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Old 05-29-2019, 06:38   #1
JJ_BPK
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The U.S. Army in the Iraq War Volume 1-3

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Review Essay May 28, 2019 IraqWar & Military Strategy

The Last War—and the Next?
Learning the Wrong Lessons From Iraq
By Jon Finer

Earlier this year, the U.S. Army published two volumes that amount to the most comprehensive official history of the Iraq war. They cover the conflict’s most important episodes: the U.S. invasion in 2003, the death spiral into civil war that took shape in the aftermath, the more hopeful period that began with the surge of U.S. forces in 2007, and the withdrawal that saw the last U.S. forces leave Iraq at the end of 2011.

Blandly titled The U.S. Army in the Iraq War and based on 30,000 pages of newly declassified documents, the study recounts a litany of familiar but still infuriating blunders on Washington’s part: failing to prepare for the invasion’s aftermath, misunderstanding Iraqi culture and politics and sidelining or ignoring genuine experts, disbanding the Iraqi army and evicting Baath Party members from the government, ignoring and even denying the rise of sectarian violence, and sapping momentum by rotating troops too frequently.

Years in the making and admirably candid, the study has largely been ignored by the media and the policy community. That may be because of its daunting length and dry, “just the facts” narrative. Or because some understandably prefer independent accounts to authorized after-action reports. Or because, compared with other major conflicts in U.S. history, so few Americans experienced this one firsthand. Or because the study declines to focus on more timely and contested questions, such as whether it was ever in the realm of possibility to invade a large and diverse Middle Eastern country—one that posed no direct threat to the United States—at an acceptable cost. But the study also comes at a time when many of the supposed lessons of Iraq are increasingly contested, with significant implications for a debate that is raging between and within both major political parties over the most consequential foreign policy choice any country faces: when and how to use military force.


https://www.foreignaffairs.com/revie...aVW75s_tdzRaFM
PS: There are three volumes listed on Amazon?
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Old 07-18-2021, 02:37   #2
Sigaba
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Open access to The U.S. Army in the Iraq War

  • The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 1: Invasion – Insurgency – Civil War, 2003-2006 is available here.
  • The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 2: Surge and Withdrawal, 2007-2011 is available there.
  • The Iraqi Perspectives Project has been moved around many times over the years. All five volumes are available at https://fas.org/irp/eprint/iraqi/.
    • A preliminary summary of findings was published in Foreign Affairs in 2006 <<LINK>>. This article is behind a paywall.
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Old 07-18-2021, 10:54   #3
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thanks....easily summed up as ...Politicians have no clue....
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Old 07-21-2021, 18:48   #4
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Originally Posted by PRB View Post
thanks....easily summed up as ...Politicians have no clue....
Apparently saying that requires volumes of mind numbing minutia
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Old 07-22-2021, 07:04   #5
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Led and co-authored by an SF COL: https://smallwarsjournal.com/author/frank-sobchak
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