Review Edited by Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, Brendan Smith, In The Name Of Democracy, American War Crimes In Iraq And Beyond, Metropolitan Books, 2005

  

In The Name of Democracy, American War Crimes In Iraq And Beyond is an anti-war book edited by Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler and Brendan Smith. It’s an anthology of articles which starts off fine but then gets farther and farther away from Iraq. It also becomes more and more of a diatribe where at first it was more about presenting evidence against how the U.S. occupied Iraq.

Steven Strasser, Edited by, The Abu Ghraib Investigations, The Official Reports of the Independent Panel and the Pentagon and the Shocking Prisoner Abuse in Iraq, Public Affairs, 2004

Strasser, Steven Edited by, The Abu Ghraib Investigations, The Official Reports of the Independent Panel and the Pentagon and the Shocking Prisoner Abuse in Iraq, Public Affairs, 2004

 

The Abu Ghraib Investigations includes two of the major government reviews of the prisoner abuse that occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad at the end of 2003. One report is by the James Schlesinger commission that tried to look at the overall causes and a review by General George Fay that went through each one of the cases reported. Both show how President Bush’s call for extreme measures during interrogation to fight the War on Terror spread confusion over what was acceptable which led to the Abu Ghraib scandal.

U.S. Army History Of Iraq War Vol 1 – Chapter 13 The Changing Of The Guard, Again, Spring-Summer 2004

The spring 2004 uprising by Moqtada al-Sadr and the 1^st Battle of Fallujah killed any hope the U.S. might have of a short occupation and immediate withdrawal from Iraq. That led to a period of transition during the summer. There was a new U.S. commander General George Casey who created the first campaign plan for the war although the goal was the same, to get out. There was a new effort to rebuild the Iraqi security forces, the United Nations was finally able to broker a deal for the return of Iraqi sovereignty, while the Americans were hit with a new scandal.

U.S. Army History Of Iraq War Vol 1 – Chapter 9 – Down The Spider Hole, October-December 2003

At the end of 2003 the U.S. believed that it was winning in Iraq. It was underestimating the strength of the insurgency, thought the capture of Saddam Hussein was a turning point, and Washington sped up the timetable to return sovereignty to Iraq thinking that would be another blow to the militants. In fact, things were getting worse. The abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison occurred, the insurgency launched its first Ramadan offensive, and opposition to the occupation was only growing in strength.

PBS VIDEO: A Look Back At A Decade Of Conflict In Iraq

REUTERS VIDEO: Mixed Reviews On The War In Iraq