Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the Taliban had overreached in their attempt to claim new territory in Pakistan, after a day in which Pakistani soldiers drove the militants from a strategic mountain pass.
--Wall Street Journal
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN
Pakistan Pursues Two-Track Approach to Taliban - Matthew Rosenberg and Zahid Hussain, Wall Street Journal. Pakistan resumed peace talks with the Taliban on Friday, while its military reported gains in a fourth day of heavy fighting against militants dug in along mountain ridges 70 miles from the capital. The two tracks underscore the deep ambivalence of many Pakistanis who would like to see peace succeed - even as Islamabad tries to contain the Taliban with military force because a just-signed peace deal was broken. The approach also raises questions about Pakistan's willingness to heed US pressure for an all-out offensive against the Taliban, despite the military moves of the past few days.
In Pakistan, US Courts Leader of Opposition - Helene Cooper and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times. As American confidence in the Pakistani government wanes, the Obama administration is reaching out more directly than before to Nawaz Sharif, the chief rival of Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, administration officials said Friday. American officials have long held Mr. Sharif at arm’s length because of his close ties to Islamists in Pakistan, but some Obama administration officials now say those ties could be useful in helping Mr. Zardari’s government to confront the stiffening challenge by Taliban insurgents. The move reflects the heightened concern in the Obama administration about the survivability of the Zardari government. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of the United States Central Command, has said in private meetings in Washington that Pakistan’s government is increasingly vulnerable, according to administration officials.
US Faces Iraq-like Spending Problems in Afghanistan - Gordon Lubold, Christian Science Monitor. The US government is pouring vast amounts of new resources into Afghanistan for security and reconstruction projects. But it's running the risk of repeating some of the same mistakes it made in Iraq where government auditors have said it wasted billions of dollars. The US record on reconstruction spending in Iraq continues to be less than stellar, lawmakers complain, raising fears that US spending in Afghanistan could be plagued by the same kinds of excess and lack of accountability. "I just hope that you will have a renewed effort to put a magnifying glass on these contractors and the amount of money that's going out because there is unbelievable abuse in waste and yes, fraud," Sen. Byron Dorgan (D) of North Dakota told Defense Secretary Robert Gates during a Senate panel hearing Thursday. "We just have to lace it up and stop."
Pakistan Says It Killed 50 Taliban in a Clash, but Residents Say Civilians Died - Carlotta Gall, New York Times. The Pakistani military said it had killed more than 50 Taliban fighters in tough fighting in Buner on Friday, but families pouring out of the district said civilians were being killed, too. A military spokesman claimed steady progress in the operation but also said the militants were putting up fierce resistance. The civilian complaints and the Taliban resistance pointed to the difficult task ahead for the military in driving the militants from Buner, a district just 60 miles from the capital, where hundreds of Taliban fighters advanced last week, setting off alarm here and abroad.
Pakistan Says It Killed More Insurgents - Asif Shahzad, Associated Press. Pakistani troops backed by attack helicopters stepped up an operation to push the Taliban farther from the capital Friday, saying they had killed dozens of fighters. But the government was resisting Western pressure to expand the crackdown and abandon peace talks with insurgents who want to impose their brand of Islam across this nuclear-armed country. The army launched the drive to retake Buner, a poor, hilly region just 60 miles from Islamabad, on Tuesday after Taliban fighters from the neighboring Swat Valley overran it under cover of a controversial peace pact.
3 Americans and 2 Others Are Killed by Taliban - Associated Press. Three Americans and two other foreign service members were killed Friday in an attack in eastern Afghanistan, officials said. Insurgents attacked Afghan and international forces on Friday with rocket-propelled grenades and guns, NATO forces said in a statement. The coalition troops called in air support, forcing the militants to withdraw. They are being pursued, the statement said.
The Taliban's Atomic Threat - John R. Bolton, Wall Street Journal opinion. At his press conference Wednesday evening, President Barack Obama endorsed Pakistan's official position that it has secure control over its nuclear-weapons arsenal. Mr. Obama said he was "gravely concerned" about the situation there, but "confident that the nuclear arsenal will remain out of militant hands." His words are not reassuring in light of the Taliban's military and political gains throughout Pakistan. Our security, and that of friends and allies world-wide, depends critically on preventing more adversaries, especially ones with otherworldly ideologies, from acquiring nuclear weapons. Unless there is swift, decisive action against the Islamic radicals there, Pakistan faces two very worrisome scenarios. One scenario is that instability continues to grow, and that the radicals disrupt both Pakistan's weak democratic institutions and the military.
IRAQ
In Baghdad, Dread Grows with Death Toll - Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times. The crowds at the restaurants are thinning out. Parents have started to escort their children to school again. And cellphones are ringing more often than usual, with family members checking in just to ask, "Are you OK?" or "Is everyone safe?" After a string of high-profile bombings and other attacks that killed 355 Iraqi civilians and security personnel and 18 US troops last month nationwide, a pall has descended upon Baghdad, a lowering storm cloud swirling with echoes of the darkest days of Iraq's civil war. Above all, there is a sense of dread, rooted in the terrifying possibility that the calm that had brought the capital back to life over the last 18 months might have been just a lull.
US Says Iraq Is Withholding Key Detainee - Ernesto Londoño, Washington Post. US military officials said Friday that the Iraqi government has not allowed them to interrogate a detainee the Iraqis contend is the leader of the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iraqi officials have identified the suspect, who was taken into custody April 23, as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi. Some US intelligence officials view Baghdadi as a fictional figure created by non-Iraqi Arab leaders of the insurgent group to give it an Iraqi identity.
3 US Troops Are Killed in Iraq - Timothy Williams, New York Times. Three Americans were killed Thursday in combat in Anbar Province, west of Baghdad, the military said Friday, adding to the high death toll for American forces in Iraq last month. The deaths brought the total number of American military personnel members killed in April to 18 - double the number in March and the highest since September 2008, when 25 were killed. Anbar Province, a sprawling desert area in the west that was once the center of the insurgency, has become one of Iraq’s more peaceful provinces in recent years. That is partly a result of the many insurgents joining Awakening Councils and becoming allies of the United States military in exchange for steady pay. Still, the latest American deaths, of two Marines and a sailor, took place there, according to a military statement.
THE LONG WAR
US May Revive Guantánamo Military Courts - William Glaberson, New York Times. The Obama administration is moving toward reviving the military commission system for prosecuting Guantánamo detainees, which was a target of critics during the Bush administration, including Mr. Obama himself. Officials said the first public moves could come as soon as next week, perhaps in filings to military judges at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, outlining an administration plan to amend the Bush administration’s system to provide more legal protections for terrorism suspects.
Ex-Spy Sits Down With Islamists and the West - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. Talking to Islamists is the new order of the day in Washington and London. The Obama administration wants a dialogue with Iran, and the British Foreign Office has decided to reopen diplomatic contacts with Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group based here. But for several years, small groups of Western diplomats have made quiet trips to Beirut for confidential sessions with members of Hamas, Hezbollah and other Islamist groups they did not want to be seen talking to. In hotel conference rooms, they would warily shake hands, then spend hours listening and hashing out accusations of terrorism on one side and imperial arrogance on the other. The organizer of these back-door encounters is Alastair Crooke, a quiet, sandy-haired man of 59 who spent three decades working for MI6, the British secret intelligence service. He now runs an organization here called Conflicts Forum, with an unusual board of advisers that includes former spies, diplomats and peace activists.
Britain Pays to Keep Suspects From US Hands - Craig Whitlock, Washington Post. The British government has paid nearly $900,000 in legal fees on behalf of three associates of Osama bin Laden who have fended off attempts by the US government to extradite them for a decade, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. The three al-Qaeda suspects were arrested in London shortly after the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed more than 200 people. British authorities pledged to extradite them swiftly to the United States to stand trial for their alleged roles in the attacks.
Glossy Internet Magazine Targets Americans for Jihad Training - Eric Shawn, Fox News. It's been likened to Al Qaeda's "Vanity Fair," a new English-language Internet magazine called "Jihad Recollections" that focuses on the terrorist group, its founder, Usama Bin Laden, and how to commit jihad. It also predicts the demise of the United States. “This is designed for Americans,” says noted terrorism expert Steven Emerson, founder of the Investigative Project on Terrorism in Washington, DC, and author of the book "American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us." “It’s not for Brits, not for Germans, not for jihadists in the Middle East. It’s designed for Americans and it’s designed to get them to convert to Islam or to carry out jihad acts of terror,” he said.
UNITED STATES
Expert Groups Largely Back Obama's Nuclear Stance - Walter Pincus, Washington Post. Two bipartisan panels of nuclear weapons experts are endorsing much of President Obama's ambitious arms-control effort in advance of next week's nonproliferation talks here between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. A congressionally mandated commission will recommend next week that the United States resume the lead in international efforts to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. The US government should declare that it will rely less on such weapons and seek to reduce US and Russian nuclear stockpiles through extension of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (START), according to the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. But, the commission said, it also should maintain "an appropriately effective nuclear deterrent force."
Obama's Chess Masters - Robert Dryfuss, Rolling Stone. The president has assembled a trusted circle of advisers to oversee all aspects of national security directly from the White House. As soon as Obama was elected, there were questions about whether his plan to appoint a so-called "team of rivals" to key foreign-policy positions would lead to chaos and derail his agenda. Indeed, many of the strong-willed and sharp-elbowed officials at the top of the administration are more hawkish than the president himself - from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama's chief rival last year, to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a Republican who was appointed by George W. Bush, to Gen. David Petraeus, the politically ambitious commander of Centcom. Asked about the risk of competing agendas last November, as he named his national security team, Obama told reporters, "Understand where the vision for change comes from, first and foremost. It comes from me."
Her Rival Now Her Boss, Clinton Settles Into New Role - Mark Landler, New York Times. Hillary Rodham Clinton insists her transition from presidential contender to secretary of state has been seamless, and in one respect, it is hard to argue with her: she still hustles like a candidate down a few points in the polls the week before Super Tuesday. But in many other ways, Mrs. Clinton has shed her candidate’s skin. Her campaign staff is largely gone, replaced by a broader circle of advisers. Her husband, who stood behind her at countless campaign stops this time last year, has resumed his globe-trotting life, seeing her on rare weekends at their home in Chappaqua, NY. In this, the latest mutation in a career of many changes, Mrs. Clinton’s days have become a whirl of diplomatic talks, White House meetings and foreign travel: 74,000 miles and 22 countries as of last Sunday, when she returned from Iraq and Lebanon.
AMERICAS
Clinton Sees China, Iran Inroads in Latin America - Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton charged Friday that China and Iran have made "quite disturbing" gains in Latin America, the result of Bush administration efforts to isolate its adversaries in the hemisphere. In a blunt assessment and warning, Clinton said that while the Bush administration was working to make countries such as Venezuela and Cuba "international pariahs," China and Iran were building "very strong economic and political connections" across the region. "I don't think that's in our interest," she said, appearing before a group of Foreign Service officers and defending the Obama administration's strategy of reaching out to leaders such as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Cuban President Raul Castro.
Mexican Officials Say Flu's Ability to Spread May Be Low - William Booth, Anne-Marie O'Connor and Joshua Partlow, Washington Post. Mexican health officials studying the new influenza virus said Friday they have found that its ability to spread from person to person may be fairly low, raising hopes that the extreme measures taken here - the shutting down of all nonessential commerce and government - can contain its spread. In an obscure government building in the south of this city, dozens of experts in public health gathered in a "war room" to monitor on computer screens the spread of swine flu around the country. While it is far too early to answer with any certitude the most pressing questions - how infectious and lethal is the virus? - they offered some preliminary assessments.
Outbreak in Mexico May Be Smaller Than Feared - Denise Grady and Liz Robbins, New York Times. The swine flu outbreak in Mexico may be considerably smaller than originally feared, test results released there on Friday indicate. Of 908 suspected cases that were tested, only 397 people turned out to have the virus, officially known as influenza A(H1N1), Mexican health officials reported at a news conference. Of those, 16 people have died. Mexico had reported about 2,500 suspected cases as of Friday, but the number of real cases could turn out to be less than half the suspected number if further testing follows the same pattern as the original round. Officials said that the tests were being done quickly, and that 500 more would be completed Friday.
Exposing A Chávez Charade - José Miguel Vivanco, Washington Post opinion. President Obama came under fire last month for sharing a smile with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez at the Summit of the Americas. Critics say that Obama was wrong to be friendly with a foreign leader renowned for his anti-US antics and authoritarian tendencies. It might be expected, because I am a human rights advocate who has documented Chávez's authoritarian policies and suffered the consequences at the hands of his security forces, that I would share this criticism. But I think time may show that Obama did the right thing. Already, Obama's overture has made it more difficult for Chávez to use his personal feud with the US government to divert attention from his country's problems. It will also be easier for the Obama administration to pursue a serious multilateral effort to pressure the Venezuelan government to reverse its authoritarian approach.
Dancing with Dictators - Jeffery T. Kuhner, Washington Times opinion. President Obama has put democracy and human rights on the back burner at least in Latin America. Our celebrity in chief achieved his fundamental goal at the recent Summit of the Americas: He got the region's dictators to like him. Rather than vigorously defend American interests and values, Mr. Obama used the occasion to cozy up to Venezuela's strong man, Hugo Chavez. Mr. Obama referred to Mr. Chavez as his "amigo." The photograph of the leader of the Free World shaking hands with a smiling Mr. Chavez was seen all across the world. Mr. Obama's embrace of the Venezuelan autocrat was not only unseemly. It sent a powerful signal to pro-democracy dissidents everywhere that the United States is willing to turn a blind eye to brutal repression. It was a betrayal of the countless political victims tortured and beaten in jails in Caracas and Havana.
ASIA PACIFIC
A Novel Look at North Korea - Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times. A former US agent's mystery novels set in the reclusive nation capture the bizarre, dysfunctional state of North Korean society. His Inspector O, he says, typifies the sane people he met there. Meet Inspector O, a detective with North Korea's Ministry of People's Security. He is a man who loves his country but harbors a knowing skepticism about its leadership. He rolls his eyes at the communist propaganda and balks at wearing the red lapel pin of founder Kim Il Sung that is de rigueur for North Koreans. He struggles to keep his humanity in an authoritarian and increasingly corrupt society. But Inspector O isn't real. He is the fictional protagonist of a series of detective novels by a former Western intelligence officer who uses the pseudonym James Church. Church is convinced that in his frequent trips to Pyongyang, he has met many Inspector Os -- that is to say, modern, clear-thinking people whose very existence proves there is intelligent life within the North Korean system.
EUROPE
Riot Police Working Overtime as Unions and Anarchists Link Arms for May Day - Roger Boyes and Charles Bremner, The Times. Protesters turned traditional May Day demonstrations into a rallying call against global capitalism as unrest spread through city streets across Europe yesterday. Politicians in Germany and France had been warning that the financial crisis was about to spark social unrest. In some towns the words became reality, even if the skirmishes and petrol bombings felt choreographed.
Anger and Fear Fuel May Day Europe Protests - Matthew Saltmarsh, New York Times. Rising unemployment, static wages and anger at national governments over the depth of the financial crisis brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators onto the streets of Europe on Friday to mark the traditional workers’ May Day holiday. But though there were tense confrontations and sporadic episodes of violence reported in Germany, Greece and Turkey, the protests were generally peaceful, and in some areas there was a calm that suggested that people had used the holiday to extend their weekend. Still, May Day this year came at a delicate moment. The economic crisis is dragging on and a palpable sense of outrage is growing among those who have lost their jobs, savings or pension funds.
MIDDLE EAST
UN Finds 60,000 Palestinians Risk Eviction in East Jerusalem - Howard Schneider, Washington Post. On Friday, a United Nations report showed how deep and festering the dispute over housing has become. It estimates that as many as a quarter of the Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem have been built without permits, putting as many as 60,000 people at risk of eviction if Israel strictly enforces its rules on construction. So far, home demolitions have occurred on a far smaller scale, averaging about 75 a year between 2000 and 2008. But the problem continues to mount because the number of building permits issued to Palestinians in East Jerusalem has remained stable at about 100 to 150 per year, providing about 1,100 fewer housing units than needed annually to keep up with Palestinian population growth, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs concludes in its study, which calls for a freeze on demolitions in East Jerusalem.
Videotape Complicates US Deal With Emirates - Robert F. Worth, New York Times. A gruesome videotape showing a member of the Abu Dhabi ruling family torturing an Afghan grain merchant has begun casting a lurid new light on allegations of human rights abuses in a city-state better known for skyscrapers and global finance. The 45-minute videotape shows Sheik Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, assisted by uniformed police officers, torturing the merchant with whips, cattle prods and a wooden plank with a protruding nail, and finally driving over him with an SUV. The videotape - first shown last week by ABC News - has provoked outrage from members of Congress, who said it could add fuel to lawmakers’ reservations about a pending civilian nuclear agreement between the United States and the United Arab Emirates, the seven-member federation on the Persian Gulf to which Abu Dhabi belongs.
Options for Mideast Peace Fade Fast - Los Angeles Times editorial. The often-quoted warning by the late Israeli statesman Abba Eban that "Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity" in peacemaking tells only part of the story. All parties have missed opportunities to end the epic Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and if the Obama administration does not act quickly and forcefully, we may lose the only viable option for lasting peace: two states for two peoples. The two-state solution, Israel and Palestine side by side in the Holy Land, has been US policy for 16 years and remains so under President Obama, even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not committed to it and the Palestinian leadership is split. Obama is right to invite Israeli, Palestinian and Egyptian leaders to separate talks in Washington this month; without early US engagement and consistent pressure, negotiations won't go anywhere. Rather, as we saw during the Bush administration, the situation will continue to unravel, ending in violence.
SOUTH ASIA
Chinese Billions in Sri Lanka Fund Battle Against Tamil Tigers - Jeremy Page, The Times. On the southern coast of Sri Lanka, ten miles from one of the world’s busiest shipping routes, a vast construction site is engulfing the once sleepy fishing town of Hambantota. This poor community of 21,000 people is about as far as one can get on the island from the fighting between the army and the Tamil Tiger rebels on the northeastern coast. The sudden spurt of construction helps, however, to explain why the army is poised to defeat the Tigers and why Western governments are so powerless to negotiate a ceasefire to help civilians trapped on the front line. This is where China is building a $1 billion port that it plans to use as a refuelling and docking station for its navy, as it patrols the Indian Ocean and protects China’s supplies of Saudi oil. Ever since Sri Lanka agreed to the plan, in March 2007, China has given it all the aid, arms and diplomatic support it needs to defeat the Tigers, without worrying about the West.
Sri Lanka Urges Civilians to Flee War Zone - Ravi Nessman, Associated Press. Sri Lanka's government urged civilians in the northern war zone to flee the fighting Friday, promising to ensure their safety amid accusations that civilians were killed after the military pounded the area with artillery shells. Government forces have cornered the Tamil Tiger rebels in a three-mile-long strip along the northeastern coast and appear poised to end the quarter-century civil war. But international pressure has grown for a cease-fire to protect tens of thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians trapped in the area. The government accuses the rebels, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, of holding the civilians hostage.
Gandhi's Generational Gamble - Peter Wonacott and Niraj Sheth, Wall Street Journal. Under a scalding April sun, Rahul Gandhi tried on an orange turban and held aloft a ceremonial curved sword. But such props are routine in Indian elections. What was really unusual about this campaign stop was the age of Mr. Gandhi and the other politicians on stage. They were young. "Ask people to vote for change. Vote for the youth!" the 38-year-old Mr. Gandhi exhorted followers in the northern Indian state of Punjab. India is run by graying politicians, although about 70% of its 1.1 billion population is under 40. Now Mr. Gandhi, scion of the country's most powerful political dynasty, is campaigning on the theme of generational revolution - a strategy that also could pave his own path to power.
BOOK REVIEWS
The Battlefield Can Be an Unforgiving Teacher - Janet Maslin, New York Times book review of The Unforgiving Minute by Craig M. Mullaney.
Soldiers of Misfortune - James Glanz, New York Times book review of Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage by Donovan Campbell.
A Counterinsurgency Primer - Max Boot, Wall Street Journal book review of The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.
Reluctant Warriors - The Economist book review of both The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 by Thomas Ricks and The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One by David Kilcullen.
BOOKS
Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage - Donovan Campbell.
Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn’t hatred or anger or fear. It’s love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death.
The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz
The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.
The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney
The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.
Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett
In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.
The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen
A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.
The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks
Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.
Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips
Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor
This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West
From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.
Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson
After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward
Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.
We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway
In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.
In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy
The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.
Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz
Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.
