The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End

by Peter W. Galbraith

Book Overview

The End of Iraq -- definitive, tough-minded, clear-eyed, describes America's failed strategy toward that country. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743294238
• ISBN13: 9780743294232
• Release Date: July 2006
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 260 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

The Political/Diplomatic Side of the Story in Iraq

Another in a line of excellent books on the mess in Iraq. I would rank this right up there with Cobra II. Peter Galbraith traces the history of the Kurds and his own ongoing involvement with them beginning in the later part of the `80's when he was a Senate staffer to build a picture of the complex creation that was Iraq. He also is able to give the reader a feel for just how artificial a nation Iraq really is. He writes on the planning - or lack there of - for the post-war transformation of Iraq. And he also exposes how terribly uninformed was the Administration's leadership. For example, when meeting with Iraqi leaders during the late Fall of 2002 Bush learned from them for the first time that there were two branches of Islam - Sunni and Shia. Up to that point Bush had though a Muslim was a Muslim. Shorter than Cobra II this book focuses mainly upon the political side of the subject and not on the military. In that respect the two books compliment each other.

Real Insight Won on the Ground in Iraq/5 Stars

Having spent twenty-one months on the ground in Iraq with Kurdish peshmerga, Kurdish artists, human rights activists, teachers, lawyers, poets and businessmen, US Army Special Forces, Delta Force, US Army paratroopers and light infantry, US Marine infantry, US Marine scout/snipers, and the Iraqi Army, I can do nothing but praise Peter Galbraith for his extraordinary grasp of detail in this great book, and his success at keeping his attention fully focused on insights that he has gained on the ground in Iraq and the Near East over two decades. This is a magnificent and very timely book which will prove to be timeless. This is a landmark book on the Iraq War. Peter Galbraith does not hesitate to stand and deliver a radical and well-needed plan for America's last best hope at victory in Iraq. His criticism of Bush, Cheney and Paul Bremer echoes that I recently heard in the field on a second combat deployment, for seven months with Marine scout/snipers, Marine infantry, and the Iraqi Army, in Fallujah and Western Iraq---reading this book was like being back inside the wire after a mission and talking about the war with Americans and Iraqis. The symmetry between what Galbraith writes and what men on the tip of the spear are saying themselves in Iraq is eerie. He is accurate on the Kurds. I have far, far less time with the Kurds than Peter Galbraith does, but there is one huge truth about the Kurds of Iraq: they are committed to a free, democratic and independent Kurdistan and they are the only people in Iraq who well and truly love democracy. Galbraith gets that, completely, and is not shy about expounding on that truth. Bush doesn't get that, nor does Rice and so many other people in Bush's administration, but the entire cabinet in the Bush administration has proven by their failure to win the guerrilla war in Iraq that they all need to chain and leash seeing eye dogs, regardless. Read Peter Galbraith's winning book for its unique insights and instructive commentary. Read it if you want to understand why the Kurds are the only true ally we have in Iraq. Read it if you want to discover a bold, radical and well-needed road to peace, an exit strategy rooted in what US Special Forces define as "ground truth," what has gone down in Iraq, and the cultural and historical truth of the terrain we are still fighting on. Bravo, Peter Galbraith, and very well-done. Mike Tucker Author: THE LONG PATROL, HELL IS OVER, & AMONG WARRIORS IN IRAQ

A dispassionate but devastating analysis of a very passionate issue

Topical books on controversial issues tend to inspire polemical reviews on this site, so in the interest of transparency, I should tell you where this reviewer comes from: I am a retired US diplomat, a lifelong Republican (though of late a former Republican, thanks to the current Administration), and was a strong supporter initially of the Iraq War. Now, to the book. Peter Galbraith's core text is only 224 pages long, but it is packed with material, eminently readable, and amounts to the most devastating critique yet of the Bush Administration's policies in Iraq. It gains that stature first because Galbraith is an excellent writer (not unlike his late father, the economist John Kenneth Galbraith), and also because he has spent most of his life in the national security arena as a long-time Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer, U.S. Ambassador to Croatia during the Balkan wars, and a professor at the National War College. He brings from those life experiences a temperament to match, so this is a clear-eyed, balanced, tightly analytical and dispassionate account--not the kind of hysterical screed produced by those who so detest George Bush that their temper gets the better of their objectivity and saps their credibility. And it is just such objectivity (coupled with Galbraith's longtime experience of the region and acquaintance with many key players in Iraq and in the Administration) which makes his book all the more effective as an indictment. Galbraith reviews the twenty-year see-saw (and often cynical) history of U.S. relations with Saddam's regime, provides the best and most strategic critique of the rationale (including the intelligence rationale) for the war which I have read, and writes a detailed (and often first-hand) account of the occupation up to the last several months which highlights the gross incompetence and lack of advance planning which cost America whatever chance it might have had in the immediate aftermath of victory to reshape Iraq in a manner most congenial to us. His basic conclusions are that Iraq was a British post-WWI Frankenstein creation cobbled together from three antipathetic Ottoman provinces, and that it always has been held together only by autocratic force and carried the seeds of its own dissolution. The US invasion and US mis-management of the occupation have now irreversibly catalyzed that process of civil war and state disintegration into the three major ethnic/confessional groups (Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis). Galbraith argues that we are best off accepting that inevitability, rather than perpetuating--and participating in--a civil war through attempts to impose a strong unitary state rather than giving each group its own "space" as permitted under the new Iraqi constitution which allows major regional autonomy (virtual independece) and a weak central government. Honest that he is, Galbraith clearly acknowledges the biggest problem such a course and American withdrawal could entail: major et

Lack of Balance,Good Detail, First-Rate Personal Perspective

I recommend the other reviews, including the negative ones, for they accurately depict a lack of balance that might normally cause me to give this book one less star. However, because it has first-rate personal perspective including extraordinary travel that most US officials and journalists cannot claim, it gets the full five stars. I especially liked the "cast of characters" at the end, with names and titles and dates. A fine review. The book can be quickly summed up by a quote from page 7: "Insurgency, civil war, Iranian strategic triumph, the breakup of Iraq, an independent Kurdistan, military quagmire." As the Administration continues to deny that Iraq is in a civil war, the author is compelling in citing the Iraqis themselves saying that they are--and that America lost it when it turned from liberator to occupying power. Two people come out of this book looking colossally ignorant: George Bush, who never heard of the Sunni-Shiite split before the war, and Paul "Jerry" Bremer. The author's basic proposition is that the American Republic has been undone by extraordinary arrogance, ignorance, and political cowardice. The author is a good writer with a gift for clear phrases. He concludes that the White House and the Pentagon's politically-appointed leaders consistently "ignored inconvenient facts." He concludes that Iraq may actually be better off in the long run, but the US is clearly not--we have gored ourselves near fatally. I agree with the critics that suggest the author is in love with Kurdistan and overlooking some of their less rosy realities. The book is a clearly partisan document that admires the Kurds and makes the case for a free Kurdish state within Iraq (three states, one nation, not a division of Iraq as some critics loosely interpret). He is considerate of Turkish concerns and how a Kurdistan inside of Iraq but independent within Iraq, can meet their needs for a secular buffer. There are some gems in this book that I have not found elsewhere, including a detailed accounting of the atrocities committed by Hussein against the Kurds, the Kurds rebuilding including English-speaking universities and doctors certified by the British Medical Board. I was shocked to learn that the White House employs a CANADIAN speech-writer (who may well be one of the new Canadian clandestine case officers they are starting to field), and that this CANADIAN inserted the "axis of evil" line (which the author points out is ignorant both geographically and historically). Overall the author could help inspire the impeachment of the Vice President. His book complements that of Ron Susskind, "The One-Percent Doctrine" and is replete with lines like "logic and facts did not stop the Bush Administration..." (page 80), "wishful thinking substituted for knowledge" (page 88, describing Undersecretary Feith), "contrary views were not just rejected, they were banned" (page 89), and "the ignorant are always surprised" (page 101). In terms of

Insightful - Documents our Arrogance and Ignorance!

The U.S. invaded Iraq with grand ambitions to bring it democracy, achieve good relations with Israel, and thereby transform the Middle East (eg. Syria and Iran would be the next market-oriented democracies). Instead the country is plagued by insurgency and is in the opening phases of a civil war. The difficulty in getting the factions to work together is underlined by the facts that fewer than one in ten voted for parties that crossed ethnic or religious lines, and after the election it took more than four months to choose the government's top officials. Meanwhile, North Korea expelled the U.N. nuclear inspectors, withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and reprocessed previously monitored plutonium into material for 6-8 nuclear weapons. This occurred after Bush II accused North Korea in '02 of violating the '94 agreement to freeze all nuclear activity (no uranium enrichment facility was operational at that time) and cut off fuel oil shipments. As for Iran, it had been coooperating with the U.S. in Afghanistan by sharing intelligence on al-Qaeda, preventing their entry into Iran, and allowing search-rescue efforts to use their territory - all that ended after Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech. Two months prior to invading Iraq, Bush II met with three Iraqi-Americans. They reported he didn't even know about the Sunni and Shiite sects, or their strong hostility. Ignorance was further encouraged by prohibiting General Franks from contacting General Zinni for his ideas on post-war planning, and General Garner's staff was carefully vetted to ensure that only "right thinkers" were utilized. Problems began immediately after Baghdad fell - despite administration officials being warned, the National Museum (its collections went back to the beginning of human civilization) was looted while U.S. forces watched; later Wolfowitz claimed all but 38 artifacts were recovered, ignoring thousands smashed and taken from storerooms. Similarly, the National Library - a repository of Iraq's recent history was burned. Elsewhere almost two tons of Iraqi yellowcake was looted post invasion, again while U.S. troops were nearby; Saddam's supposed recent yellowcake acquisitions were part of the justification for the invasion. Looters also took high explosives used to initiate nuclear explosions. Personnel files with names/addresses of Saddam Fedayeen (those attacking U.S. forces) were found and reported to Wolfowitz - again no action. The U.S. had simply assumed that Iraq's police and bureaucrats would report for work the day after Baghdad fell - despite the warnings of experts. General Garner's arrival was delayed about two weeks by General Franks - regardless, upon arrival Garner quickly began efforts to turn over Iraq to Iraqis and hold elections. However, he was quickly replaced by Paul Bremer - one of his first actions was to cancel meetings on Iraqi elections, and most knowledgeable Iraq leaders cite that point as when Iraqis began to see the U