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Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq
In the autumn of 2002, Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows wrote an article predicting many of the problems America would face if it invaded Iraq. After events confirmed many of his predictions, Fallows went on to write some of the most acclaimed, award-winning journalism on the planning and execution of the war, much of which has been assigned as required reading within the U.S. military.
In Blind Into Baghdad , Fallows takes us from the planning of the war through the struggles of reconstruction. With unparalleled access and incisive analysis, he shows us how many of the difficulties were anticipated by experts whom the administration ignored. Fallows examines how the war in Iraq undercut the larger ”war on terror” and why Iraq still had no army two years after the invasion. In a sobering conclusion, he interviews soldiers, spies, and diplomats to imagine how a war in Iran might play out. This is an important and essential book to understand where and how the war went wrong, and what it means for America.
In Blind Into Baghdad , Fallows takes us from the planning of the war through the struggles of reconstruction. With unparalleled access and incisive analysis, he shows us how many of the difficulties were anticipated by experts whom the administration ignored. Fallows examines how the war in Iraq undercut the larger ”war on terror” and why Iraq still had no army two years after the invasion. In a sobering conclusion, he interviews soldiers, spies, and diplomats to imagine how a war in Iran might play out. This is an important and essential book to understand where and how the war went wrong, and what it means for America.
257 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 2, 2018
There's some glimmers of rehabilitation for W's reputation recently (I actually saw a "Miss Me?" bumper sticker in the wild last month). This collection of essays written during the Iraq War puts all those thoughts to rest.
Even if invading Iraq was a good way to fight the war on terror, even if it was worth destroying and eroding international goodwill, even if there were WMDs, even if the Army could handle the stresses of constant deployment, even if the money had been well used, the utter refusal to do any planning for the post invasion weeks, months, and years would be utterly damning to the administration. A totally preventable (in so many ways!) waste of American lives, taxes, and international authority.
Even if invading Iraq was a good way to fight the war on terror, even if it was worth destroying and eroding international goodwill, even if there were WMDs, even if the Army could handle the stresses of constant deployment, even if the money had been well used, the utter refusal to do any planning for the post invasion weeks, months, and years would be utterly damning to the administration. A totally preventable (in so many ways!) waste of American lives, taxes, and international authority.
October 11, 2014
Fallows' book presents a series of essays from 2002-2005 that are generally well-written, interesting, and a bit enraging. The focus of the book is on inadequate prewar planning and its consequences on the ground. The prewar planners like Franks, Rumsfeld, Feith, and Wolfowitz generally argued after March 2003 that many of the problems the US faced were hard to predict, fitting somewhere into Rumsfeld's known and unknown framework. Fallows interviewed dozens of middle and high ranking policy officials in the military, think tanks, academia, and several gov't agencies who were involved in prewar planning and research. He shows how massive reports such as the Future of Iraq Project predicted almost all of the major problems of the postwar situation, including looting, ethnic tensions, the collapse of the government, infrastructure problems, and the interference of regional powers like Iran. The Bush administration not only ignored the consensus of experts, but made conscious efforts to discredit these people (see Shinseki, Eric and Lawrence, Lindsay) and separate their criticisms from the actual planning. Fallows speculates (and I agree) that honestly facing up to the problems of postwar Iraq would have been so daunting as to undermine or weaken the case for war. Because the hawks were so fixated on doing Iraq, they found ways to overlook the messy details. One other weird thing Fallows points out is that Iraq was probably the least far along in its WMD program of all 3 members of the Axis of Evil, which adds some interesting questions as to why we did it. The plot thickens.
Although I wouldn't recommend this book as highly as Fiasco or the Assassin's Gate, it's useful for getting a sense of the early parts of the war without going into too much detail. Most readers will want to pass on the Iran War Games essay, which is outdated by now. Still, you can't beat Fallows' measured judgement and incredible access to policy-makers and advisors.
Although I wouldn't recommend this book as highly as Fiasco or the Assassin's Gate, it's useful for getting a sense of the early parts of the war without going into too much detail. Most readers will want to pass on the Iran War Games essay, which is outdated by now. Still, you can't beat Fallows' measured judgement and incredible access to policy-makers and advisors.
May 29, 2007
This is a collection of essays written by James Fallows for the Atlantic Monthly. They begin in 2000 or 2001 and end in 2006. Though he's added footnotes with updates, the essays are published in their original form. And that's what is infuriating about the book. Whatever your politics, once you see what information a reporter without access to classified information was able to put together--and the extent to which he was able to accurately predict the specific brand and duration of problems we're now facing in Iraq before we ever went to war--it will make you feel even more sick that the current administration decided to take the plunge. But it is nice to know that the current "quagmire" was caused by specific people who intentionally ignored a plethora of warnings. Nice to know in the sense that it is perhaps possible to avoid situations like this in the future if we elect the right political leaders (though they won't likely have many options when it comes to Iran...see the last chapter.)
May 23, 2021
when I read this book, it came to my mind : John Perkins
March 27, 2014
An excellent “history in the moment” book about the early years of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq which should rightly anger readers of any political stripe. Blind Into Baghdad by James Fallows (@JamesFallows) is comprised of five longform stories originally published from 2002-2005 in The Atlantic magazine, bookended by an introduction and exceptional afterword written in 2006.
I’ve been a subscriber of The Atlantic for many years and have always enjoyed the work of Mr. Fallows. I recall reading most of these stories when they came out in the magazine, but still found re-reading them in this format to be beneficial. Of course from the perspective of early 2014 we know how the story ends but these essays provide snapshots of the tumultuous first few years of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Any serious study of the 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq should have Blind Into Baghdad in the bibliography.
Why should it anger readers of all political leanings? The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq was made for questionable reasons, reasons which from where I sit appear to have been made emotionally. Even as a junior petty officer in the Navy I was taught not to make big decisions emotionally; I’d expect better from the people who purport to be the leaders of not just our nation, but the “free world” — regardless of which party holds the White House.
But even if we swallow hard and skip past the reasons for invading, and the duplicitous way the need for action was sold to the American public, we can’t skip past how the Bush Administration systematically ignored the extensive post-war planning of many people inside and outside the government. Mr. Fallows provides a detailed look, before the invasion, at this planning in which things like the prospect for widespread looting, sectarian violence and the need for a large enough occupation force were identified.
If none of that gets your blood steaming, how about the way in which the architects of the invasion simply washed their hands of the mess they made even as it grew and grew, consuming billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives, and completely overriding our ability to do just about anything else like deal with Iran and/or North Korea … two states which really were pursuing WMD and, in the case of the former, had firm ties to terrorist organizations.
These are among the dozens of passages I highlighted:
I’d say the day for that “honest look back” is long overdue.
I’ve been a subscriber of The Atlantic for many years and have always enjoyed the work of Mr. Fallows. I recall reading most of these stories when they came out in the magazine, but still found re-reading them in this format to be beneficial. Of course from the perspective of early 2014 we know how the story ends but these essays provide snapshots of the tumultuous first few years of U.S. involvement in Iraq. Any serious study of the 2003 U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq should have Blind Into Baghdad in the bibliography.
Why should it anger readers of all political leanings? The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq was made for questionable reasons, reasons which from where I sit appear to have been made emotionally. Even as a junior petty officer in the Navy I was taught not to make big decisions emotionally; I’d expect better from the people who purport to be the leaders of not just our nation, but the “free world” — regardless of which party holds the White House.
But even if we swallow hard and skip past the reasons for invading, and the duplicitous way the need for action was sold to the American public, we can’t skip past how the Bush Administration systematically ignored the extensive post-war planning of many people inside and outside the government. Mr. Fallows provides a detailed look, before the invasion, at this planning in which things like the prospect for widespread looting, sectarian violence and the need for a large enough occupation force were identified.
If none of that gets your blood steaming, how about the way in which the architects of the invasion simply washed their hands of the mess they made even as it grew and grew, consuming billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives, and completely overriding our ability to do just about anything else like deal with Iran and/or North Korea … two states which really were pursuing WMD and, in the case of the former, had firm ties to terrorist organizations.
These are among the dozens of passages I highlighted:
To govern is to choose, and the choices made in 2002 were fateful. The United States began that year shocked and wounded, but with tremendous strategic advantages. Its population was more closely united behind its leadership than it had been in fifty years. World opinion was strongly sympathetic. Longtime allies were eager to help; longtime antagonists were silent. The federal budget was nearly in balance, making ambitious projects feasible. The U.S. military was superbly equipped, trained, and prepared. An immediate foe was evident—and vulnerable—in Afghanistan. For the longer-term effort against Islamic extremism the administration could draw on a mature school of thought from academics, regional specialists, and its own intelligence agencies. All that was required was to think broadly about the threats to the country, and creatively about the responses.
The Bush administration chose another path. Implicitly at the beginning of 2002, and as a matter of formal policy by the end, it placed all other considerations second to regime change in Iraq.
— Fallows, James (2009-02-20). Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq (Vintage) (pp. 145-146). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
The nation undertook a battle for largely idealistic reasons. A number of its leaders thought they could bring democracy to people who deserved it, or at least free those people from torture and oppression. Despite the idealism of their goals, the results were in most ways a failure. They were a failure in a limited sense, in the theater of Iraq, and they failed more grandly, in undercutting the longer, harder struggle against violent religious extremism.
The country failed because individuals who led it failed. They made the wrong choices; they did not learn or listen; they were fools. No one responsible for these errors was dismissed from the administration. No senior officer was relieved or reprimanded. After President Bush withstood what he called an “accountability moment” in the election of 2004, he promoted or decorated with medals the members of the team that had ill served the nation.
“Hindsight is not a strategy,” President Bush said in his State of the Union address in 2006. But accountability, and any hope of learning from errors, requires an honest look back at what has occurred.
— Fallows, James (2009-02-20). Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq (Vintage) (p. 230). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I’d say the day for that “honest look back” is long overdue.
March 10, 2010
This book was published several years ago; I wrote a review of it then. I find it interesting to reread this after some years have intervened. How well does his analysis hold up?
Fallows begins by describing the book's perspective (page x):
"The subject of the book is America's preparation for and conduct of its war in Iraq, whose combat phase began in March 2003. because that war played so large a part in the U. S. government response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, assessing the war naturally raises questions about the wisdom, competence, and effectiveness of the overall strategy against Islamic terrorism.
The cumulative argument of the book is that this strategy was gravely flawed in both design and execution."
The chapters cover various aspects of the Iraqi invasion and its aftermath. The chapter entitled "The Fifty-First State?" is based on interviews with knowledgeable players before the invasion of Iraq. The focus was on what was likely to happen after the invasion, since all assumed that the American forces would walk over the Iraqi army. The essay's predictions do not all pan out (and Fallows adds footnotes to note more current information). However, it is interesting to see how a number of these predictions did come to fruition.
Other chapters explore Paul Bremer's terminating the Iraqi Army and his extreme de-Baathification program, how George Bush's original war on terror focusing on Afghanistan began to lose focus with the invasion of Iraq, and so on.
His conclusions are exceedingly harsh and may irritate many readers. He notes, to provide a flavor of his reflections, that (page 229):
"The country failed because individuals who led it failed. They made the wrong choices; they did not learn or listen; they were fools. No one responsible for these errors was dismissed from the administration. No senior officer was relieved or reprimanded."
In the final analysis, because of the approach, some of the material does appear dated. However, this perspective also provides an interesting test of how well (or poorly) Fallows and those people whom he interviewed perceived accurately what the longer term situation would actually be.
Fallows begins by describing the book's perspective (page x):
"The subject of the book is America's preparation for and conduct of its war in Iraq, whose combat phase began in March 2003. because that war played so large a part in the U. S. government response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, assessing the war naturally raises questions about the wisdom, competence, and effectiveness of the overall strategy against Islamic terrorism.
The cumulative argument of the book is that this strategy was gravely flawed in both design and execution."
The chapters cover various aspects of the Iraqi invasion and its aftermath. The chapter entitled "The Fifty-First State?" is based on interviews with knowledgeable players before the invasion of Iraq. The focus was on what was likely to happen after the invasion, since all assumed that the American forces would walk over the Iraqi army. The essay's predictions do not all pan out (and Fallows adds footnotes to note more current information). However, it is interesting to see how a number of these predictions did come to fruition.
Other chapters explore Paul Bremer's terminating the Iraqi Army and his extreme de-Baathification program, how George Bush's original war on terror focusing on Afghanistan began to lose focus with the invasion of Iraq, and so on.
His conclusions are exceedingly harsh and may irritate many readers. He notes, to provide a flavor of his reflections, that (page 229):
"The country failed because individuals who led it failed. They made the wrong choices; they did not learn or listen; they were fools. No one responsible for these errors was dismissed from the administration. No senior officer was relieved or reprimanded."
In the final analysis, because of the approach, some of the material does appear dated. However, this perspective also provides an interesting test of how well (or poorly) Fallows and those people whom he interviewed perceived accurately what the longer term situation would actually be.
November 29, 2012
In this collection of five previously published articles, Fallows effectively argues that the Bush Administration ignored the mountains of expert analysis that sought to predict problems that would be encountered in postwar Iraq.
Fallows documents dozens of efforts both inside and outside the government to analyze the probable flash points in Iraq after a successful American military invasion and present strategies for dealing with them. “Almost everything, good and bad, that has happened in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime was the subject of extensive prewar discussion and analysis.” Yet the administration consistently underestimated the number of troups necessary for maintaining postwar peace, failed to assign people of influence to detailed postwar planning, refused at the highest levels to acknowledge problems likely to occur during reconstruction, and only belatedly and half-heartedly engaged the problems once they were impossible to ignore.
The articles appear in close to their original form. Where necessary, Fallows has added hindsight-aided footnotes. His writing is forceful, well supported and argued, and simply too clear to ignore.
What we can say is this: the thoughtlessness and lack of care with which the United States carried out its campaign for Iraq, like the thoughtlessness and lack of care with which it has approached the broader effort against Islamic terrorism, is a shame for the country and a setback in America’s effort to defend itself.
Fallows documents dozens of efforts both inside and outside the government to analyze the probable flash points in Iraq after a successful American military invasion and present strategies for dealing with them. “Almost everything, good and bad, that has happened in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime was the subject of extensive prewar discussion and analysis.” Yet the administration consistently underestimated the number of troups necessary for maintaining postwar peace, failed to assign people of influence to detailed postwar planning, refused at the highest levels to acknowledge problems likely to occur during reconstruction, and only belatedly and half-heartedly engaged the problems once they were impossible to ignore.
The articles appear in close to their original form. Where necessary, Fallows has added hindsight-aided footnotes. His writing is forceful, well supported and argued, and simply too clear to ignore.
June 2, 2009
American Book Award-winning author James Fallows is The Atlantic Monthly's national correspondent, and has worked for the magazine for more than twenty years. In Blind Into Baghdad, Fallows take us from the planning of the war through the struggles of reconstruction. With unparalleled access and incisive analysis, he shows us how many of the difficulties were anticipated by experts whom the Administration ignored. Fallows examines how the war in Iraq undercut the larger "war on terror" and why Iraq still had no army two years after the invasion.
We met James Fallows when he visited the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver. You can listen to him talk about Blind Into Baghdad here:
http://www.authorsontourlive.com/?p=69
We met James Fallows when he visited the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver. You can listen to him talk about Blind Into Baghdad here:
http://www.authorsontourlive.com/?p=69
June 9, 2007
An insightful and infuriating book. A must read for those on both sides of the aisle. As Rachel notes in her review, this is a collection of articles written for "The Atlantic" PRIOR to Iraq that demonstrate: 1) the administration had been informed by multiple parties what would happen if they did not prepare for "after" combat and 2) that the administration chose to ignore such information and, most often, punish those who made such public. The amazing part? The materials informing his article were unclassified. So folks, our leaders knew the mess that would be Iraq and went ahead with their ill-formed plans anyway.
February 12, 2008
Packed with information. A great recap of all the reasons to not support the war, but in the most logical and reasonable way possible. James Fallows writes clearly, informatively, and you feel smarter as you go through another series of quotes, facts and figures as you leaf through the pages of history in the making. Excellent book for the people who are curious about the war and need more detail or who are skeptical and could use something to inform them further. Solid, lucid, consistently interesting and powerful. Excellent!
May 29, 2008
I finally just finished this book and may have to re-read this book once again. The book is a collection of articles that were published in the Atlantic Monthly in regards to the war in Iraq. I had a difficult time following it at times due to the references to historical wars and political leaders and positions I was not familar with. However, the book gave lots of anecdotes and personal accounts in regards to perspectives about the decision process to go to War. It was quite alarming to read this book and learn about the lack of planning and consideration of the aftermath of this war.
November 10, 2007
A collection of Fallows' Atlantic articles on the bungling of the war effort in Iraq. Over and over again we see the the triumph of ideology over ability, as those in the State and Defense Departments who know what to do and how to do it are overruled by the Bush administration appointees in charge.
November 23, 2010
administration officials must have believed not only that the war was necessary but also that a successful occupation would not require any more forethought than they gave it.
It will be years before we fully understand how intelligent people convinced themselves of this.
p 104
It will be years before we fully understand how intelligent people convinced themselves of this.
p 104
April 13, 2008
Interesting book, didn't add anything new to the table though.
January 22, 2010
Honest, impartial, and upsetting journalism.
January 9, 2017
Very good if a bit belaboring of the same point.
January 12, 2016
this book had a lot of facts
Want to read
January 20, 2010(from TMQ 10/17/2006)
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews