of destruction and death experienced by everyday Iraqis how could it be said they were better off? The New York Times and other newspapers that had lent support to the war hawks changed their tune. Congress chimed in and began criticizing the administration for the handling of the war. The fallaciousness of Judith Miller’s reporting was exposed and she left the Times in 2005. In mid-2004 Bremer and General Sanchez were replaced. The new leadership began the transition to counterinsurgency tactics. In November 2004 the second battle of Fallujah began. This time with three times the number of troops, months of planning and the use of Special Operations, the marines took the city in fierce methodical block-by-block house-to-house combat. Much of the fighting was at close quarters, but the marines also fired four thousand artillery rounds and ten thousand mortar shells supplemented by ten tons of bombs dropped from the air. Two thousand buildings in Fallujah were destroyed and ten thousand damaged. The battle was important to show that the insurgents were not the inevitable winners, but the destruction of Fallujah was hardly going to endear the residents to their “liberators”. The death of residents was minimized since almost all left the city before the battle began.

In 2005 the insurgency became more sophisticated and expanded. The U.S. began implementing new tactics that were anathema in 2003. This is where Ricks leaves us, the book published in 2006. The takeaways are pretty obvious. A politically driven disastrous war was entered into by an administration motivated by paranoid beliefs, an administration that isolated itself ignoring experienced and knowledgeable input, an administration that bought into any story that supported its preconceived notions, an administration that could never admit it made mistakes, an administration living in a delusion. Ricks ends by exploring possible scenarios for the future of Iraq. He considers civil and regional war as possibilities. Many of these scenarios and more are still possible as our latest president know-it-all tinkers with forces he doesn’t understand in the Middle East, maintaining America’s involvement in the Yemini Civil War and taunting Iran. Reading how the Bush administration drove America to war in Iraq sends a chill down my spine when I think about how our current president employs the same modus-operandi. ...more

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Sep 21, 2009 Trevor rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: social-theory, history

Although there is lots of detail provided in this aptly titled book about the fiasco that has been the US adventure in Iraq, that isn’t really the main point of this book or the reason why anyone should read it. It is also not the main lesson to be gained from reading it. This book is, more than anything else, an extended meditation on the central importance that military strategy ought to have played in the preparations, execution and (most importantly) the ‘peace’ that was to have followed the ...more

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Nov 03, 2007 Taryn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, paper-books

When Fiasco first came out naturally there were many opinions on it, ranging from "fantastic" to "trash". I kept some of the bad reviews I'd seen and heard in mind as I read this book, trying to look for evidence to prove those bad reviews were well founded. Frankly, I didn't find any such evidence. Two things come to mind here. Firstly, in one community online that I peek into now and then I skimmed over a discussion on the boards about it a few months ago. One person argued the title of the bo When Fiasco first came out naturally there were many opinions on it, ranging from "fantastic" to "trash". I kept some of the bad reviews I'd seen and heard in mind as I read this book, trying to look for evidence to prove those bad reviews were well founded. Frankly, I didn't find any such evidence. Two things come to mind here. Firstly, in one community online that I peek into now and then I skimmed over a discussion on the boards about it a few months ago. One person argued the title of the book, stating it was unfair to judge this war by such a title (a fiasco) until the war had come to a close and we had all evidence to judge by. Something about that statement didn't quite sit well with me, but I thought sure.. there might be a valid point to that, at least looking at it from one angle. From a different angle however, I think it's possible to judge based on progress reports. How else are you going to know if you're being successful or not, if you don't analyze progress and make corrections where needed along the way?

Secondly, people have treated the book like it does nothing but point out failures and put the whole situation in a bad light, a worse light than is actually necessary. I totally disagree. Read the book. It reads like a history book with brief summaries of what happened when, from events leading up to the actual invasion to the 'here and now', and what was said by which key figures and at what point on the time line. Yes, the failures were outlined and yes, a lot of bad things have gone on over there. But the successes that occurred over there, however fleeting they may have been, were also included. I didn't find this a biased book at all. I've come away from reading it with a much, much higher respect for our military. My eyes have been opened to a lot, and my view on this war has changed a bit, which has surprised me. I'm not so sure I'm one of those people who is ready to demand we bring all our troops back home instantly. I think, as I have for years, that they were unfairly thrown into a disaster waiting to happen. But to add insult to injury, they were given a small fraction of the resources needed to be successful and expected to perform miracles overnight. How can you expect success when you don't have a clear plan for everything, or the tools needed? So yes, regardless of who's to blame here, it has been a fiasco in more ways than one. Now I think it's time they get the full support they need to do what needs to be done. The only problems that remain in my mind are the questions of whether or not it's too late, and whether or not the resources for "full support" exist. It should've been done right the first go round, right from the start, but we can't do much about the past now unfortunately.

This administration should truly be ashamed of itself. Something else that resulted from reading this book was how utterly embarrassed I am of our government. It's one thing to make mistakes, but it's another to refuse to admit to being wrong, and to refuse to do anything to right those wrongs. At other peoples' expense. They have never seemed to grasp that it's not just their lives being affected by their ignorant decisions.

God help the next President who has to try to clean up this mess. ...more

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Feb 28, 2013 KOMET rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history-of-the-us-21st-century-plus, zz-out-of-residence, history-the-middle-east

This is the definitive book on the Iraq War to date. It provides ample evidence that the G.W. Bush regime, along with the Pentagon and the CIA, made a false casus belli for war with Iraq, keenly anticipating an easy victory with Iraqis greeting American soldiers with garlands of flowers as liberators. That, alas, was not to be.

Furthermore, what was galling was that the U.S. had absolutely NO comprehesive plan or set of plans for rebuilding the Iraqi economy and re-establishing basic services fo ...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Steven Peterson rated it liked it · review of another edition

Retrospective on another important book published some years ago on Iraq. How has the work held up?

Thomas Ricks' book, Fiasco, was part of an increasing body of literature, featuring more and more books based on the words and experiences of insiders, government and military officials talking after the fact, raising questions about the wisdom of the original decision to invade Iraq and the occupation and "nation-building" efforts thereafter.

This work (and others as well) raises important questio ...more

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Jul 08, 2009 Tom rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I had initially "read" the audio book of Ricks' follow-up to this book, The Gamble, and was impressed enough to get the (print version) of Fiasco. It did not disappoint as a book, even if it highlighted the problems with the current Iraq War.

Ricks is a very fair judge. He speaks well of many of the fine commanders on the ground, men like Gen. David Petreaus, who are doing the best with what they have. He faults, primarily, the dual response from Washington, both civilian and some military, to se ...more

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Sep 18, 2007 James rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: anyone

Shelves: read-historypoliticsculture

I've always enjoyed Thomas Ricks' reporting in WaPo, WSJ, etc. as well as his earlier book Making the Corps. What I appreciated most about Fiasco was its crisp prose and simple level-headedness. In that, Fiasco confirmed a belief that I have slowly been coming to, that even after we invaded Iraq, it still really might have been ok (not good, necessarily, but ok). But we blew opportunity after opportunity to do the right thing, and it really is unredeemable now. The thing that weirds me out the m ...more

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Jul 30, 2007 Joe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people interested in military, politics

Touted by John McCain and others as the definitive Iraq War book, Fiasco gives a detailed blow by blow account of the U.S. 2003 invasion of Iraq. Writing as objectively as possible, Ricks nevertheless gives a scathing account of the mismanagement of the war by Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, and the fiasco's chief architects.
The book is fascinating on many levels showing where people went wrong not only tactically but also ideologically. Interestingly, the only person w ...more

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Dec 11, 2014 Craig Fiebig rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Critically important but very difficult book to read. As one who long supported Iraq II to read such a thorough evisceration of the justification and strategic prosecution of the war was, frankly, heart-rending. There were errors of negligence, bull-headed-ness, stress at every level. There are two hopeful elements, first I learned of this book because it is being taught as part of the curriculum at West Point. This demonstrates an atypical and invaluable institutional capacity for self-learning ...more

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Jul 20, 2013 Simon Wood rated it liked it · review of another edition

THE U.S. MILITARY IN IRAQ

Thomas E. Ricks "Fiasco" is an account of the preperation for and invasion of Iraq and the ensuing occupation. The book gripped this reader from beginning to end it being the sort of book that causes bus stops to be missed. I was one of the many who was against the war as it came onto the agenda in 2002. I was not surprised the U.S. and the small number of other forces were not welcomed with boquets, what was astonishing was that within six months the United States had THE U.S. MILITARY IN IRAQ

Thomas E. Ricks "Fiasco" is an account of the preperation for and invasion of Iraq and the ensuing occupation. The book gripped this reader from beginning to end it being the sort of book that causes bus stops to be missed. I was one of the many who was against the war as it came onto the agenda in 2002. I was not surprised the U.S. and the small number of other forces were not welcomed with boquets, what was astonishing was that within six months the United States had provoked an insurgency that would run on for as many years, indeed it is still active all be it at a lower level. The purpose of Thomas Ricks book is to tell the story of that grotesque failure of Neo-Con/Neo-Liberal foreign policy.

The first part of Ricks book captures the military planning and the bureaucratic manouverings in the period that led up to the invasion. There are noticeable limitations in his account especially in relation to non United States actors, for example Hans Blix and the global public campaigning against the war amongst other subjects are absent; Tony Blair and UN weapons inspections barely make at dent in the narrative. Rumsfield, understandably, is put under the microscope, not a pretty sight at all- arogance personified. A variety of American military figures (curiously every second one is described as being "unusually for the army an intellectual") from across the military spectrum. One thing becomes quickly obvious: phase 4, or after war planning, is in near total disarray.

The Invasion itself up to the taking of Baghdad is covered relatively briefly, the ensuing occupation in somewhat more detail. The inter service rivalry between the different parts of the military and even different units is a constant theme and rather more examples of its tribal nature pepper the text than those of the Iraqis whose society is constantly reffered to as tribal in nature by the author and many of the Americans who are quoted in the text. The main focus at this point is pretty much on the predicament that the United States military found itself in and its inability to more than sporadically remedy glaring defects. This makes gripping and fascinating reading but the Iraqis themselves and the resistance to the occupation are mentioned in pretty general terms. There are no attempts to quantify, even in an appropriately qualified manner, the amount of casualties inflicted on civilians. There are exceptions to this, Ricks covers the torture and abuse of detainees in Abu Ghraib in some detail. Paul Bremer and his neo-liberal experiment known as the Coalition Provisional Authority comes in for some criticism but I felt the author never covered the mindset or the implications of his regime in anything like the detail it deserved. There is also an impression that Bremer was something of a loose cannon, the President and the Government back in the U.S. had given him more or less total autonomy and were apparently not aware of what exactly he was getting up to. This seems rather unlikely. As for his succesor, John Negroponte? Other than a few brief sentances stating that he was more effective than Paul Bremer we learn nothing of him other than that he was involved in a "successful" counter insurgency in Central America. Not a single hint of the cost in death and destruction for the people of Central America during his time leading that counter insurgency.

The book covers the period up to the end of 2005. In his concluding chapter the author, while not shying away from describing the real situation on the ground as it appeared to the Military, does give indications that the United States Military has began to learn the lessons of conducting a counter insurgency and is beginning to make tangible progress. Certainly he is not guaranteeing iminent success but it does appear things are getting better. The reality is sobering to recall, a very high level of violence was to continue for another three years and even now deaths due to violence in Iraq run at several hundred a month.

The book is pretty good account of the American Military in Iraq and is more or less framed by their experiences and concerns. The military make up most of the voices that feature in the book and though there are a wide range of opinions, some of which are admiringly frank, it should be kept in mind that this still limits the picture placed before the reader. The Iraqis position, the divisions between different groupings of Iraqis, how the United States dealt with the different groupings and even that of other countries forces are not covered with anything like the desirable amount of detail to give a full picture of the occupation and its very real costs. The larger geopolitical forces that played out at the United Nations are given scant regard, the position of Israel with regards to the invasion is not mentioned at all. So bearing in mind the limitations it was still a fascinating book to read though the focus is too narrow to be a substantial general history of the war and occupation. That book still awaits to be written, probably along with the final chapter of the conflict itself. ...more

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Dec 30, 2008 Pat rated it really liked it · review of another edition

An excellent, clear-sighted, and well-named review of the numerous and heretofore less well known derelictions which contributed so much to the conflict in Iraq. As readers of the "Washington Post" (like me)know well, Mr. Ricks writes with considerable authority about the military. One of the best of many recent books on this subject. ...more

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Aug 10, 2013 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: military-government, other-favorites

The United States government is not necessarily known for its honesty or intelligence, but the utter incompetence and narcissism displayed by our leaders during the Iraq war is just quintessential idiocy. What was done (and not done) by power-wielding officials during this time is nothing less than systematic neglect and criminality.

Long story short, in the early 2000′s, a handful of very arrogant men in the top ranks of government deliberately manipulated our country into a preemptive war that The United States government is not necessarily known for its honesty or intelligence, but the utter incompetence and narcissism displayed by our leaders during the Iraq war is just quintessential idiocy. What was done (and not done) by power-wielding officials during this time is nothing less than systematic neglect and criminality.

Long story short, in the early 2000′s, a handful of very arrogant men in the top ranks of government deliberately manipulated our country into a preemptive war that has cost us (and the world as a whole) billions upon billions of dollars and untold human lives. Information was distorted, exaggerated, and twisted until the truth was unrecognizable. Sold to the country as necessary self-defense in the face of “imminent and irrefutable” threat, the Iraq war and subsequent “liberation” of the country has destroyed our international credibility, fanned the flames of unrest in the middle east, and created a never ending quagmire of chaos for our national security.

And where was Congress, you ask? Oh, that’s right. WATCHING! Questions were asked and concerns were raised, sure, but ultimately, no answers were demanded. The Bush Administration was given the green light (or at least not explicitly told to stop) despite the fact that officials used false/incomplete information to initiate war, did not outline long-term strategic plans, and could not provide anything but the most rudimentary (and outlandishly erroneous) estimates related to cost and time frame anticipated.

But it gets worse! Not only were the intelligence and rationale for invasion flawed and fabricated, the execution of the war and post-invasion occupation of Iraq were astonishingly mismanaged. Somehow, the same small group of hawkish, impulsive people that dragged us into war ended up with full, unchecked control over their train wreck. And, somewhat predictably, they made EVERY WRONG DECISION POSSIBLE. Literally. I don’t think they missed one opportunity to do the exact opposite of what they should have.

Underestimating the necessity of longer-term occupation and stabilization following the initial push into the country, and deliberately ignoring the numerous experts and officials advising caution, these idiots sent our country to war with too few troops, zero strategy, no cultural understanding, and ridiculously unclear lines of communication. The ensuing events, of course, were bloody and catastrophic.

It is baffling that there has been so little outrage and so few consequences for the people who created this waking nightmare. In the 12 years since the invasion of Iraq, the criminal behaviors of Bush Administration officials (I’m looking at you, Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz!) have been seemingly swept under the rug. Half-hearted investigations have led to little more than slaps on the wrist despite overwhelming evidence of criminality. These men set the stage for years of international unrest, disturbing realms of torture, and unyielding, unnecessary death. Not to mention the set up for future conflict and the almost complete destruction of the United States international reputation.

Astoundingly well written and researched, this book will infuriate you. ...more

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Mar 25, 2019 Evan rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, politics, military

I decided to read this book after reading Black Hawk Down. In Black Hawk Down, Bowden provides a detailed account of fighting inside a city. I was interested to see how principles from Somali might have been applied in Iraq. This book, covering a much longer period (2003-2006) does not get into any individual battle details or, really, tactical decisions. For the most part, this book focuses on:
1) strategy (or lack thereof) at high levels of command
2) lack of army preparedness for a Phase 4 (occ ...more

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Aug 04, 2015 Ian Divertie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

If you want to understand our current 2015 situation this is a MUST read. Mr. Ricks is a seer of uncommon vision even in 2015. Mr. Ricks' book "Fiasco" which oddly although written in 2006 and 2007 directly addresses our current problems in the Middle East. This book explains both how we got into this mess and accurately predicts today. In fact both its 2006 Afterword: Betting Against History and its 2007 Postscript are extremely prescient. The 2006 Afterword does indeed precisely describe the c ...more

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Nov 19, 2010 Erik Graff rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Americans

Recommended to Erik by: Karen Engdahl & Walter Wallace

Shelves: history

Visiting Walter and Karen for a week and having finished my in-flight book, I asked them for recommendations and was handed this, most of which I read on the front and side porches of their rambling centuries-old home in Springfield, Vermont.

Ricks does not, as I would, decry the US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, but he does represent scathing criticisms posited by military officers against how the invasion and occupation of Iraq has been conducted under Bush and company.

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Apr 29, 2009 Daniel Villines rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

For those who believe that mankind can learn from its mistakes and for those who want to know what those mistakes were leading up to the subject event.

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Nov 29, 2011 Mark rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Thomas Ricks pulls no punches in his account of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. Ricks begins with the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, one which was unsatisfying to men like Paul Wolfowitz. Throughout the 1990s, this group of neoconservatives kept up a steady drumbeat against Iraq, while the election of George W. Bush in 2000 gave some of them – most notably Wolfowitz and his former deputy “Scooter” Libby – positions of power within government. Yet Ricks argues that they were on the Thomas Ricks pulls no punches in his account of America’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. Ricks begins with the aftermath of the Gulf War in 1991, one which was unsatisfying to men like Paul Wolfowitz. Throughout the 1990s, this group of neoconservatives kept up a steady drumbeat against Iraq, while the election of George W. Bush in 2000 gave some of them – most notably Wolfowitz and his former deputy “Scooter” Libby – positions of power within government. Yet Ricks argues that they were on the losing end of the debate to intervene in Iraq until al-Qaeda’s attacks on September 11, 2001. The attacks created an opening to reshape foreign policy, one that Ricks sees the neoconservatives as taking full advantage of the opportunity presented to push the administration towards a more aggressive posture internationally, one in which an attack on Iraq would be at the forefront.

With the decision to go to war essentially made by early 2002, the next question was how to win it. Here Ricks places responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the civilian leadership of the Pentagon, which not only believed their unrealistically rosy predictions about what a war would look like, but also insisted that U.S. military planners adopt war plans which fit these expectations, even if the consequences flew in the face of experience and accepted military doctrine. Here Ricks sees a lot of buck-passing, as everyone stifled their doubts and worked with what they had. Making matters worse was the plan for war itself. Anticipating the type of large-scale armor clash that the Army had been planning for since the Cold War, it imposed a strategy that would prove damaging in retrospect.

None of this seemed to matter in March and April of 2003, as U.S. armored columns roared into Baghdad as if winning some sort of great race. In the aftermath of the capture of the Iraqi capital, the administration celebrated it as the triumphant climax of the war. Yet Ricks views it as only the first battle. Throughout this point, he details the missed opportunities, faulting the blunders of the Pentagon planners, the commanders in the field, and the new head of the occupation authority, Paul Bremmer, for crippling the chance for a peaceful occupation. By the summer of 2003 Iraq had reached a tipping-point, after which an insurgency increasingly challenged U.S. control of the country. Ricks finds the cause for this at many levels, from the willful blindness of the political leadership to the neglect of the Army of the lessons of Vietnam, all of which had a ripple effect in the thousands of encounters between U.S. forces and Iraqi civilians. By the spring of 2004 the situation had deteriorated into a level of warfare that the U.S. military had not faced in generations, and while a new set of commanders have attempted to adjust in response, Ricks is pessimistic about the prospects of achieving the type of hopeful outcome so confidently promised in the run-up to the war.

Ricks’ book is a powerful and damming indictment of the conduct of the invasion of occupation of Iraq. Relying on thousands of documents and interviews with participants at all levels, he reveals in full detail the decisions and actions that have brought America and Iraq to the current situation there. Few groups come out of it with their reputations intact – the military, the civilian leadership, the media, and the Iraqis all receive a share of the responsibility for the mess described in the title. While a fuller picture would have been enriched Ricks’s analysis further still – he covers the roles of both the international coalition and the private contractors in passing only – his is nonetheless the best account available of the ongoing crisis in Iraq, one that is required reading for anyone seeking to understand how the American intervention in Iraq turned so disastrous. ...more

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Sep 02, 2013 Terin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Fiasco by Thomas Ricks is an incredible piece of journalism and history. It tells the sad, still unfinished saga of the build up to, and selling of, the Iraq invasion and war to the American people still recovering from the worst terrorist attacks ever on U.S. soil--9/11.

As Fiasco makes perfectly clear, were it not for 9/11, odds are the U.S. would never have invaded Iraq, let alone taken its eye off its revenge invasion of Afghanistan. And as the book also makes perfectly clear, while the U.S. ...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Frederick Bingham rated it really liked it

I listened to an abridged version of this on CD.Ricks describes the history of the war in Iraq from the viewpoint of the American military. It is clear the war was botched up from the very beginning by the higher-ups. He skewers many of the major players, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Tenet, Powell, Cheney, Bush and Bremer. Special condemnation goes to General Ricardo Sanchez, the US commander in Iraq for the crucial mid-'2003 to mid-'2004 period. Sanchez's imagination-free leadership led to the rise of ...more

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Mar 06, 2018 Jimmy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: army-reading-list, audiobooks, nps, 34, cbr10, non-fiction, military

I looked forward to reading this book for a while. I really enjoyed another of the author's books, The Generals, and its critical take on U.S. military leadership. Fiasco did not disappoint.

Fiasco is the story of the early part of the Iraq War. There is a little background so that one understands the main players, namely Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, and then it jumps headfirst into a chronological discussion of the decisions made and their repercussions. Fiasco discusses how the war was basical ...more

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Aug 02, 2012 Michael Gerald rated it liked it · review of another edition

The US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was based on three premises:

1. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
2. Iraq under Saddam was in possession or developing weapons of mass destruction, and containing him through sanctions and no-fly zones was not working.
3. Iraqis would welcome their liberation from Saddam's dictatorship.

Unfortunately, the first two premises were later proven to be false and partly based on fabrication. The third premise was initially true, but was undermi ...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Christopher rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, politics, middle-east-central-asia, united-states, military-affairs

An amazingly devastating analysis of the war in Iraq. The best way to describe this book is that it is this generation's The Best and the Brightest, written by David Halberstam almost four decades ago about the U.S.'s blundering into the Vietnam war. Like Halberstam, Ricks shows a passion for his subject material combined with a clarity and persuasiveness in his analysis. Anyone who reads this book and comes away unconvinced of its central argument obviously didn't read the book well enough. How ...more

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Apr 07, 2011 Peter Buren rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Author Tom Ricks is a kind of patron saint of intelligent writing about the Iraq conflicts, first as a reporter for the Washington Post and now as a blogger and author for Foreign Policy (http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/). Ricks is known for his connections within the military, who, knowing he will handle information intelligently and better yet, understand its context, feed him inside baseball-like data on a regular basis. It is this understanding of how things work that informs Ricks’ two books ...more

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Sep 01, 2013 Greg Snyder rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I very much enjoyed reading Fiasco. It took almost a month but it had a lot of parts that left you thinking. The time frame for the book was 2001 to 2006. The US invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. There was supposed to be 4 parts to this invasion. Our government had no plan for 4th part which was occupying the country. We lost a lot of good Americans because of this. The administration was blind to the reality of what was going on in Iraq and just kept saying how well it was goi ...more

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Mar 15, 2009 AC added it · review of another edition

Shelves: current-events

I agree -- great book...

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Jun 03, 2018 Andrew Shapter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Ricks called it.
Will we/they ever learn?

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Aug 27, 2019 Dennis Littrell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

It's worse than that

The first part of this book, "Containment" presents the situation prior to the buildup for war and demonstrates that the policy of containment begun during the first Bush administration was working and we had Saddam Hussein effectively controlled. After 9/11 the situation changed not because anything had changed in Iraq but because the new Bush administration now saw a pretext for invading Iraq, which is what Bush dearly wanted to do for reasons that are today not entirely cl ...more

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Jun 21, 2016 David rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

I came to this book as someone who had read more than a handful of longform journalistic pieces on the second Iraq War through the years, but would definitely claim no expertise on the matter as this is the first book-length treatment I've read on the subject. Still, the early chapters stood out to me vividly as I can recall in detail the public debate (such that it was!) concerning the war as that occurred in spring semester of my freshman year in college back in 2003. As it happened, I was th I came to this book as someone who had read more than a handful of longform journalistic pieces on the second Iraq War through the years, but would definitely claim no expertise on the matter as this is the first book-length treatment I've read on the subject. Still, the early chapters stood out to me vividly as I can recall in detail the public debate (such that it was!) concerning the war as that occurred in spring semester of my freshman year in college back in 2003. As it happened, I was then in a critical thinking class and my class had a debate on whether war was the proper response to the situation in Iraq. As I read the book, it was fascinating (at least to me) to compare what naysayers about the war had said in those classrooms long ago to what ultimately took place.

On sources: I'll say at the outset that the book is incredibly sourced and researched and the reach of Ricks' sources inside the American military apparatus was quite impressive to me. This work was anything except a "manifesto" or one journalist's "take" on the war and its origins coming primarily from his own perspective with little regard to what the relevant actors had to say about it. Instead, it is a narrative constructed carefully on sources ranging from (obviously) interviews with senior officials in the Pentagon and administration to soldiers in the field of battle (many of which are named sources though sometimes he uses unnamed sources), memoirs and written accounts from actors that are sometimes used to supply counter-narratives (e.g. Tommy Franks' memoirs are referred to several times as a foil to what many of Ricks' sources say) congressional reports and transcripts, oral histories from soldiers, the 'Stars & Stripes' and 'Army Times', essays and editorials from intellectuals and pundits ranging from the 'Wall Street Journal' to 'Foreign Affairs' to the 'New York Times' (the latter of which receives some harsh criticism in the book along with expected targets like Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Franks but also comparatively lesser known, but obviously incredibly important, actors like Ricardo Sanchez and Jerry Bremer), the Army's official history, hundreds of investigatory documents resulting from FOIA requests about Abu Ghraib , as well as military journals like 'Parameters' and counterinsurgency primers like work from David Galula. As an aside, I'd add that if you wonder why exactly is that the US military started to take counterinsurgency seriously as a method for fighting this war, then this would definitely be on book to check out. Ricks also gives plenty of space to considering standard counter-arguments and perspectives other than those he and many of his military sources hold (e.g. he showed a particularly critical section of one military official to the man himself and Ricks included the response). While the book is obviously (see the title!) a journalist bringing attention to many of the failures of civilian and military leadership in Iraq, he regularly outlines and explains the frustration that many leaders cited about journalists painting an overly negative picture about the state of affairs in Iraq. Ricks' responses in the book to this point are complex but I'd guess he would reply in (somewhat) brief with something like, "Well, if one side keeps up a nearly constant optimistic official message of either (before the war) 'This will be far easier than many people think'/'Oh, we have a good plan for post-invasion Iraq'' and (during the war) 'We are making consistent progress" then journalists feel that it is their duty to present a larger vision of the story, which will include many details that are unfriendly to the official stance." I think he would also add that after things did not go quite as well on the ground as many leaders had hoped, several of them are seen to retreat to "Well, look, hindsight is 20/20 you can always have done better on this or that, etc." On those parts I can just see Ricks shaking his head at the computer, as he types, thinking, "No, you didn't need hindsight for this one--there were plenty of people lining up offering you plenty of accurate foresight."

On the reading experience: While the book has a great deal to explain and many moving parts and characters, Ricks tries to keep the narrative moving quickly with fairly short sections and a helpful 'Cast of Characters' at the beginning of the book, which I made use of several times to better follow the exposition. It was also striking to see the famous pre-war statements from Wolfowitz, including his Dec. 2002 statement of "I think people are overly pessimistic about the aftermath [of the Iraq invasion]" and his statement in a congressional committee that Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction.[!]" Those aside, at times I found the work a bit dull and demanding given the many political and military operations operating at the same time (not exactly Ricks' fault here!), but overall it was an enjoyable and enlightening read for me.

On what stands out: outside of the impressive sourcing of the book, I found very interesting the many characters that he documented has serious misgivings about the war before it started and as the plans continued to develop, as in the case of former Marine general Anthony Zinni and former Rep. Ike Skelton. In my experience, people like these should be more widely remembered for their bravery in going against the prevailing wisdom of the time, as their respective stands came at the cost of much derision from their contemporaries. On a related note, I was struck, as a professor who teaches Critical Thinking courses, by the role of the Vietnam conflict (and its many lessons for the US military) in this book. What Ricks documents from many of sources is that while many in the military obviously knew lessons about the US's conflict in Vietnam resulting from the unconventional tactics used there, many struggled to apply the relevant lessons to Iraq for a key reason: they refused to see this conflict as one where lessons from Vietnam applied. In other words, whatever lessons people had taken from Vietnam were mostly irrelevant here since the two situations were so different, or, at least, so they thought. This was a helpful for me as a reader since I had always been so puzzled as to why there was not better strategy at the outset. Leaders knew that it is a bad idea to get into a conflict like the one the US had in Vietnam, but, since they were either committed to going to Iraq for various reasons or now very involved in Iraq, there was considerable psychological pressure for them to believe that this conflict is *not* like Vietnam.

In general, I would give the book a strong recommendation for those interested in the lead-up and early stages of the war, as well as as a helpful introduction (as mentioned earlier) for those interested in the military's evolved altered attitude toward counter-insurgency strategy. ...more

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Jan 21, 2014 S. rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: hookah

Kafka on the Shore was a sort of puzzle book, resembling the Mystery of Life in that it could be characteried in a number of different ways. I thought to some degree that Nakata (the old man) and Kafka (the young boy) were deliberately possibly two ages of the same character, a reading that others have made in online sources. but this theory remains sufficiently nebulous that one doesn't need to add a spoiler tag. maybe it's true, maybe it isn't, who can prove anything?

FIASCO, my next book on th ...more

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About Thomas E. Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks

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Thomas Edwin "Tom" Ricks (born September 25, 1955) is an American journalist who writes on defense topics. He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. He writes a blog at ForeignPolicy.com and is a member of the Center for a New American Security, a defense policy think tank.

He lectures widely to the military and is a member of Harvard University ...more

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“foremost with President Bush himself, but his incompetence and arrogance are only part of the story. It takes more than one person to make a mess as big as Iraq. That is, Bush could only take such a careless action because of a series of failures in the American system. Major lapses occurred within the national security bureaucracy, from a weak National Security Council (NSC) to an overweening Pentagon and a confused intelligence apparatus. Larger failures of oversight also occurred in the political system, most notably in Congress, and in the inability of the media to find and present alternate sources of information about Iraq and the threat it did or didn’t present” — 1 likes

“break his hold on power, as…we had come to expect,” the first president Bush and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, wrote in their 1998 joint memoir, A World Transformed. Third, the U.S. military didn’t” — 0 likes

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