Dark Victory: America's Second War Against Iraq

by Jeffrey Record

A prominent national security analyst provides a critical examination of the origins, objectives, conduct, and consequences of the U.S. war against Iraq in this major new study. Focusing on the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591147115
• ISBN13: 9781591147114
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 1.15 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Fine study of Bush/Blair illegal attack on Iraq

Record, an American strategist with government experience, has written an important book on the 2003 war against Iraq. He concludes that the war was unnecessary and damaging. He notes that US government aims to dominate the world through preventive wars. But, as he writes, "Preventive war ... is indistinguishable from aggression. ... it is a prescription for endless conflict", for `an endless series of wars to end all wars'. This is `both strategically and morally wrong'. It is `imperialism pure and simple'. He urges that the US should wage war only against Al Qa'ida, not against terrorism in general, nor against Iraq: Bin Laden attacked the USA; Saddam never did. The notion of an undifferentiated terrorist threat is misleading, as it was in the 1960s when the US state wrongly saw Vietnam as an agent of China, which it wrongly saw as an agent of the USSR. Of Iraq, Record observes that Cheney said in March 2002, "We will be greeted as liberators." Record explains why it is false to compare Iraq to post-war France, or Germany or Japan. Iraq is a quagmire, like the Lebanon was for Israel (1982-99), or as Palestine is for Israel now, or as Iraq was for Britain (1920-58). The occupation of Iraq has cost more than $220 billion so far, paid for by Americans, not by Iraq's oil. American workers oppose an everlasting war of occupation: 60% of Americans opposed Bush's demand for another $87 billion for the occupation. Record observes that it is wrong to dismiss attacks on US forces `as simply reactionary terrorist attacks having no legitimacy and requiring no response other than traditional counterterrorism'. They are guerrilla warfare: "assaults on U.S. troops, at least in Iraq, hardly qualify as terrorist attacks because those troops are combatants in an army of occupation'. Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the United Nations, has said that the war on Iraq was illegal, so the consequent occupation is illegal too, and US and British troops there are illegal foreign combatants. The Iraqi people are waging a just war of national liberation against the foreign occupier.

Stinging indictment

With sound research and reasoning, Dr. Record shreds the Bush administration's strategy and tactics with respect to the Iraq war and the "war on terrorism". I particularly was impressed with his use of the quotes of those involved with Desert Storm, as to why the U.S. led coalition didn't invade Baghdad in '91; the logic that Cheney, Powell, Wolfowitz, Rice, Scowcroft, Schwartzkopf, and Bush the Elder used then was every bit as correct now as then. The limitations of the "Bush Doctrine", and its profound shortcomings are also fully examined, as is the now-fully discredited notion that Saddam and Osama were bedfellows, and the peril that this linkage causes to U.S. foreign policy. This is no shrill screech. This is an articulate, well presented, and hard to argue with indictment of a dangerous turn in the history of our nation and the world. It deserves to be read-- in fact, it needs to be read.

how can we ever win a "war on terrorism"?

One of the most significant things about this book is its publisher, the U.S. Naval Institute Press -- apparently questioning the intelligence of particular military doctrines or wars is not anti-military or anti-patriotic. Record has been a military analyst for many years, and the current analysis is a scathing critique of both the Bush Administration's military doctrine and the war on Iraq that flowed from that doctrine. Record forcefully and persuasively argues that the "Bush Doctrine" is totally open-ended and vague -- if the U.S. is really committed to a "war on terrorism" with no limits, then we are in big trouble. Record's position is that the U.S. should have "bounded" its objective and focused on Al-Qaeda. Launching the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which had no connection to either 9/11 or Al-Qaeda, has had several negative effects for U.S. national security, including: 1) it has stretched U.S. forces thin and diminished the forces available to fight Al-Qaeda or other serious threats (and Iraq posed no serious threat to the U.S. as the regime was contained), 2) it has outraged millions, leading to an increase in recruits to "Al-Qaeda-ism," 3) it has created chaos in Iraq and a prime area of operation for "Al-Qaeda-ism", and 4) it has damaged U.S. alliances that are critical to the long-term success of the appropriately limited "war on terrorism," in other words the police/military effort against "Al-Qaeda-ism." Citizens of this country need to stop thinking in partisan terms and begin to think critically about U.S. strategy on its merits. DARK VICTORY is not part of a "liberal, Bush-bashing agenda." It does not include ad hominem attacks on individuals, but rather focuses on the dangerous consequences of current U.S. strategy. You don't have to agree with me that Bush has committed impeachable offenses in lying about the evidence and reasons for war (no WMD!) and leading us into an unnecessary war to see the need to change course. We owe it to the brave men and women sacrificing their lives for us right now to make sure their efforts are not in vain. You can find the study that led to this book, called "Bounding the Global War on Terrorism," on the website of the U.S. Army War College.