The definitive military chronicle of the Iraq war and a searing judgment on the strategic blindness with which America has conducted it, drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondant Thomas E. Ricks's 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 a book whose tragic verdict feels definitive.
Media Buzz
Talk of the Nation - August 1, 2007 Countdown with Keith Olbermann - July 18, 2007 Talk of the Nation - June 26, 2007 Fresh Air - NPR - June 19, 2007 Anderson Cooper 360 - January 29, 2007 Talk of the Nation - January 29, 2007 Talk of the Nation - January 9, 2007 Lou Dobbs Tonight - January 5, 2007 Meet the Press - December 10, 2006 Lou Dobbs Tonight - December 8, 2006 Countdown with Keith Olbermann - December 6, 2006 Diane Rehm Show - NPR - December 4, 2006 Lou Dobbs Tonight - November 16, 2006 All Things Considered - November 13, 2006 Countdown with Keith Olbermann - November 2, 2006 Countdown with Keith Olbermann - October 26, 2006 Morning Edition - October 24, 2006 Charlie Rose - October 20, 2006 Countdown with Keith Olbermann - October 18, 2006 NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - October 17, 2006 Talk of the Nation - October 17, 2006 Anderson Cooper 360 - September 29, 2006 Lou Dobbs Tonight - September 26, 2006 Imus in the Morning - September 25, 2006 Lou Dobbs Tonight - September 12, 2006 Daily Show with Jon Stewart - August 28, 2006 Daily Show with Jon Stewart - August 14, 2006 Day To Day - August 7, 2006 Diane Rehm Show - NPR - July 28, 2006 Fresh Air - NPR - July 24, 2006 Meet the Press - July 23, 2006
© 2003-2026