George Tenet was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Presidents Clinton and Bush. He eventually resigned because of the controversy over Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. His book At The Center of the Storm is very interesting because it shows that he was very sensitive about his time at the Agency with several chapters responding to criticisms of his tenure.
Looking at The Iraq War, A History from Beginning to End one would think it was for children’s because it is only about half the size of a regular book. That would be a mistake. While it is printed on small paper and is very short at less than 100 pages it turns out to be a thorough review of the Iraq War from the Clinton to the Biden administrations with some good analysis.
In The Bomb In My Garden Dr Mahdi Obeidi tells the story of how Iraq tried to produce a nuclear bomb in the early 1990s. He was in charge of building centrifuges to enrich uranium. He goes through Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, how they covertly worked to gain the know-how and technology, how United Nations inspectors dismantled the program and then how the U.S. bungled its search for WMD after the 2003 invasion.
Samuel Helfont released his third book on Iraq entitled The Iraq Wars, A Very Short Introduction. It is a brief review of U.S.-Iraq relations from the 1990s to the 2014 war versus the Islamic State. He provides some new and interesting insights on how Iraq became a focus of American foreign policy.
Sara Daniel was a French reporter who went to Iraq at the start of the war. Each chapter in her book Voyage To A Stricken Land, Four Years on the Ground reporting from Iraq: A Woman’s Inside Story covers a specific time period and topic from the invasion to the insurgency to the Iraqi and American troops. She came away from her experience extremely cynical believing that Iraq was falling into a civil war due to the U.S. mishandling the occupation.
Rutgers University Professor Lloyd Gardner attempted to explain the larger ideas behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq in The Long Road To Baghdad, A History Of U.S. Foreign Policy From The 1970s To The Present. He argues that the war was the result of a change in foreign policy philosophy from the realism of the Cold War to a new idealism based upon asserting American power and spreading democracy. The problem is Gardner gets lost in the details and side stories and loses track of his argument.
There are bad books and then there is Bush’s War For Reelection, The White House, and The People by James Moore. From the title you would think this is about President Bush trying to sell the war to get re-elected but it’s not. It is a hodgepodge collection of stories thrown together to try to show that Bush didn’t serve his country during Vietnam and the costs of his decision to invade Iraq. It’s so badly put together there is no reason to read it.
Katovsky, Bill and Carlson, Timothy, embedded, The Media At War In Iraq, an oral history, The Lyons Press, 2003
Embedded, The Media At War In Iraq, an oral history is an anthology of 51 journalists and others who were involved in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Some of the reporters were embedded with U.S. and British forces. Others went into Iraq on their own and were called unilaterals. Like any collection the stories vary widely from the exciting to the mundane.
Almost the entire senior leadership of President Bush’s national security team was for regime change in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney was out in front making accusations against Saddam Hussein to justify the invasion. Since he recently passed here is a review of his role in the lead up to the Iraq War.
Abdul-Ahad, Ghaith, Alford, Kael, Anderson, Thorne, Leistner, Rita, Unembedded, Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq, Chelsea Green Publishing Company, 2005
Unembedded, Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq is a beautiful picture book about the first couple years of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. It’s printed on a large format with pictures filling the pages so you can see every detail. It features everyday Iraqis rather than Coalition forces. Unfortunately the commentary has some major flaws.
Anderson, Terry, Bush’s Wars, Oxford University Press, 2011
Bush’s Wars is an attempt to show what went wrong with President Bush’s War on Terror. Author Terry Anderson argues that the U.S. should’ve never invaded Iraq and that detracted from fighting Al Qaeda and the war in Afghanistan. He tries to put together issues that have been discussed before into one narrative but there are major problems with his history that undermines the work.
Engel, Richard, A Fist In The Hornet’s Nest, On The Ground In Baghdad Before, During & After The War, Hyperion, 2004
Richard Engel was an American journalist who decided to go to Iraq before the 2003 invasion and try to get a job with a U.S. media outlet. A Fist In The Hornet’s Nest, On The Ground In Baghdad Before, During & After The War is a collection of his experiences in the Iraqi capital during those tumultuous months. While it’s emphasis is obviously on what it was like being a journalist at that time it includes enough stories about everyday Iraqis to make it a well-rounded story.
Lowry, Richard, Marines in the Garden of Eden, The True Story of Seven Bloody Days in Iraq, Berkeley Publishing Group, 2006
Nasiriya was the biggest battle the Americans fought during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Initially the Marines didn’t think the Iraqis would put up much resistance but it turned into a week-long operation. Richard Lowry tells the most comprehensive story of what happened.
Winter, Jeanette, The Librarian of Basra, A True Story from Iraq, Harcourt Children’s Books, 2005
I didn’t know there were children’s books about Iraq in English until I saw The Librarian of Basra by Jeanette Winter. It’s a picture book telling the story of Alia Muhammad Baker during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As you can guess it’s about how she saved the Basra city library during the war.
Haass, Richard, War of Necessity, War of Choice, A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars, Simon & Schuster, 2009
Richard Haass worked in both the George H.W. Bush and the George W. Bush administrations. Originally he was in the National Security Council under National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft and then went to work for Secretary of State Colin Powell in the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department. These positions led him to be involved in making policy over Iraq. Haass argues that the Gulf War was a necessary war to preserve America’s national interests while the 2003 invasion of Iraq was not needed.
Livingston, Gary, An Nasiriyah, The Fight for the Bridges, Caisson Press, 2003
Gary Livingston’s An Nasiriya, The Fight for the Bridges is a combat history of the battle for two bridges in the city of Nasiriya during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The author wanted to valorize the Marines and gives a very in depth narrative of all the fighting that took place. In the process he skips over many of the mistakes and problems that were made.
Andrew, Colonel Rod, U.S. Marines in Battle, An-Nasiriyah, 23 March-2 April 2003, Marine Corps University, 2012
Colonel Rod Andrew’s U.S. Marines in Battle, An-Nasiriya is about the most intense fighting during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That took place in the southern city of Nasiriya as Marines tried to rescue a lost army unit and seize two bridges that were needed so that other forces could move on Baghdad. It turned into an unexpected fight where it seemed like the whole city had taken up arms against the Americans.
Faddis, Sam, The CIA War In Kurdistan, The Untold Story Of The Northern Front In The Iraq War, Casemate, 2020
Sam Faddis was the head of a CIA team sent into Iraqi Kurdistan to help prepare for the 2003 invasion. His experience was a microcosm of how dysfunctional the entire U.S. effort was to depose Saddam Hussein. Both the White House and CIA headquarters had their set ideas about how the war was going to go and ignored what Faddis and his team were reporting. He believed this set the stage for the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Garrels, Anne, Naked in Baghdad, The Iraq War as seen by NPR’s correspondent, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003
Anne Garrels was a reporter for National Public Radio who went to Baghdad in 2002 to witness the U.S. invasion and how it impacted Iraqis. Naked in Baghdad, The Iraq War as seen by NPR’s correspondent is a series of journal entries about her day to day activities joined by emails that her husband sent out to update her friends and family about what was happening. Garrels was able to capture the feelings of everyday Iraqis and a little slice of life in the Iraqi capital during this tumultuous time.
Pritchard, Tim, Ambush Alley, The Most Extraordinary Battle of The Iraq War, Ballantine Books, 2005
Tim Pritchard’s Ambush Alley, The Most Extraordinary Battle Of The Iraq War is one of those books that you can’t put down once it gets going. It covers a battalion of Marines who attacked Nasiriya during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The Americans weren’t expecting any resistance but found themselves in one of the most intense battles of the entire conflict. The author does a fantastic job describing the drama that ensued.
1915 UK cmdr in Mesopotamia Gen Nixon told to march on Baghdad Gen Townshend said he couldn’t advance without more supplies ( Musing...
