Fiasco

The American Military Adventure in Iraq

By: Thomas E. Ricks

Narrated by: James Lurie

Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondant Thomas E. Ricks' Fiasco is masterful and explosive reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on the unprecedented candor of key participants.

The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.

As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. But the officers who did raise their voices against the miscalculations, shortsightedness, and general failure of the war effort were generally crushed, their careers often ended. A willful blindness gripped political and military leaders, and dissent was not tolerated.

There are a number of heroes in Fiasco; inspiring leaders from the highest levels of the Army and Marine hierarchies to the men and women whose skill and bravery led to battlefield success in towns from Fallujah to Tall Afar, but again and again, strategic incoherence rendered tactical success meaningless. There was never any question that the U.S. military would topple Saddam Hussein, but as Fiasco shows, there was also never any real thought about what would come next. This blindness has ensured the Iraq war a place in history as nothing less than a fiasco.

Fair, vivid, and devastating, Fiasco is an audiobook whose tragic verdict feels definitive.

©2006 Thomas E. Ricks (P)2006 Penguin Audio, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Critic reviews

"Staggeringly vivid and persuasive...absolutely essential reading." (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

"The best account yet of the entire war." (Vanity Fair)

Packed with Content

The author merely ties together material from interviews and 30,000 pages of declassified documents. He does this quite well. As a longtime Petagon coresondent, he had access. Any good writer who made the commitment to read and write about those 30,000 pages would have been interesting. This guy knew the names of the generals and even colonels and lower in the docs; for every interesting tidbit in them, he has an interview to expand on it.
He puts the whole thing together well from what you can tell was more than a pile of info.

Well Written, But It Actually Needs More Politics

If you could sum up Fiasco in three words, what would they be?

Ricks' book is indeed a very well written, well researched account of the origins of the Second Iraq War up through mid - 2006 (pre-Surge). The author provides a thorough, detailed narrative of military actions, in particular the Ramadan Uprising and the two Battles for Fallujah. However, while Ricks does mention certain political events (ie.: the "Mission Accomplished" event and the "Bring It On" declaration), the book falls short because it does not take a deeper look at the impact that domestic politics had on the execution of the war. The run up to the war in late 2002 did, in fact, have an influence on the mid-term election; that increased majority in Congress provided the Bush administration with a more compliant Congress that was willing to support occupation without critical oversight; the management of the war was the key issue in the 2004 presidential campaign that, quite possibly, ensured the re-election of George Bush ("You don't want to change horses in mid-stream" "My opponent wants to cut-and-run"); and the deterioration of the occupation in 2005 - 06 ultimately led to the Democratic take-over of Congress in 2006, that forced the administration to launch the surge. (True, this is just after the book was published, but the major change in the political winds were quite evident by mid-2006.)

Wars, especially those involving the United States, do not occur in a vacuum. Politics play an influential role in the development and execution of military strategy, as thus should be considered when writing a comprehensive history of any military conflict.

Good idea, gone bad.

The message of this book isn't anti-war, or even anti-Iraqi war; rather, it is about how the U.S. has failed to develop and carry out a strategic plan for success there. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz bear the primary responsibility, whose plan for the war assumed U.S. forces would be hailed as liberators and didn't provide for the insurgency that developed following the invasion. This book is well documented; it is a condemnation not the of the original idea of overthrowing Hussein, but of the colossal blunders that put us in the situation in which we now find ourselves. This is a "must read."

very good

Terrific close analysis of the arrogance and stupidity underlying the American decision to invade Iraq in 2003 and the tragic consequences for that country and America's military. Clear, well researched, and ultimately hugely prescient where ISIS is concerned.

Incisive Disturbing Necessary

This is a great book. Ricks is the only author I've read that discusses the "tone" of command. If your interested in what happened in Iraq and why, this is a book I highly recommend. Be prepared to be frustrated and disturbed however. I was. My only complaint is that it's abridged. Fiasco isn't really a strong enough word. James Lurie gives a great performance. I bought a used copy of the book to read the unabridged version. I've seldom listened to a more incisive analysis of the war in Iraq or a fairer one.

interesting but flawed

An excellent read/listen, which describes in great detail many of the mistakes that we made in our early days in Iraq...I served as Chief of Operations for the Baghdad CJTF-7 Headquarters in 2003 and early 2004. Unfortunately, Ricks relies far too heavily on criticisms from BG Janis Karpinsky and MG Chuck Swannack, quoting both extensively throughout the book. Both Karpinski's and Swannack's opinions are far from objective, so to base many of his findings on their comments is not honest journalism. As CJTF-7 Commanding General, LTG Sanchez held what could arguably be the toughest job in recent history of our Military. Ricks' slanderous characterization of Sanchez is unfair, way off base, and discredits what is otherwise an interesting and important book.

How not to plan for a war!

Usually when I start listening to an audiobook at some point I get tired and pause it. Not this book! I stayed up and listened to the whole first half, and then I listened to the second half while I was working the next day. I liked this book! Ricks explains the inadequacies of the people and the planning that led to the situation we now have in Iraq. It was a perfect storm of wrong thinking and misplaced optimism. There is no exit plan, because the plan is to stay there for a long time in some capacity.

Skips part of the book - confusing

I had to read this book for a class and had issues getting through it because I was uninterested. So I bought the audiobook to read a long. It skips around a lot and made reading this book even more difficult...

Wonderful

and depressing at the same time. We owe the author a debt of gratitude for his painstaking research. This is a story that will continue to be refined.

Arrogance ignorance cost US lives

Wolfowitz, Bush, and Rumsfeld sent us troops into Iraq without a plan for successful withdrawal. Deeply researched, with a blunt telling of the pain incompetence of the Bush Adminstration