Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq | 
|  | | | Title: | Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq | | Author: | James Fallows | | Publisher: | Vintage | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 15 August, 2006 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0307277968 / 9780307277961 | | List Price: | $13.95 | | You Save: | $2.09 | | Amazon Price: | $11.86 | |
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Product Description
In the autumn of 2002, Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows wrote an article predicting many of the problems America would face if it invaded Iraq. After events confirmed many of his predictions, Fallows went on to write some of the most acclaimed, award-winning journalism on the planning and execution of the war, much of which has been assigned as required reading within the U.S. military.
In Blind Into Baghdad, Fallows takes us from the planning of the war through the struggles of reconstruction. With unparalleled access and incisive analysis, he shows us how many of the difficulties were anticipated by experts whom the administration ignored. Fallows examines how the war in Iraq undercut the larger ā€¯war on terrorā€¯ and why Iraq still had no army two years after the invasion. In a sobering conclusion, he interviews soldiers, spies, and diplomats to imagine how a war in Iran might play out. This is an important and essential book to understand where and how the war went wrong, and what it means for America.
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Customer Reviews:
• Blind Into Baghdad 06 May, 2007
In Blind into Baghdad, Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, cobbles together a series of articles he wrote between 2002 and 2004 to explore the road to war and occupation in Iraq. He adds an introduction and a brief afterward to frame his articles and annotates throughout to show how his predictions played out.
Fallows makes no secret of his opposition to the Iraq war. "If [the United States] did not have to attack, then it should not go ahead, not simply because of the complications within Iraq itself but because the way a war would inevitably suck time, money, and attention from every other aspect of a `war on terrorism.'" This assumption underscores the antagonism of many elite journalists to the Iraq war, but it is not necessarily correct. Fallows ignores the hundreds of foreign fighters killed at Salman Pak, the plant U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell identified correctly as a terror training camp, as well as Saddam Hussein's subsidization of suicide bombers.
Fallows also does not address the complexity of U.S. concerns about weapons proliferation. In a chapter penned before the war, he observes that "Iraq's SCUD and Al-Hussein missiles cannot reach Europe or North America." True, but he misunderstands White House thinking: Bush administration concern centered on Iraq after the events of 9-11 had demonstrated that rogue regimes need not rely on traditional delivery systems.
While his essays are a useful reminder of the many prewar policy debates, Fallows annotations display shallow analysis. He calls de-Baathification "a major apparent failure." But data on the insurgency shows a correlation between re-Baathification and violence. The policy of ridding Iraqi politics of top-level Baathists has been the major factor preventing a Shi'ite uprising. Hindsight shows the analysis of many experts quoted by Fallows to be wrong-headed. For example, Charles William Maynes of the Eurasia Foundation argued that placing U.S. troops on Iran's border could transform Iran into a permanent enemy. But the fallacy of such apprehension is now apparent: U.S. failure to guard the Iranian border enabled wholesale infiltration of militias, money, and weapons to enemy forces in Iraq--and still Tehran remains an enemy.
His criticism of disbandment of the Iraqi army is anachronistic, given that the army had already dissolved on its own. Fallows finds sources to argue the contrary, but these were pundits not present in Iraq and reflect the tendency of agenda-driven journalists to cherry-pick quotes. With broader research, Fallows may have examined the question of who hampered prewar training for free Iraqi forces and why. Had he done so, and had he treated his sources with far more skepticism, he might not have allowed himself to become a pawn in a political blame game.
Blind into Baghdad is well written but ultimately it pales in comparison to accounts written by experienced journalists such as Michael Gordon and former general Bernard E. Trainor, authors who relied less on assumption and more on research in their account of the same period.
Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2007
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1ZZJ7RLO8UP3Q
• Angels And Ministers Of Grace, Defend Us 18 November, 2006
This book was painful to read. Not because of any shortcoming of the writing, but because the analysis was so accurate. There's no argument that George W. Bush is an intellectually uncurious person. "Blind into Baghdad" exposes the problems with his character flaw. The president has surrounded himself with yes-men who, like him, were either unwilling or unable to confront tough questions and myriad uncertainties during the time leading to the war in Iraq. Instead, the administration operated with an appalling hubris and made decisions that will likely influence the international community for decades.
Fallows deftly examines how the administration blithely ignored pre-war alerts concerning insufficient troop levels, red flags about possible post-war rioting, and military logistical problems. In addition, the vindictive nature of the administration is also evident as Fallows shows how those people raising hard questions about the war were swiftly scuttled. Finally, the author then gives an excellent analysis of how Bush and company completely fumbled the post-combat operations period when it started to become clear that the administration hadn't done its homework.
This book is not recommended for those with cardiac or circulatory troubles because it will definitely angry the blood.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A28PJ3MLQ5IEFK
• Frightening And Prescient Essays 30 December, 2006
Blind into Baghdad is all the more impressive for the fact that nearly all of the content was researched, written, and published as events were unfolding. The book loses nothing for being an anthology of previously published articles, and it gains much force from that circumstance. The writing is clear and readable. Occasional footnotes update specific points.
For those who do not have the time or energy to read the whole array of books on the Iraq war, Blind into Baghdad may be the one best book to select from that array.
- Reviewed by customer ID: AVT74AIOZCWSJ
• Nothing But Sour Grapes On Info From 03/04 Written In 06-duh! 07 September, 2007
In Blind into Baghdad, Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, cobbles together a series of articles he wrote between 2002 and 2004 to explore the road to war and occupation in Iraq. He adds an introduction and a brief afterward to frame his articles and annotates throughout to show how his predictions played out.
Fallows makes no secret of his opposition to the Iraq war. "If [the United States] did not have to attack, then it should not go ahead, not simply because of the complications within Iraq itself but because the way a war would inevitably suck time, money, and attention from every other aspect of a `war on terrorism.'" This assumption underscores the antagonism of many elite journalists to the Iraq war, but it is not necessarily correct. Fallows ignores the hundreds of foreign fighters killed at Salman Pak, the plant U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell identified correctly as a terror training camp, as well as Saddam Hussein's subsidization of suicide bombers.
Fallows also does not address the complexity of U.S. concerns about weapons proliferation. In a chapter penned before the war, he observes that "Iraq's SCUD and Al-Hussein missiles cannot reach Europe or North America." True, but he misunderstands White House thinking: Bush administration concern centered on Iraq after the events of 9-11 demonstrated that rogue regimes need not rely on traditional delivery systems.
While his essays are a useful reminder of the many prewar policy debates, Fallows' annotations display shallow analysis. He calls de-Baathification "a major apparent failure." But data on the insurgency shows a correlation between re-Baathification and violence. The policy of ridding Iraqi politics of top-level Baathists has been the major factor preventing a Shi`i uprising. Hindsight shows the analysis of many experts quoted by Fallows to be wrong-headed. For example, Charles William Maynes of the Eurasia Foundation argued that placing U.S. troops on Iran's border could transform Iran into a permanent enemy. But the fallacy of such apprehension is now apparent: U.S. failure to guard the Iranian border enabled wholesale infiltration of militias, money, and weapons to enemy forces in Iraq--and still Tehran remains an enemy.
His criticism of disbandment of the Iraqi army is anachronistic, given that the army had already dissolved on its own. Fallows finds sources to argue the contrary, but these were pundits not present in Iraq and reflect the tendency of agenda-driven journalists to cherry-pick quotes. With broader research, Fallows may have examined the question of who hampered prewar training for free Iraqi forces and why. Had he done so, and had he treated his sources with far more skepticism, he might not have allowed himself to become a pawn in a political blame game.
Blind into Baghdad is well written, but ultimately it pales in comparison to accounts written by experienced journalists such as Michael Gordon and former general Bernard E. Trainor, authors who relied less on assumption and more on research in their account of the same period.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1WI7QJKI51QUC
• Fine Account Of An Unwinnable War And Occupation 16 October, 2007
James Fallows, the Atlantic Monthly's national correspondent, produced a series of articles between 2002 and 2005 on the planning and execution of the war against Iraq. He has now brought these articles together in a fascinating book.
He writes, "the administration will be condemned for what it did with what was known. The problems the United States has encountered are precisely the ones its own expert agencies warned against."
Bush refused to use the State Department's `Future of Iraq' programme. He was told that occupying Iraq would be harder than conquering it, that they should act to prevent looting, and that they should not disband the Iraqi army. But he ignored all this good advice, because planning for postwar meant facing its costs and problems, which would have weakened his fragile case for war.
Fallows writes that the US strategy against Islamic terrorism is `gravely flawed in both design and execution'. He points out that Bush's mantra of "they hate us because we are free" is "dangerous claptrap. Dangerous because it is so lazily self-justifying and self-deluding: the only thing we could possibly be doing wrong is being so excellent."
Fallows also recounts what happened when a team of experienced US government officials war-gamed attacking Iran. They explored three escalating levels of intervention: raids on Revolutionary Guard units (which Brown has apparently signed us up to), a preemptive strike on possible nuclear facilities (an estimated 300 targets, in a five-day assault), and regime change. They concluded, "You have no military solution for the issues of Iran. And you have to make diplomacy work."
Fallows sums up, "The country failed because individuals who led it failed. They made the wrong choices; they did not learn or listen; they were fools."
The war in Iraq is counter-productive: the USA is now worse off than in 2003. It is also unwinnable: as a US lieutenant colonel said, there are now "two options. We can lose in Iraq and destroy our army, or we can just lose." Fallows concludes that the US state should "face the stark fact that it has no orderly way out of Iraq, and prepare accordingly."
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1S60W4KWFX1Y9
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