Thomas E. Ricks
*****
Fiasco is well named. Ricks documents a firestorm of leadership ineptitude. Civilian, military, foreign service, press -- no one escapes blame for the lousy state of events in Iraq. Since Ricks is a Washington Post corespondent, he focussed most of his attention on the military. However, it is clear from his account that Rumsfeld, Wolfurwitz, and Bremer -- particularly the last two -- take most fo the blame. Strangely, after giving Cheney "credit" for starting the war cries, the Vice President plays a lesser role in this account. Essentially, the President did not question Rumsfeld enough, did not rein in Bremer, and like Rumsfeld, ignored bad news. The civilian leadership's inability to accept and act upon bad news, to recognize the kind of war Iraq had devolved into, coupled with the military leaderships inability to develop an effective and appropriate strategy, doomed the war from its earliest weeks. Or perhaps, since General Franks didn't want to cross his boss, and his boss couldn't recognize Franks's lack of strategic thinking, one could say the war was doomed from that point. Or, even more likely, the war was doomed from the beginning since we went in with bad intelligence and few allies. A good but depressing read. Long, too.
