Submission:

Earlier this year, the US Army released both volumes of its official history on the Iraq War, the timeline of events ranges from the aftermath of Desert Storm in 1991 through to the rise of ISIS in 2011. The first volume broadly covers the first 4 years of the occupation from 2003-2006, from the initial invasion through to the start of widespread sectarian violence. Presumably, to the regulars here, all of this must be old news to anyone who has been paying attention since it started (not to mention anyone who was actually there), unlike casuals like me who…broadly speaking haven’t really been paying attention until recently (as in, last couple of years recently in my case).

The book in general makes for sobering reading; numerous issues are highlighted throughout the entire course of book from the planning of the invasion all the way through to the attempt at transitioning control to the newly established Iraqi government. From a failure to plan for a post-invasion state, an overly stringent de-ba’athification policy, a pervasive lack of manpower at several levels and the lack of coordinated effort on part of the coalition, the book details an incredible number of problems throughout the initial occupation period culminating in the outbreak of sectarian violence. The 2 main takeaways I got from the book.

Firstly, the most consistent problem that the coalition faces seems to be a lack of manpower. Staffing even the HQ created to manage the theater was difficult, much less generating enough combat power to keep insurgents at bay. When the coalition does put together enough manpower to force insurgents from specific areas, it creates gaps in an already severely strained occupation force that insurgents are more than capable of exploiting, an example being the Second Battle of Fallujah, drawing forces out of the North-west and leaving a skeleton Task Force behind led to the insurgents completely overwhelming the Iraqi Security Forces in Mosul and seizing temporary control of it.

Secondly, if there’s one thing I definitely learned from the book it’s a better appreciation of the myriad of factions and interests pushing and pulling on Iraqi society. I used to try and make sense of it in terms of the Kurds, Sunnis and Shi’a and their interests, but that now feels like an abysmally ignorant thing to do.

Overall, I feel it’s a fairly decent book, it can be likened to a certain extent with the greenbooks that were published in the aftermath of WW2 which the authors did cite as inspiration. It goes into great detail the challenges faced at the operational level by the coalition occupying Iraq and their attempts to secure the country, train new Iraqi Security Forces and clamp down on sectarian violence.

I recommend it for anyone looking to read up further on the conflict.