Review All Roads Lead To Baghdad: Army Special Operations Forces in Iraq

 Briscoe, Charles, Finlayson, Kenneth, Jones, Robert, Jr., Walley, Cherilyn, Aaron, A. Dwayne, Mullins, Michael, Schroder, James, All Roads Lead To Baghdad: Army Special Operations Forces in Iraq, Fort Bragg: USASOC History Office, 2007

 

All Roads Lead To Baghdad: Army Special Operations Forces in Iraq is a military history meant to explain the different kinds of special units the U.S. deployed in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the variety of missions they had. It starts off with some of the causes of the Iraq War which gets many things completely wrong which were known when the book was written. Being a military book it doesn’t really deal with any politics besides what the Bush administration said. Also because it was published by the U.S. military it praises its work in Iraq. The story of specific operations are the best part of All Roads Lead To Baghdad. On the other hand, there are many sections on support of units which are not that interesting. Overall that makes the book really up and down.

 

One of the opening chapters on the reasons why the U.S. went to war with Iraq is shockingly off base about basic facts. For instance it says the first king of Iraq Faisal I was a Syrian when he came from modern day Saudi Arabia. It said Saddam Hussein became the head of the Baath Party in 1975 which didn’t happen until 1979. It has Ansar al-Islam as a pro-Saddam irregular force even though later it notes that they were backed by Iraq’s enemy Iran. It also claims that Saddam refused to allow United Nations weapons inspectors back into Iraq in the 2000s. All Roads Lead To Baghdad was published in 2007 so there is no reason to get these details wrong. It doesn’t just repeat some Bush administration claims, Ansar al-Islam was a terrorist group backed by Baghdad, its basic history of Iraq is off. It appears to be symbolic of how confused the U.S. was about Iraq and not knowing its past.

 

The vast majority of the book is an inconsistent account of U.S. special forces involvement in Iraq from 2001-2003. In its attempt to be thorough there are too many dry parts such as going over all the different command and support units that were in the invasion. Much better are the combat sections which includes some interesting tales. In Najaf city for instance, the U.S. special forces worked with an ex-officer who they called a resistance leader. He led them to Baathists and Fedayeen and was later picked to be mayor and police chief by a group of notables. He was later arrested for corruption and was highly unpopular being a Sunni and former Baathist in a Shiite holy city. In northern Iraq the Special Forces and U.S. military worked with the Kurds who were intent upon seizing as much territory as possible especially the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk to expand their territory. They were divided between two parties the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan who were deep rivals so much that the Americans were often afraid of armed confrontations between the two breaking out. The U.S. promised Turkey they would not let the Kurds enter Mosul and Kirkuk but that was the only way to take them. The book claims the Americans got the Kurdish forces to leave quickly but that actually didn’t happen and there was fighting in both as a result between local Arabs and Turkmen versus the newly arrived Kurds. The Turks also got directly involved because the Americans did not keep their promises to them. This is another example of how the U.S. simply didn’t know who they were dealing with. They invaded a country the size of California and had no idea about the different groups within the country, their motivations and agendas. Thus a Sunni Baathist was picked to run a Shiite religious city as if that would be acceptable. This was made worse by the U.S. not having any real postwar plans leaving each unit to do as they pleased for months. It’s no surprise that President Bush’s claim of mission accomplished quickly turned into a quagmire.

 

While there are some engaging stories about the 2003 invasion of Iraq and how clueless the Americans were afterward this book is in no way essential. The start is horrible and there are just too many sections about things like finding enough helicopters, getting them shipped to Kuwait and then how they flew into different air bases within Iraq. Yes logistics is essential in any war but to read about them over and over and over just doesn’t keep ones attention. The parts on operations just weren’t enough to make this worthwhile.

 

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