This book is not an attempt to revise history, but rather to set the record straight. It was written by an author who was in a unique position to observe the Pentagon decision making process leading to the war in Iraq. Feith's attention to a detailed timeline and the facts as then known at the time in question, and his extensive documentation references are most impressive. I predict this will become recognized as a historically important work. Those who believe in "Cowboy Bush" and "Bush Lied" will not like this book. Many strategic and tactical mistakes are documented, and should be lessons learned. The war on terrorism seems destined to go on for a long time, and knowledge about it's beginnings is important.

This is an essential fact book for every person curious about the U.S. government's decision making that led to the Afghan and Iraq wars and their pursuit in the early years.

Douglas Feith's memoir includes the period in which he served as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He covers discussions in which he was personally involved and clearly identifies information that he did not personally observe. As such, important pieces of the puzzle are left to the observations of the actual participants. One hopes that more books will provide additional first-hand information about the Iraq war and avoid the imaginative judgments of the uninformed. Michael Yon does well on the ground in Iraq, but all too many have built a big scaffold on which to hang President Bush and ignored their own limited perspective.

Feith provides appendices in which he outlines the Washington decision apparatus, shows the memos that provided outlines of decision options, a series of charts used to brief the President on the Iraq transition, the implementation outline for the President's March 2003 policy for an Iraq Interim Authority, and a policy briefing on training the Iraqi opposition. All told good evidence for the decision process used.

Feith explains that the chain of command goes from the President to the Secretary of Defense to the regional commander (Centcom's Tommy Franks handled the invasion of Iraq). The Centcom commander can (and regularly did) react negatively to any suggestions for change that did not come directly from the President or the Secretary of Defense.

The Pentagon staff and the Joint Chiefs provide support and advice only, and are not in the chain of command. Thus Wolfowitz (the Deputy Secretary of Defense), Feith and General Myers (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) in the Pentagon made suggestions to Rumsfeld and the President. These advisors supported the President's vision of the terrorist threat as a world-wide phenomena. They noted many separate organizations, but recognized their common goal of injuring America and their deadly danger to Americans. They shared the President's view and designed policies to reduce that threat, deter terrorism around the world, and did not narrow their vision to only Afghanistan, as many recommended.

Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld appears as a very demanding boss who was trying to refocus this largest of American bureaucracies into a leaner more flexible force. When the secretary's vision collided with officials who disagreed with him, he met a great deal of foot dragging. Never-the-less, he did move the army's divisional structure farther along the path toward brigade organization.

Mixed into the debate were multiple opinions about the force levels necessary in Iraq. In retrospect it is very clear that the force levels in Iraq were too small to permit a traditional occupation. Feith suggests the President's selected occupation policy might have made a large force less necessary, but it never had a chance. Head of the Coalition Provisional Authority Paul Bremer III caused shock across the administration when, without consultation, he published an article in the 08 September 2003 Washington Post headlined "Iraq's Path to Sovereignty." The seven steps Bremer outlined effectively aborted the President's plan for early and piecewise transfer of sovereignty to Iraq. The planned Iraq Interim Authority was not to be.

In retrospect it is easy to fault the President and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld for not immediately replacing Bremer. They must have felt "the man on the ground" had better information and in any event the shockwave from replacement would have been too high.

Bremer's dismantling of the Iraq Interim Authority had serious repercussions. Feith quotes Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in his chapter title "from liberation to occupation;" a very brief summation. Our support in Iraq dwindled. Our casualty figures soared to new records in November 2003, April 2004, and November 2004 before easing back and then running up again to May 2007.

On the other hand Rumsfeld's continual insistence on careful written arguments for and against many policies should help produce a wonderful historic record of his thinking as Secretary of Defense. Would that the Secretary of State would create such a record. Many government departments try to impose their policies with leaks and innuendo. Right or wrong Rumsfeld was clearly working very hard to produce a policy that was in the country's best interest and not necessarily just his turf. He regularly suggested that State be given more budget to handle some to the work that had fallen to Defense by default.

It appears that both the President and the Secretary of Defense over-reacted to the disastrous experience of a President and Secretary of Defense micromanaging the Vietnam War. Possibly because of this unfortunate history they were extremely reluctant to reverse decisions made at the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) and Regional Command (Centcom) level. They can be faulted for failing to push the Army to adopt a counterinsurgency strategy at an earlier date.

Early mistakes in a war are a foregone conclusion since your enemy has studied your previous tactics and made adjustments to counter them. We usually bumble along, adjust and eventually get tactics that work inside the enemy's decision-response envelope.

Adjusting strategy must be done more slowly, with much greater care, and requires careful communication to all levels. This takes time and can be seriously impeded by unclear or unrealistic goals. Rumsfeld did his best to generate clarity but some subordinates in Iraq were not able to operate at his level.

Feith is to be commended for producing a very readable book that contains a great deal of important history of the Washington decision making for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was indeed refreshing to read an account of the Washington decision making by an actual participant that is not clouded by wild suppositions or accusations.

Our present success in Iraq has built on the best efforts of a large number of men including the main characters of Feith's book. This success may not have been possible several years ago even if the troop surge had occurred then and General Petraeus had been the boss.

This reviewer considers it unfortunate that the President's many critics do not share his vision of the war's scope, but it is a point on which reasonable men can fail to agree. To me the debate closely parallels the European debate in the mid 1930's, but this time Churchill was in power.

Feith's book is largely an attempt to justify his actions and policies as #3 in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld, more specifically with regards to the Iraq war.

Well, if your boss calls you in to grill on some mistakes you've made you can:

- admit failure and throw yourself at her mercy
- justify every single issue by saying that it wasn't your fault
- tactically admit some failures and defend your record on the rest.

Most people, but not Feith apparently, would recognize that rejecting any notion of having made a mistake is counterproductive. That is my main complaint with the book. It is very very defensive in nature. If mistakes were made, it's because Feith wasn't listened to. All the mistakes were made by Colin Powell, at State, or by the CIA. Later on, Paul Bremer, the 2nd US envoy to Iraq, becomes the book's scapegoat. Rumsfeld is brilliant throughout, except for _slight_ misgivings about his management style.

Feith states that Rumsfeld, correctly in Feith's view, decided to achieve unity of command by having DoD in sole and exclusive charge of post-war Iraq. Given that DoD was now running the show, why is everybody, except for DoD to blame for what went wrong? Note that I am not really criticizing the military here, more the Pentagon. Bremer was reporting directly to Rumsfeld, except that well, he wasn't - according to Feith.

Another interesting aspect is the focus on Iraq. The book starts at 9/11 and then takes about 150 pages (out 520) to cover the invasion of Afghanistan and events up to mid 2002 at most. Past that? Nothing, no coverage of the decidedly mixed results in stabilizing the country. Just occasional pats on his own back to show how much better Afghanistan worked out than Iraq.

Feith bemoans the lack of outreach to the Muslim communities but then dismisses Powell's insistence on finding an Arab-Israeli solution as a bunch of wishy-washy irrelevant thinking. I really don't think you can have it both ways. Feith neglects to mention his contributions to the 'Clean Break' paper in 1996, advocating war with Iraq and halting the Oslo peace talks. Odd that he forgot.

Bremer's actions as head of the CPA are presented as mostly his. Well, who authorized things like the laws liberalizing Iraq's economy? I am pro free-market myself, but there is no justification for imposing capitalist laws on a country you occupy.

Feith's regrets the insistence on WMD as the cause for war. I think that is hypocritical. WMD was the easiest way to convince the electorate to go to war. No more, no less. The intelligence was faulty but I give Feith the benefit of the doubt when he says that that only became clear after the fact. Regardless, if Colin Powell chose to emphasize WMD rather than other factors, I can't really believe it was over Bush's objections.


Well, enough bad mouthing. This was a hard read - I don't like Feith and I don't like this administration. But there are some good reasons why this book is interesting:

- Feith occasionally makes good points. For example, lack of nation-building capability in the US institutions. Lack of funding for the Department of State.

- Difficulty of funding important initiatives by friendly foreign governments, as opposed to very loose purse strings to fund the Pentagon. I dunno about that one - what are the Cold War precedents?

- Where the information is coming from. When Feith states that the President was already thinking about Iraq on 9/12/2001, it is coming from him. Not from some foaming-at-the-mouth 9/11 conspiracy theorist. It presents the administration's side.

- Colin Powell looks a whole lot better coming out of Iraq than Bush's inner court. Rightly or wrongly, this book presents an alternative view of him as not having had the courage of his convictions.

Finally, I find it sadly amusing that, coming as #37, mine is going to be the first 3 star review. Apparently, as is customary in debate about the Iraq war nowadays, Americans still can't get over the Democrats/Republican split. Everyone loves, or hates, this book. "A Drink In the Desert" vs. "Don't reward this war criminal by buying his book". This lack of common ground doesn't look good for future US foreign policy maturity.

Feith's book is largely an attempt to justify his actions and policies as #2 or #3 in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld, more specifically with regards to the Iraq war.

Well, if your boss calls you in to grill on some mistakes you've made you can:

- admit failure and throw yourself at her mercy
- justify every single issue by saying that it wasn't your fault
- tactically admit some failures and defend your record on the rest.

Most people, but not Feith apparently, would recognize that rejecting any notion of having made a mistake is counterproductive. That is my main complaint with the book. It is very very defensive in nature. If mistakes were made, it's because Feith wasn't listened to. All the mistakes were made by Colin Powell, at State, or by the CIA. Later on, Paul Bremer, the 2nd US envoy to Iraq, becomes the book's scapegoat. Rumsfeld is brilliant throughout, except for slight misgivings about his management skills.

Given that Feith argues that Rumsfeld, correctly in Feith's view, decided to achieve unity of command by having DoD in sole and exclusive charge of post-war Iraq, it is hard to understand how everyone, except for DoD, could be the cause of failure. Bremer was reporting directly to Rumsfeld, except that well, he wasn't - according to Feith.

Another interesting aspect is the focus on Iraq. The book starts at 9/11 and then takes about 150 pages (out 520) to cover the invasion of Afghanistan and events up to mid 2002 at most. Past that? Nothing, no coverage of the decidedly mixed results in stabilizing the country. Just occasional pats on his own back to show how much better Afghanistan worked out than Iraq.

Feith bemoans the lack of outreach to the Muslim communities but then dismisses Powell's insistence on finding an Arab-Israeli solution as a bunch of wishy-washy irrelevant thinking. I really don't think you can have it both ways. Feith neglects to mention his contributions to the 'Clean Break' paper in 1996, advocating war with Iraq and halting the Oslo peace talks. Odd that he forgot.

Bremer's actions as head of the CPA are presented as mostly his. Well, who authorized things like the laws liberalizing Iraq's economy? I am pro free-market myself, but there is no justification for imposing capitalist laws on a country you occupy.

Feith's regrets the insistence on WMD as the cause for war. I think that is hypocritical. WMD was the easiest way to convince the electorate to go to war. No more, no less. The intelligence was faulty but I give Feith the benefit of the doubt when he says that that only became clear after the fact. Regardless, if Colin Powell chose to emphasize WMD rather than other factors, I can't really believe it was over Bush's objections.


Well, enough bad mouthing. This was a hard read - I don't like Feith and I don't like this administration. But there are some good reasons why this book is interesting:

- Feith occasionally makes good points. For example, lack of nation-building capability in the US institutions. Lack of funding for the Department of State.

- Difficulty of funding important initiatives by friendly foreign governments, as opposed to very loose purse strings to fund the Pentagon. I dunno about that one - what are the Cold War precedents?

- Where the information is coming from. When Feith states that the President was already thinking about Iraq on 9/12/2001, it is coming from him. Not from some foaming-at-the-mouth 9/11 conspiracy theorist. It presents the administration's side.

- Colin Powell looks a whole lot better coming out of Iraq than Bush's inner court. Rightly or wrongly, this book presents an alternative view of him as not having had the courage of his convictions.

Finally, I find it sadly amusing that, coming as #37, mine is going to be the first 3 star review. Apparently, as is customary in debate about the Iraq war nowadays, Americans still can't get over the Democrats/Republican split. Everyone loves, or hates, this book. This lack of common ground doesn't look good for future US foreign policy maturity, no sirree.

Feith's book is largely an attempt to justify his actions and policies as #2 or #3 in the Pentagon under Rumsfeld, more specifically with regards to the Iraq war.

Well, if your boss calls you in to grill on some mistakes you've made you can:

- admit failure and throw yourself at her mercy
- justify every single issue by saying that it wasn't your fault
- tactically admit some failures and defend your record on the rest.

Most people, but not Feith apparently, would recognize that rejecting any notion of having made a mistake is counterproductive. That is my main complaint with the book. It is very very defensive in nature. If mistakes were made, it's because Feith wasn't listened to. All the mistakes were made by Colin Powell, at State, or by the CIA. Later on, Paul Bremer, the 2nd US envoy to Iraq, becomes the book's scapegoat. Rumsfeld is brilliant throughout, except for slight misgivings about his management skills.

Given that Feith argues that Rumsfeld, correctly in Feith's view, decided to achieve unity of command by having DoD in sole and exclusive charge of Iraq, it is hard to understand how everyone, except for DoD, could be the cause of failure. Bremer was reporting directly to Rumsfeld, except that well, he wasn't - according to Feith.

Another interesting aspect is the focus on Iraq. The book starts at 9/11 and then takes about 150 pages (out 520) to cover the invasion of Afghanistan and events up to mid 2002 at most. Past that? Nothing, no coverage of the decidedly mixed results in stabilizing the country. Just occasional pats on his own back to show how much better Afghanistan worked out than Iraq.

Feith bemoans the lack of outreach to the Muslim communities but then dismisses Powell's insistence on finding an Arab-Israeli solution as a bunch of wishy-washy irrelevant thinking. I really don't think you can have it both ways.

Bremer's actions as head of the CPA are presented as mostly his. Well, who authorized things like the laws liberalizing Iraq's economy? I am pro free-market myself, but there is no justification for imposing capitalist laws on a country you occupy.

Feith's regrets the insistence on WMD as the cause for war. I think that is hypocritical. WMD was the easiest way to convince the electorate to go to war. No more, no less. The intelligence was faulty but I give Feith the benefit of the doubt when he says that that only became clear after the fact. Regardless, if Colin Powell chose to emphasize WMD rather than other factors, I can't really believe it was over Bush's objections.


Well, enough bad mouthing. This was a hard read - I don't like Feith and I don't like this administration. But there are some good reasons why this book is interesting:

- Feith occasionally makes good points. For example, lack of nation-building capability in the US institutions. Lack of funding for the Department of State.

- Difficulty of funding important initiatives by friendly foreign governments, as opposed to very loose purse strings to fund the Pentagon. I dunno about that one - what are the Cold War precedents?

- Where the information is coming from. When Feith states that the President was thinking about Iraq on 9/12/2001, it is coming from him. Not from some foaming-at-the-mouth 9/11 conspiracy theorist. It presents the administration's side.

- Colin Powell looks a whole lot better coming out of Iraq than Bush's inner court. Rightly or wrongly, this book presents an alternative view of him as not having had the courage of his convictions.

Finally, I find it sadly amusing that, coming as #37, mine is going to be the first 3 star review. Apparently, as is customary in debate about the Iraq war nowadays, Americans still can't get over the Democrats/Republican split. Everyone loves, or hates, this book. This lack of common ground doesn't look good for future US foreign policy maturity, no sirree.

This is an excellent background and first draft of history for the last seven years.

Feith was a policy/ analyst guy. He is not a foaming at the mouth, neo-con ideologue. He is a DC area lawyer, that worked in the NSC under Reagan/ Bush the elder and then more law work during Clinton, while keeping an amateur hand in the defense/ policy world.

As far as managing an office goes, I understood, that he was leading up an office of about a hundred civilian and uniform policy wonk type of guys, who reported directly to Sec Rumsfeld. In that sense, he offers a lot of interesting observations about how Defense Department of 2001 - 2005 worked, especially how it got along with the State Department and Rice's office, as Feith would often attend meetings with those folks for Rumsfeld, etc.

Rumsfeld himself comes across as a hard guy to work for. Feith tells the story of, in late 2001, the SecDef coming into his office on a Friday morning, telling Feith to grab five trusted guys and that they will follow him on a five nation trip to Asia over the weekend, and be expected to be back at their desks by Monday afternoon. So they group travels to Russia, a few Central Asia 'stans, Pakistan, India, all while meeting top officials like Putin and Musharef. Feith's crew works virtually non stop, cranking out reports and speeches and memos. On the way home, Feith asks Rumsfeld to come to the back of the plane and give a morale boosting speech to the staff and thank them for dropping everything on a moment's notice to do some hard work. Rumsfeld refuses, and upbraids Feith about what a stupid idea that would be.

But Feith is very clear that Rumsfeld is not particularly idealogical in his decision making. The SecDef did go to extreme efforts to search out every possibly solution to problems. In fact, he argues Rumsfeld wanted much of the opposite of what he has been portrayed as: a go it alone, shoot first, ask questions later guy.

In regards to Iraq, Feith makes probably the best arguments I have yet seen on the real necessity of overthrowing Saddam Hussein. It essentially makes the argument made by Clinton in 1998, Blair about the same time, sums up the 2002 Congressional Resolution for Iraq, albeit far more cogently.

I think he reads quite fairly. I got a lot out of Feith detailing a lot of the breakdowns in the decision making process in the NSC, especially Sec. Rice's lack of leadership and ability to move issues along. Essentially, he paints Rumsfeld as wanting to change and move the Federal Government to address the terrorist threats, and Colin Powell going along with the career government employee lines of operation. In a sense, Powell and Rice come off badly. The President is seen as someone who set policy, then trusted advisor's to figure out how to do it. Only in this case, the advisers had no real desire to work with each other and were often working in opposite directions.

Feith is extremely critical of the lost opportunities of the Garner/ Bremer administration in post Saddam 2003/2004 Iraq. I think he accurately describes why decisions or the lack of them, made after the invasion, contributed to the full scale insurgency that is only now calming.

Feith wrote a critical book of his work and the administration. He is highly critical of the US State Department, doesn't believe that much of value was added by the Committees on foreign relations and defense in Congress, and never doubts President Bush's good intentions for a moment, he really struggles with why the President or Rice, never stepped in and set clear policy and allowed things to drift as they did.

Twenty five years from now, when college students are writing papers, or military officers are studying the events of the past seven years, they will be citing Feith. I don't agree with everything he says, especially the bit about disbanding the Iraqi Army, with a small Coalition invasion force. Yet, Feith has written a fair, critical, first draft of history. It is a must read.

Douglas Feith's memoir "War & Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism" is a fascinating and enlightening account of Feith's stint as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in Rumsfeld's Pentagon from 2001 through 2005. Feith provides a candid look at the inter-agency process in the US government as it responded to the 9/11 attacks and then prepared for and fought wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Feith's account challenges the conventional wisdom of the media's stories during this timeframe and responds to many of the other books about this period that have been released. Because of this, "War and Decision" is one of the most important books, if not the most important book, yet to come out on the government's response to 9/11 and the beginning of the Global War on Terror.

Feith is a policy wonk, and he writes about the inter-agency policy disagreements in the US government (mostly between Defense, State, and sometimes CIA). He tries to set the record straight on many things that, according to him, have been mis-reported in the media and in recent books (especially Tenet's memoir, Bremer's memoir, Woodward's books, "Cobra II," and "Fiasco"), including: Pentagon planning for post-war Iraq, his office's Special Plans Group, the Future of Iraq project, and the Free Iraqi Forces. And to help set the record straight, the book includes over a dozen declassified policy memos and briefing slides in the appendices to back up his assertions. Feith's website also includes a larger collection of official documents supporting his assertions.

Feith's biggest criticisms are of the State Department (especially David Armitage) and the CIA, although he is at times critical of Condoleezza Rice as the National Security Advisor. He lays broadside after broadside at State's failures, including how it pushed its own agenda, it failed to follow the President's directives, it failed to truly support the Global War on Terror, how Powell insisted on stressing WMD stockpiles as the reason to attack Iraq, and how State completely repudiated the Iraqi exiles (especially Chalabi) as potential leaders in post-Saddam Iraq. Feith attacks the CIA for their bad analysis of Iraqi capabilities and stockpiles - especially for not being up-front about their limited intelligence - and for their politicization of intelligence by CIA members who didn't support the President's policies. He argues that all of these missteps, especially State's and CIA's repudiation of the Iraqi exile leaders, contributed greatly to the problems the US had during the early occupation of Iraq. And he slams these agencies for their failure to cooperate, for the poorly functioning inter-agency process, and for their willingness to use media leaks to push their own agenda.

Because Feith was a deputy (the #3 man at the Pentagon, under Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz) who did not work on every issue, he does not cover everything in this book. He tries to stick to issues that he had first-hand knowledge of and relied heavily on his own notes and documents. At times, he readily admits when there are holes in his knowledge because he was not privy to some meetings or issues. Because his focus was policy and not operations, he did not participate in much of the actual planning for the invasion of Iraq, so he barely mentions the issue that many critics of the Iraq war planning have laid at Rumsfeld's feet: inadequate forces during the invasion and during the immediate aftermath. Feith also barely addresses many of the issues surrounding the interrogation/torture policies at Guantanamo Bay, although according to many press reports he was involved in formulating this policy.

Feith stubbornly stands by many of his positions, admits errors on some, and admirably corrects the public record on many others. He believes that the US would have been much more successful in Iraq if we had worked closer with the Iraqi exiles (especially Chalabi) and had turned Iraq over to a transitional government within a couple of months of Saddam's overthrow. He believes that Bremer's disbanding of the Iraqi Army was the correct move, although he criticizes most of Bremer's later moves. He is a fervent admirer of his old boss Rumsfeld, although he didn't always agree with Rumsfeld's decisions. Feith also supported most of President Bush's policies but criticized the Administration for not always getting its message out - he says that ultimately the Global War on Terrorism will look better to historians than it does now because the Administration has not done a good job selling its successes.

This book is a surprisingly easy read considering it was written by a policy wonk, and it is clear that Feith is a brilliant thinker. While you may not be convinced by all of his arguments (I wasn't), you can appreciate that many of the Pentagon's policy positions weren't as caricatured in the press and by some writers since. Instead, they were all well thought-out, practical policies and positions, not radical proposals by a bunch of neocons who hijacked the American government. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to learn more about our government's real actions in the early years of the Global War on Terror.

Douglas Feith has written an excellent book that takes you inside the decision-making and process of the White House and the Pentagon. His story, rooted in the notes from the actual meetings he attended, sheds a light on what really happened pre- and post-9/11 and you learn that what the press reported isn't actually what was happened. His straight-forward and factual with malice towards none approach is refreshing and needed. If only other biographers and historians were as careful as Feith.

Douglas Feith has written an excellent book that takes you inside the decision-making and process of the White House and the Pentagon. His story, rooted in the notes from the actual meetings he attended, sheds a light on what really happened pre- and post-9/11 and you learn that what the press reported isn't actually what was happened. His straight-forward and factual with malice towards none approach is refreshing and needed. An excellent book. If only other biographers and historians were as careful as Feith.

I saw at Powerline that Doug Feith testified before the house judiciary committee subcommittee, and that prompted me to share my enthusiasm for this book, in which Mr. Feith discusses how and why we went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. He documents the process, beginning with 911, staff discussions that occurred immediately followed 911, and on through the lengthy public process (in the case of Iraq) that led to the decision to go to war. Along the way, Mr. Feith provides excellent insight into the style, character, and to the degree that one can know, motive in subsequent actions of all the major players.

Regarding motive, it is telling that the most thoroughly written arguments for or against a particular policy came from Donald Rumsfeld. Amid all the wild accusations about an illegal war, secrecy, impeach Bush, and that sort of nonsense, it is refreshing to have such an honorable and courageous public servant as Mr. Feith around to painstakingly document just how open, how much public debate, and how much scrutiny of the evidence went into the very difficult decision to go to war.

This book has been ignored to an incredible degree by the mainstream press, not only by the enemies of the administration, but was even dismissed by Bill O'Reilly, who is the king of the all knowing, king-making media gods. No big deal, except that it represents such a terrible injustice to the fine work done by Mr. Feith. If you care about how we ended up going to war in two countries following 911, read this book. The facts are all there.

`War & Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism` by Douglas Feith

Mr. Feith does a remarkable job of recounting his - all firsthand - experiences from his tumultuous time serving the country at the Pentagon as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. In this thoroughly researched, meticulously footnoted and highly readable memoir of 5 historic years, many of the myths propagated (those that the author was party to and had refuting documentation) in the media regarding Pentagon decision making, war strategies and policy are completely debunked. The book also remains critical of the key players - including Feith himself, as well as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Armitage, Franks, Bremer, Rice, Cheney, of course President Bush, and others. The character of Donald Rumsfeld is also extremely well covered in this book with enough new information for anyone interested in current affairs and the players shaping the events of our time.

It may very well be decided that, after finishing this book, you simply disagree with the strategies and policies adopted by the Pentagon, and subsequently, the Bush administrations prosecution of the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and the "global war on terror". I think this would be just fine with the author. The narrative may serve to reinforce beliefs you've held to date, and conversely, reverse your thinking. Mr. Feith works hard to lay out the foundation of the decision making processes and attempt to put to rest some of the erroneous Pentagon reporting which took place during his tenure. Additionally, credit is certainly provided where credit is deserved to those reporters who maintained accuracy, even in highly critical situations.

I did not close `War & Decision' with the impression that I had just digested a tract penned merely to win a convert to a particular philosophy or policy. I was left, rather, with a clearer picture of this story (which is documented in its entirety) and an opportunity to make up my mind as to whether my countries policies and actions were properly conceived, examined, and executed. I don't think the author is worried whether the reader will agree or disagree, only that he or she is now privy to the first, first-person Pentagon perspective, which was painstakingly documented. Douglas Feith provides the facts coupled with his opinions (which he does not mask) which you use to assess one of the most important subjects of our time.

I'm sure there are folks who will scoff at even the mention of reading anything by Douglas Feith - I think that's a shame. It is my firm belief that anyone serious about gaining additional perspective into the Pentagon during this ever important period would be well served by picking up 'War & Decision' and taking the time to glean these important insights. In addition, all of the author's proceeds are being donated to charities which support our troops - anyone with a heart should feel good about the unparalleled return on that investment!

- Johnny

`War & Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism` by Douglas Feith

Mr. Feith does a remarkable job of recounting his - all firsthand - experiences from his tumultuous time serving the country at the Pentagon as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. In this thoroughly researched, meticulously footnoted and highly readable memoir of 5 historic years, many of the myths propagated (those that the author was party to and had refuting documentation) in the media regarding Pentagon decision making, war strategies and policy are completely debunked. The book also remains critical of the key players - including Feith himself, as well as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, Armitage, Franks, Bremer, Rice, Cheney, of course President Bush, and others. The character of Donald Rumsfeld is also extremely well covered in this book with enough new information for anyone interested in current affairs and the players shaping the events of our time.

It may very well be decided that, after finishing this book, you simply disagree with the strategies and policies adopted by the Pentagon, and subsequently, the Bush administrations prosecution of the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and the "global war on terror". I think this would be just fine with the author. The narrative may serve to reinforce beliefs you've held to date, and conversely, reverse your thinking. Mr. Feith works hard to lay out the foundation of the decision making processes and attempt to put to rest some of the erroneous Pentagon reporting which took place during his tenure. Additionally, credit is certainly provided where credit is deserved to those reporters who maintained accuracy, even in highly critical situations.

I did not close `War & Decision' with the impression that I had just digested a tract penned merely to win a convert to a particular philosophy or policy. I was left, rather, with a clearer picture of this story (which is documented in its entirety) and an opportunity to make up my mind as to whether my countries policies and actions were properly conceived, examined, and executed. I don't think the author is worried whether the reader will agrees or disagree, only that you're now privy to the first, first person Pentagon perspective, which was painstakingly documented. Douglas Feith provides the facts coupled with his opinions (which he does not mask) which you use to assess one of the most important subjects of our time.

I'm sure there are folks who will scoff at even the mention of reading something by Douglas Feith - I think that's a shame. It is my firm belief that anyone looking for insight into the Pentagon during this ever important period would be well served by picking up book and taking the time to glean these important insights. In addition, all of the author's proceeds are being donated to charities which support our returning troops - anyone with a heart should feel good about the unparalleled return on that investment!

- Johnny

I love how 60 minutes ripped this man apart on national television. He was a completely incompotent decision-maker of an invasion that has not only destroyed America's international credibility, but has destroyed the Iraqi people. The fact that this man agreed to disbanding the Iraqi army, effectively creating 400 thousand unemployed and armed civilians in an unstable, leaderless, and poverty-stricken nation proves that this man and the Bush administration never had Iraqi peace on the agenda. They have been doing nothing but feed the fire of ethnic hatred. This book is filled with indoctrinating propaganda. They went to war under the flag of pre-emptive self-defence, a concept that Hitler used to justify the invasion of Poland back at the start of WWII. It is becomming painfully obvious now that the collateral damage this idiodic war has caused will only augment America's national "defence" budget, further damaging its already exhausted economy and monstrous national debt.

A very deep, well-researched and informed book. An important work which should be read by anyone for or against the Iraq war

I found this book to be an interesting inside view of what was going on. I first saw the book on the daily show with John Stewart, and thought i'd pick it up. Wether or not you agree with Douglas Feith on the issue of deception, this book is filled with information you should probably know.
Factual, mostly unbiased accounts of what was going on, and also what is in the official records too, is what this book is filled with. I personally liked that it has a map of that region of the world in the front, a good idea what with only 1 in 7 people in the U.S. able to find Iraq according to the latest statistics spread by news media. 4 stars.

I picked up this book after watching Jon Stewart do his best to bring the leftist attack to the author on his show. When checking the reviews on Amazon, I appeared that those who rated the book the lowest were drinking the code pink cool-aid while writing their review. After listening to the book, it is obvious that those who rated the book as one star never read the book. If you are on the right or the left and have an open and intelligent mind I recommend the book as an accurate recounting of history from the author's point of view. However, if you are not into politics, policy, or history you may find the book a little tedious.

This is a must-read for anyone who wants to get a firsthand view of the origins of the State/CIA war on Defense and eventually Bush 43. According to Feith, it began because Rumsfeld vehemently objected to Gen. Jay Garner hiring a staff composed nearly entirely of State Dept. officials.

If you've only gotten your accounts of the war behind the war from the major media, you need to read this book. If you've followed it via the alternative media, you're probably familiar with many of the anecdotes and facts related herein (such as State wanting a long-term American presence in and dominion over Iraq, while Defense wanted something like the eventual Iraqi temporary administration years before it finally happened; or State's willingness to sacrifice American lives just so long as they could have any possibility of Chalabi not gaining power). Even so, you'll find it a good read.

Perhaps the most interesting correction to the record (one that was new to me) is the idea that Garner was not fired, but was always intended to be a stop-gap, and that the disastrous reign of Paul Bremer was at Rumsfeld's recommendation. Only after his appointment did Bremer apparently forget he reported to the SecDef and became infatuated with pursuing State's policies rather than those of the administration. Bringing an end to Bremer's megalomania only happened after a self-aggrandizing editorial in the Washington Post, run without any apparent clearance from anyone in his chain of command.

Feith does a good job portraying most of those he was able to observe closely. Rumsfeld is brusque, brilliant, and difficult. Rice is always looking to trinagulate and please everyone. Powell consistently is reported as saying one thing in the media and then denying it to Feith and his colleagues. Armitage uses the media to wage a near-coup against the President. The lone cipher in all this is Wolfowitz; he's nearly a ghost in the book, and you'll learn nothing about the man from it.

All in all, a solid read, and highly recommended.

The sheer magnitude of misinformation concerning the run-up to and the current U.S. policy in Iraq is simply withering. FINALLY, an insider not only lays everything out for anyone seriously interested in looking and understanding (which doubtless will exclude much of the dominant, old-line media), but one who provides significant documentation for everything he says! That fact alone is worth the price. Barak Obama, et al, should take a break, and read this book!

Unlike the fact-free, free-standing assertions of many (most?) books (and, significantly, of politicians from both Parties) on this subject, Secretary Feith thoughtfully has provided a web site (www.waranddecision.com) containing easy (one-click) access to the unclassified versions of the documents upon which his tome relies.

One may disagree with Iraq policy, in comfortable reflection based on a degree of knowledge concerning past events, but this book sets forth in engaging, easy-to-read narrative, what was happening and when. It leaves no excuse for the sort of ignorance that is so pervasive in discussions of these issues. Yes, yes, sometimes the presentation can be tedious; but isn't that in the very nature of policy? Especially Middle East Policy?

Far from being an "Apologia-Pro-Vita-Sua" exercise, Secretary Feith frankly sets forth where and when he could have made better "calls." This, alone, is refreshing -- especially if one has slogged through, or is familiar with the vacuous, ego-driven volumes of Zinni and McClelland (Franks is another story).

All in all, this is The Essential Read on this subject. It should be on every serious history reader's shelf. It is an unparalleled single point of reference on the matter.

First, buy it. Don't necessarily read the whole thing, but own it and read from it. It's only $19, it will be a valuable reference, and Doug Feith is donating his procedes to veterans. The Lessons Learned are invaluable and applicable to leaders in many other realworld contexts.

The final chapter is a must read. Begin by reading the last two and a half chapters and then occasionally skim and read from other parts of the book (use the index to choose points of iterest to you).

He is overly critical of his collegues, and a bit whiney, tedious and longwinded. But his criticism is almost always justified.

His account of the run up to the Iraq war is by far the most accurate I've encountered since April 2003.

The New York Times and Washington Post have steadfastly refused to review this book, which is a strange form of flattery for Douglas J. Feith. Having printed numberless falsehoods and distortions about Feith, these guardians of the truth as they want it known, do not want the actual truth disseminated, the truth contained in "War & Decision".

It is indeed lamentable that so few will read this book. First, the subject is too serious for most people. They will continue to rely on newspapers, magazines, blogs and so on. Second, reading Feith's book requires dedication. While well written and eminently comprehensible by virtually any reader, it is packed with detail and detail to the uninterested becomes quickly tedious.

Fortunately, though the Times and Post have declined to review "War & Decision", many other honest people have - and the conclusion has been generally that Feith has written the first serious history of the Iraq war. It is comprehensive. It covers the planning, the execution, the aftermath. It is unsparing in praising the successes - and lamenting (as well as explaining) the failures.

Many myths and outright lies of the mainstream media and left-wing are exposed here and supported not only with profuse sourcing, but in some cases with copies of the actual documents as well. No anonymous sources as you would find in a Woodward book or a Times or Post article.

It will take dedication to work your way through the entire book and, frankly, I doubt that it is totally comprehensible with a single reading. This book invites scholarly researching and multiple readings. Considering the importance of the events to our era and the future, one can only hope that other similar histories - honest and detailed - will be forthcoming in the future from other participants in the events. But, in reality, I doubt that there will be many for few will be willing to hold as reflective a mirror to themselves as Feith does.

Feith tells us much. Colin Powell and the miserable Richard Armitage come badly here as they justifiably should. L. Paul Bremer is the object of much, far too polite, scorn. The generals, Rumsfeld, Bush himself, everyone is responsible in one way or another for the failures. More importantly, perhaps, Feith also identifies who should receive credit for the successes - and there were many with quite possibly more to come.

The student of history will note the differing environments in which policy was decided upon during WWII, Korea, Vietnam and now Iraq. Feith doesn't say so, but it is clear that the Congress of the United States over the years has intruded where it doesn't belong and has tied the hands of the current and future Presidents in terms of defending the nation. The mainstream media, firmly held in the hands of the left-wing, seems to hate the United States more than the nation's enemies.

The State Department, CIA and Department of Defense have become unelected branches of government, with entrenched anonymous bureaucrats who are unaccountable and unknown to the public, but who play a large and dangerous role in deciding or shaping policy. One need only look at the war that Feith describes between State, CIA and Defense.

I wish Feith had produced a second companion volume "Iraq For Dummies" or something along those lines so more people might be drawn into reading what he has to say. It is an adventure in truth.

Feith explodes the myths that there were no reasons to be concerned with Iraqi WMD efforts, that the war was about oil or George W. Bush's ego, that there was no post-occupation plan and so on. All of these points are explained and documented.

It is difficult, frankly, to write a concise review of this book. There is much information in its 600-plus pages (including notes) and since so few people will actually read it, there is a desire to spread as much of its content as possible.

The reality is that if you are concerned with the United States and its future and want to understand why invading Iraq was a brave and proper decision, read this book. It tells the whole story, warts and all.

Jerry

Ext.Lens Crafters
Day.
Feith:(High pitched nasal voice) --and then we shut down the rape rooms, thanks in no small part to a rather trenchant memo I floated over to the CPA stating just how morally objectionable I found them.

Urkle:(High pitched nasal voice)Gee D.F. you really layed down the law over there. Maybe someday I'll have an opportunity to wield such strength.
(clumsily knocks over display of sunglasses)

Feith:(high pitched nasal voice) Give it time Urk-man , give it time.
(clumsily knocks over display of sunglasses)

Like many of my neighbors, I scraped the faded American flag decal off my back window in ,oh, about 2005 when I became disgusted with the war in Iraq. Two questions kept popping up in my mind: "Why are we still in this?" and "Why didn't the planners see this mess coming?"

Like many, I had forgotten the original purpose of our national effort which I think Feith summarizes best in one of his chapter titles: "Change the Way We Live, Or Change the Way They Live". His explanation took care of my first question.

Feith's book takes long strides to answer my second question, and it was well worth my time. Without a doubt this book is from Feith's viewpoint, as it should be. As he recounts, others disagreed with his views. But even if you disagree with Feith's viewpoint, you should read this book. After reading it, I am grateful to Doug Feith for this book, not to mention his service to the nation.

This is the Ultimate account of the strategy and planning behind the Liberation of Iraq. The "Dark Winter" theoretical Exercise that took part a few months before 9/11 was a Eye opener ! once you read that, then it was the "Only Option" to take out Saddam Hussein . The Country just could not afford to take the chance that biological weapons could get into the hands of ANY Terrorist organization ...Look at the Bad guys who had residence in IRAQ ..Abu Nidal ...George Habash etc just to name a few !!!..all the liberal rhetoric about looking for Nuclear ICBM'S the so called WMD'S ???...Colin Powell did not go to the U.N and say anything about them he spoke mostly about Saddams "Biological "capabilty !! and now we find out that how serious it was ...The Nuclear capability was only in it's Infancy (Thanks to the Israeli's)..what was to stop him Giving AL QAEDA SMALLPOX!! THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY FRIEND...THEY WERE BOTH SUNNI.....ITS A NO BRAINER..
WE HAVE STILL NOT DISCOVERED WHO PLANTED "ANTHRAX" AROUND NEW YORK AND D.C ...SMALLPOX WOULD BE MUCH MORE DEVASTATING...

Finally, an honest, cogent telling of the thinking within the Bush Administration in the days following 9/11. Not everyone agreed on the proper response but a workable strategy was developed based on the information at hand. The logic seems inescapable - a major injury to the American people had been sustained and it was clear that the threat of further attacks was growing, not diminishing. The government of the US has a core responsibility to meet and prevent further attacks and that's what they did.

The tests of a report, whether in a book like this or in the day-to-day media coverage, are how well the story appears rational and in agreement with other knowledge of how the world works and, in the long run, how well can predictions based on those reports hold up to events. The media's version of events in real time never hung together and seemed to conflict with other understandings. The political opposition to the Bush Administration was clearly contra-factual in most respects. This book however makes its cases clearly and with logic and precision. It just makes sense, especially in light of current conditions.

Where I would take a differing position from Feith and Rumsfeld is in the matter of how important it was that Iraq's government would be democratic. Feith seems to have advocated, and still advocates, that something less than democracy in Iraq would serve the US well enough. The State Department did take a longer view although they over-romantized it in their arguments. I think Bush made the right decision to think the long game and push for a sound basis for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The book also highlights the importance of the next president's choice of Secretary of State. The prime task will be bending the bureaucracy to the will of the elected leadership and making it a team player. I read where Obama is floating Joe Biden for the job!

I won't gush over Mr. Feith's writing skills. I found it easy enough to read but he has a style honed in the writing of interoffice memos and PowerPoint presentations. Certainly good enough but his background shows.

If one reads only one book on post-9/11 decision-making, read this one. My respects (and thanks) to Mr. Feith!

From http://www.slate.com/id/2192696/

A Tale of Two Tell-Alls

IF YOU WANT TO READ A SERIOUS BOOK ABOUT THE INTERVENTION IN IRAQ, LOOK TO DOUGLAS FEITH.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 2, 2008, at 11:40 AM ET

When Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill defected from the Cabinet in 2002 and Ron Suskind told O'Neill's story of being surrounded by fools, Michael Kinsley observed that the president deserved all he got from the book. Anyone dumb enough to hire a fool like O'Neill in the first place ought to have known what to expect. So it goes with the ludicrous figure of Scott McClellan. I used to watch this mooncalf blunder his way through press conferences and think, Exactly where do we find such men? For the job of swabbing out the White House stables, yes. But for any task involving the weighing of words? Hah! Now it seems that he realizes, and with a shock at that, that there was a certain amount of "spin" or propaganda involved in his job description. Well, give the man a cigar. Beyond that, the book is effectively valueless to the anti-war camp since, as McClellan says of the president, "I consider him a fundamentally decent person, and I do not believe he or his White House deliberately or consciously sought to deceive the American people."
Bertrand Russell's principle of evidence against interest--if the pope has doubts about Jesus, his doubts are by definition more newsworthy than the next person's--doesn't really justify the ocean of coverage in which the talentless McClellan is currently so far out of his depth. For one thing, he doesn't supply anything that can really be called evidence. For another, having not noticed any "propaganda machine" at the time he was perspiring his way through his simple job, he has a clear mercenary interest in discovering one in retrospect.
If you want to read a serious book about the origins and consequences of the intervention in Iraq in 2003, you owe it to yourself to get hold of a copy of Douglas Feith's War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. As undersecretary of defense for policy, Feith was one of those most intimately involved in the argument about whether to and, if so, how to put an end to the regime of Saddam Hussein. His book contains notes made in real time at the National Security Council, a trove of declassified documentation, and a thoroughly well-organized catalog of sources and papers and memos. Feith has also done us the service of establishing a Web site where you can go and follow up all his sources and check them for yourself against his analysis and explanation. There is more of value in any chapter of this archive than in any of the ramblings of McClellan. As I write this on the first day of June, about a book that was published in the first week of April, the books pages of the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe have not seen fit to give Feith a review. An article on his book, written by the excellent James Risen for the news pages of the New York Times, has not run. This all might seem less questionable if it were not for the still-ballooning acreage awarded to Scott McClellan.

Feith was and is very much identified with the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, and he certainly did not believe that Saddam Hussein was ever containable in a sanctions "box." But he is capable of separating his views from his narrative, and this absorbing account of the interdepartmental and ideological quarrels within the Bush administration, on the Afghanistan and Guantanamo fronts as well as about Iraq, will make it difficult if not impossible for people to go on claiming that, for instance:
1. There was no rational reason to suspect a continuing Iraqi WMD threat. Feith's citations from the Duelfer Report alone are stunning in their implications.
2. That alternatives to war were never discussed and that the administration was out to "get" Saddam Hussein from the start.
3. That the advocates of regime change hoped and indeed planned to anoint Ahmad Chalabi as a figurehead leader in Baghdad.
4. That there was no consideration given to postwar planning.
It's also of considerable interest to learn that the main argument for adhering to the Geneva Conventions was made within the Pentagon and that the man who expressed the most prewar misgivings concerning Iraq was none other than Donald Rumsfeld. Feith doesn't deny that he has biases of his own. One of these concerns the widely circulated charge that his own Office of Special Plans was engaged in cherry-picking and stovepiping intelligence. Another is the criticism, made by most of the neocon faction, of Paul Bremer and the occupation regime that he ran in Baghdad. In all instances, however, Feith writes in an unrancorous manner and is careful to supply the evidence and the testimony and, where possible, the actual documentation, from all sides.
Without explicitly saying so, Feith makes a huge contribution to the growing case for considering the Central Intelligence Agency to be well beyond salvage. Its role as a highly politicized and bewilderingly incompetent body, disastrous enough in having left us under open skies before Sept. 11, 2001, became something more like catastrophic with the gross mishandling of Iraq. For these revelations alone, this book is well worth the acquisition. (I might add that, unlike McClellan, Feith is contributing all his earnings and royalties to charities that care for our men and women in uniform.)
I don't know Feith, but I can pay him two further compliments: When you read him on a detail with which you yourself are familiar, he is factually reliable (and it's not often that one can say that, believe me). And his prose style is easy, nonbureaucratic, dry, and sometimes amusing. If a book that was truly informative was called a "tell-all" by our media, then War and Decision would qualify. As it is, we seem to reserve that term for the work of bigmouths who have little, if anything, to impart.

Douglas Feith is as responsible as anyone for the disastrous decision to go to war in Iraq. He is also one of the people most responsible for the bungling of the occupation of Iraq by the USA.

Here's what his colleagues at Georgetown had to say about him: "Mr. Feith has been accused of ethical conflicts during his term in charge of Iraq reconstruction. More seriously, he has sought to diminish the importance of the Geneva Conventions and has defended the use of torture in a number of public writings and talks. He speaks regularly against the relevance of international law to conflicts in the Middle East and opposes diplomatic solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Perhaps most seriously, he was a central figure in the dissemination of false justifications for the illegal invasion of Iraq, behavior that many experts consider to constitute war crimes, and which the most sympathetic would have to think a highly dubious grounds for further employment."

I read the book and think it presents a persuasive and illuminating case for what went on during this period. It is heavily documented and corrects many errors in the popular media.

It is far more important than the "make some money" books based on emotion and a dearth of facts--like most of the negative reviews. One wonders whether those "reviewers" really read the book--few of them offer substantiated criticisms of what Feith reports.

This book contains a serious error that undermines its credibility.

On page 187, Feith writes that the "CIA's assessment of Iraq's support for terrorism was reinforced by postwars discoveries", and then goes on to claim that "among the terrorists whom Saddam harbored in Iraq were .. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi".

This is categorically false. The 2006 Senate Intelligence report, produced while Republicans controlled the intelligence committee, concluded that "postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye towards Zarqawi."

Here is the report. Perhaps Feith should make more of an effort to familiarize himself with its contents. Page 109 contains the excerpt I quoted:

[...]

It is true that *pre-war* assessments suggested that Saddam's regime may have tolerated Zarqawi's presence, but the postwar findings refuted this assessment. The language in his book clearly suggests that we still have good reason today to believe that Saddam harbored Zarqawi. This is completely false.

Even if he has some rationale for not accepting the Senate committee's conclusions, it is quite improper to flatly assert the contrary without even mentioning their findings.

I don't blame Feith for all the distortions and finger-pointing in this book. If I had hurt the country that badly, I don't know if I would have had the courage to come clean about it, either.

At my first duty station I helped take care of wounded service members who had bled in large part due to the incompetence of Feith and his cronies. Most of these guys looked too young to shave regularly, but they were brave enough to walk into the face of death if they thought it helped the country.

One of the few things they expected in return for their service was a moderate amount of competence. They also expected honesty. This book shows the author to have neither.

Logic and facts did not stop the Bush administration from looking for connections. Vice President Cheney promoted a theory that Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was really an Iraqi doppelganger who had assumed Yousef's identity. The administration circulated as authentic a raw intelligence report, apparently from an alcoholic and discredited agent, that had the September 11 mastermind, Mohamed Atta, meeting with an Iraqi embassy official in Prague in 2000. (There is no evidence that Atta went to Prague.) Not satisfied with the conclusions of the intelligence professionals at the CIA and his own Defense Intelligence Agency, Secretary Rumsfeld set up the Office of Special Plans, staffed by ideologically vetted political appointees and reporting to Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, with the mission of finding the link between Saddam and Al Qaeda that the intelligence professionals had supposedly missed.

President Bush simply asserted that Iraq was integral to the war on terror. He had no basis for his claim before the war, but he turned out to be prematurely correct. As a result of the American invasion, Sunni fundamentalist terrorists have flooded into Iraq. The Sunni Arab center of Iraq has become what Afghanistan was during the Taliban--an inaccessible region dominated by shadowy figures that now host foreign terrorists linked to Al Qaeda. By staging spectacular attacks, the terrorists have given Al Qaeda new strength and have helped generate thousands of new recruits. The foreign terrorists have done real damage to the prospect for a successful outcome in Iraq.

SOURCE: Peter Galbraith, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), page 80.

This volume is an attempt to cover the tracks of a gang of immoral, devious, vicious, neocons who fabricated the evidence and devised the strategy of propaganda used to propel the US into an illegal war. Feith was one of many back-room boys who fed a dim president the words that were used to sell the Iraq fiasco.
Watch him squirm and whine when interviewed by Jon Stewart.
In a proper and just World Feith would be made to stand before a Court and defend a charge of War Criminal.
Don't buy this book. He should not benefit from evil.

Just because I disagree with something (as I do with most of this fairytale), I'm not one to give it a bad rating. However, this was simply the most poorly written book I've read in ages. There are too many footnotes to distract, and it's hard to ignore the common liars techniques - An example would be repeating a story 4 times with extra details added each time.

If this book sells many copies, it'll be due to the "Nancy Grace effect" - wherein people want to see why something is so bad and will buy it to find out - Not unlike the movie "Plan 9 from Outer Space."

Wow this is an important definiton of managed major media news -- as well ad the agenda driven, risk adverse CIA and Department of State -- "Let's go along and get along, we will pay the consequences some other time" and "My mind is made up, don't confuse me with the facts.

I marvel at the detail of notes and memory of the author -- some times a bit more than needed to make the point. So, we are required to do a bit of digging through the meetings and conversations to get to the meat. But so be it.

The author also defines that one of the unfortunate points in the Iraq war coverage is the administration's lack of P.R. capabilities, leaving the public to the twisted interpretation of the initiation and conduct of the war to the major news media.

Fact #1: State Dept is competent & trustworthy (anonymous sources say so)
Fact #2: CIA is competent & trustworthy (anonymous sources say so)
Fact #3: DoD is secretive and incompetent (anonymous sources say so)
So how can anyone write a book that disproves those facts?
Well, actually, it turns out it's really really easy to disprove those facts.

The inside story of a defining moment of American character. Want to know what Colin Powel is really like? Want to know how much control the President really has over foreign policy? Read it.

At last, a sensible, informed history from one of the responsible participants in these events.

I think it is skilfully written and I found it a joy to read, not just for the language mastery and informed history, but for the careful clarity, perspective, humility and sensitive care in purpose. I think it is a valuable insight into some truly capable people in action; standing up, discerning and doing the right thing, and doing their best, even when its really challenging, even when there is voluminous opposition, and when the stakes are very, very high. People who will find a way to rise and meet a challenge no matter how high, and some who don't. I found it exciting and inspiring to read, and a wonderful example of how to behave well that I will treasure.

Clearly, the integrity of the free world was in some fine hands here.

I loved it. Thanks.

I have now finished the book but the number of negative reviews posted here still suggests that half a review by someone who has read the book carefully was better than what else is on offer so far. I have not altered my comments since reading the rest but have a few additional observations. This is a personal story of Feith's career in the DoD, before and during the Iraq War. He comments on contacts with others but he does not offer general statements or philosophy about matters that he is not personally familiar with. He does, however, offer some conclusions at the end about what was done well and what the mistakes were. He is honest about identifying his opinions and what he believes to be facts. This is a source document for the history that will be eventually written, hopefully fairly, about this period. I marked a number of sections because they impact the mythology of the war as illustrated in the other reviews and comments.

He is critical of Colin Powell, and especially, Richard Armitage, who seemed not to be as concerned with the post-Saddam situation yet who resisted anyone else treading on their turf. His first skirmish was in 2002 (page 173) when he attempted to set up an office, called Office of Strategic Influence, to counteract the Islamist propaganda about why violent jihad was becoming a threat. Some went back to the old "root causes" excuse yet the Saudi hijackers of 9/11 were upper middle class educated men. His effort came to naught when the office was attacked in a strategic leak from within the administration, followed by a sensational NY Times article that accused them of planning to spread false information. Another similar article was printed recently about another DoD effort to reach Muslims with honest information. In his conclusions, he points out that we still do not have any serious effort to counter jihadist rhetoric.

He refutes (page 197) another charge, prominent in another review here, that Chalabi was a "creature" of DoD and Feith was his "sponsor." One would think that the fact the Chalabi has been a major official in the Iraq government would put to rest that old CIA smear but it lives on on Amazon pages. He tells the story of CIA incompetence and the firestorm created when a 20-year DIA expert on his staff wrote a critical briefing (page 265) pointing out how CIA had ignored links between Saddam and al Qeada before the war. On page 278, he recounts another example of State's conflicted thinking where they advise against an "occupation" but their antipathy toward the "externals" (exiles like Chalabi) leads them to plan for a "many year" occupation and rule before an Iraqi government can be set up. The insurgency gained force from resentment at that policy. He points out with some understandable satisfaction that the "externals," including the Kurds who CIA predicted would not be accepted by other Iraqis, constituted almost the entire interim government that took over from Bremer and the CPA in 2004.

He has some mixed opinions about Paul Bremer, pointing out how Bremer took too much authority, resisting any consultation with Rumsfeld, his superior in the chain-of-command, and made a number of serious mistakes. The most serious one was excluding the Iraqis from governing their own country for as long as he did. The insurgency might never have gained the support of so much of the Sunni population had the "Occupation" not been so obvious.

I don't say this is the last word and Feith seems to resist many generalizations. This is an objective account and very valuable. He has his deficiencies. The most serious is the fact the he never mentions the tribal nature of the Iraqi society. This was a major mistake in the early history of our post-Saddam attempts to govern the country and fight the insurgency.

I have read many books on this subject and the ones I respect, beginning with The Threatening Storm by Kenneth Pollack, all mostly agree. For example, another review here mentions Bob Baer and his book about Aghanistan and Gary Berntsen and "Jawbreaker" also about Afghanistan. I have read both books and Baer, in particular, dismisses his CIA bosses pointing out the lack of language skills in CIA. This lack, and the ignorance of the culture, was a major factor in the CIAs poor performance in Iraq and is discussed by Feith. He is chiefly critical of CIA implying that their information was better sourced than it was. They concealed how few assets they had in Iraq (none) and led others astray who placed more faith in their reports than was warranted. Better to confess ignorance than mislead.

The dissent, like some of the other reviews here, comes with plenty of invective and obscenity but few facts. I still think this is an important book that anyone trying to understand our policy on fighting militant Islam should read. I'm sure Feith is evening a few scores here but he marshals lots of facts and refers to other documents to support his conclusions. This is an essential book, not least because he is such a controversial figure. The abuse he has taken from partisans is outrageous. At one point (page 388) he mentions a particularly odious slur attributed to Colin Powell by Bob Woodward in which Feith's office in the DoD is described as "a Gestapo office" ignoring the fact that Feith's father was a Holocaust survivor. Powell denied making the remark and apologized to Feith, whom he had known for 20 years, but the tone was set.