The authors have done an exhaustive resource that provides the reader with most of the background for the preparation of the invasion of Iraq and its subsequent developments.

A very interesting book.

"Having failed to prepare for post-combat burdens, undertaken the war with the minimal acceptable forces, and canceled the deployment of badly needed reinforcements, the Bush Administration compounded the problem by disbanding the Iraqi army, putting more than 300,000 armed men on the streets, and denying local elections that would have allowed the Iraqis a measure of control over their own affairs."

Not to mention the oversold and flat wrong reasons we went to war in the first place.

The men who wrote these words are Lt. General Bernard E. Trainor (Marine Corps, ret.) and Michael R. Gordon, chief military correspondent for the New York Times. No knee-jerk Bush-bashers, the authors also wrote what is considered to be the definitive history of the first Persian Gulf War, a book Dick Cheney recommends to his friends. I'm surprised to report that a definitive history of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, is here in our hands. Already. And the war is still going on.

Written with military precision but with little jargon, Cobra II swoops and dives between the blinding dust of desert warfare and faraway, high-level, secure conference rooms in Washington DC and coalition headquarters in Kuwait. It's the difference between flying at a strategic 50,000 feet and rolling with the grunts in the 2nd Brigade Combat Team that surprised everyone by showing up in downtown Baghdad before they were supposed to. Reading Cobra II, you've got to love the American soldier. These are the men and women who arrived in Nasiriyah, short on sleep, having been told to prepare for parades with the city fathers, but are instead confronted with the Fedayeen and their rocket propelled grenades and AK-47s, the "insurgents" of today. US soldiers and field commanders adapted and did their job. The top brass, primarily Donald Rumsfeld, General Tommy Franks and George W. Bush, did not.

Stronger at the 50,000 foot level, as when telling the tale of the immense and impressive planning effort that began in late 2001 or when describing the battles between field commanders and Franks, the authors present, in well documented and annotated detail the invasion's story and the increasingly evident five major strategic blunders on the part of the war's planners and managers. "Rumsfeld and his generals misread their foe by viewing the invasion of Iraq largely as a continuation of the Persian Gulf War....the CIA was not only wrong on WMD, but failed to identify the importance of the Fedayeen." Or "the troops' training and the leadership in the field and at the allied land command paid off. But the American war plan was never adjusted on high. Tommy Franks never acknowledged the enemy he faced, nor did he comprehend the nature of the war he was directing." It's evident, that despite Franks' later claim of credit for the winning war strategy, he got us to Baghdad but that's about it. Now what?

Marine Lieutenant Therral "Shane" Childers, veteran of the first Gulf War, was leading a platoon in the early hours of the invasion in southern Iraq. Across the desert, a single, tan Toyota pickup truck sped towards them. The Marines held their fire since they were told to engage Iraqi armor, not civilians in pickups. The Iraqis raised their AK-47s and sprayed the Marines with bullets, one of which killed Childers. He was the first American soldier killed in enemy action. Prophetically, he was killed by insurgents, not by Saddam's Republican Guard. Too bad we didn't pick up on that.

Read this book. It's your duty to be well-informed.

Amazing book full of very detailed accounts of the planning of the Iraq war and actual battles during the invasion. Stories in this book that i have not heard anywhere else. Being an Iraq war vet myself, I really enjoyed this book.

An academic asked to review a ponderous tome of literary criticism penned one of the the best short reviews ever, when he said, "This book weighs 17 pounds." The problem with Cobra II is not that it is inaccurate in its tale of how the easy military conquest of Iraq turned into a complicated and sticky insurgency. It is not wrong in its judgement that those in the field increasingly "got it" while their superiors in Washington did not. It is that the tale is told in such overwhelming detail and in such a boring way that slogging through it becomes a chore instead of a pleasure. A look at Fiasco, which is nearly equally detailed, shows how a similar narrative, fair but impassioned, keeps the reader turning pages.

In this book Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor did a great job of war journalism, I must admit it withour hesitation. Most of all I liked their professional objectivity. I suggest reading it if you want to know the truth about Iraq war. It will answer many of the questions you might have regarding American involvement in Iraq, Afghanistan, the war with international terrorism, American inner politics, etc. This book is written by experts in their fields. If you want to know the truth, this book is for you. Also worth your attention is Infidel and While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within

For those interested in an accurate account of how we got to where we are in Iraq (not necessarily a critique) this book is a must read. The writing style is compelling and the facts the authors gather keep the book engaging throughout. The authors address the war from the strategic level (toward the beginning) to the tactical level of force movements toward the end. They address the circumstances that put us into the war including a few interesting theories I had not yet read about in other books (i.e. Saddam Hussein's method of deterrence that pushed the U.S. into combat). However, the majority of what is written in this book is supported by other works I've read - only this book brings it all together into one source.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in a history of what led us into the war in Iraq and how the initial movements unfolded. A must read for anyone seriously interested in how we have arrived where we are.

This is a well-written book, on par with "Black Hawk Down," but both books were somewhat challenging to absorb due to the vast number of names and locations. Reads like standard military history, not especially zippy but not a Snooze-O-Rama, either.

The number of soldiers lost due to friendly fire is saddening. Despite many instances of successful collaboration between military branches, the ones with friendly fire make you think that the Marines should always be in one area and the Army in another if only to avoid command and communication issues.

Interestingly, Tommy Franks is not painted as the best of generals in this book. Also of interest, successful soldiers from the Gulf War didn't seem to have advanced very far by the time the War in Iraq rolled around. What's a guy gotta do to get promoted in the military?

I would love to have read this book and written an actual review. However, Amazon did not complete delivery of my purchase, for exact reasons unknown to me, and refunded my $$$. Therefore, I have not read this book yet. Needless to say, I was unhappy with this transaction.
Sorry.

Wow!

I decided to join a military history book club recently to connect with people who enjoy history as much as I do. I studied some on the subject for my history MA years ago, but it was primarily that of the ancient world: the snafu's of Rameses II, the tactics of Thutmose III, the innovations of Philip of Macedonia--Alexander's Daddy--and the Roman Army Team vs the Carthaginian Navy Team in the Punic Wars. That sort of thing. I knew I'd be confronted with people interested in modern history, so I gritted my teeth and purchased my first book for the club: Cobra II. It is an account of the Iraq war. From the perspective of an ancient historian, this not only modern history with a capital M, this is today's news! I was amazed at the quality of the book. The authors are competent in the subject, have done their research well, and write like they were composing adventure fiction! I can tell you after having read my share, this is not often the case with volumes on ancient military history.

Having done research for my master's paper, I can appreciate the magnitude of the authors` task in writing this book. Generally speaking much of the work for an ancient history paper has been done by chance. There are only just so many sources that have survived from the distant past, and one copes by milking from them every smidge of information possible. The modern historian has just the opposite problem. The closer in time you get, the more prolific becomes your data until you're nearly buried alive in it. Not only is your material documentation overwhelming, there is often a considerable number of living sources and their perspectives on the topic as well. Winnowing out the wheat from the chaff from all of this can be a major undertaking as can be putting it into coherent form for an uninitiated reader--like myself.

Gordon and Gen. Trainor do a superb job. They have selected sources from the official documentation, from personal interviews with participants, from personal diaries of participants, even from individuals on the opposing side. The notes at the back show the range of living sources, which includes military and none military--though mostly the former--and regular troops and noncommissioned staff as well as officers. It is very thorough, and the notes show that

To a certain degree their job in arranging their material was done for them by the chain of events that they hoped to describe. Their primary task was to keep the reader on top of the various threads of a complex series of events without becoming pedantic and boring them to death. I'd say they did a good job. I did not expect to enjoy the story but was mesmerized from the first chapter and read the book in a couple of days: all 692 pages, including notes and acknowledgements--as a historian it's always important to know where the information was obtained and what the biases are. This readability arose from the very individual and personal perspective of the combatants, who verbally relive their experiences on the front for the reader, and from discriptions and personal histories of various individuals who subsequently died performing their duty. The reader gets to know the actual soldier in the field and identify with their experiences, all of which makes for a very engrossing narrative.

The lead up to the decision was exceptionally well written. Probably at no other point in the story does it become obvious to what degree war is a political entity and to what extent information modeling for the public is involved. Certainly it is obvious that politicians were inherently involved in this war from the beginning and contributed in no small amount to some of the issues that arose in the aftermath. I wanted to shake some of them till their teeth rattled.

While I don't believe the military should be allowed to be a mysterious and clandestine power in society or given free reign to do whatever they please--one can see what that does historically--it is a professional standing body with a recognized place in modern society that is managed by experienced personnel. If you decide to send it off on a mission, you need to listen to the advice of its leadership. My impression is that some of the politicians involved would probably try to tell their neurosurgeon how to go about removing their brain tumor--and if you think dealing with an aggressive general is a tough deal, try pushing around a neurosurgeon!

It was primarily the preconceived and untutored notions of political individuals that created the situation we must contend with in "post war" Iraq. There seems to have been a total lack of understanding of Middle Eastern history and culture or of the historical relationships between the various players in it. This is appalling given that there are resources out there to supply the knowledge and that even a brief stay in the area would clarify the situation for the clueless. I worked in Saudi Arabia for about 13 months and lived in Egypt for 6, and I could have predicted it without any political savoir faire whatsoever.

Probably the most important issues that the authors point out is the degree to which modern warfare is no different from any other kind. The biggest problems arose from misinformation, disinformation and lack of information, from a break in or lack of communication between groups working "together," sometimes within feet of one another, and from malfunctions or lack of equipment. Logistics more than strategy was the Achilles Heel of the entire operation and chance/fate had a huge part in the events, just as they have in the past. It is this set of contingencies that have many historians of pervious wars thinking "what might have happened if...."

Important too is the picture of the mindset and personality of professional military personnel. I would be terrified and totally unwilling to go into a danger zone, but I'm an admitted coward, plain and simple. To discover that the professional soldier not only doesn't mind it but feels positively "left out" when not on the battle field is amazing to me.

I would say, however, that the authors definitely have an agenda and perspective of their own, and that this should be remembered. I look forward to reading the point of view of someone who feels that the political establishment had the right idea after all. I'm certain it will be enlightening.

A terrific volume, well written and thoroughly engrossing--but for balance and a fuller understanding, I'd still recommend getting another point of view.

This is a review of the CD Audio version which is contained on 8 CDs.

From an audio point of view it was a very good production, with very good narration and fairly seamless abridgement. Overall a good quality package.

The material itself was also very good. I was looking for some overall coverage of the conflict, inclduing the major engagements, and what some of the majors issues were. The audio book did a good job of addressing this.

What I found also very interesting was the insight into the US national security apparatus - how it worked, or didn't work - and how it suffers from the same sort of problems as any major organisations containing strong personalities.

The book provided an excellent level of detail of the lead up to the conflict - detailed without being boring - and I found the audio book to be compelling listening.

There was a good description of major engagements and very good summary of the lessons learned from the conflict. The book certainly highlight the difference between warfare and stability operations. Highly recommended.

This is a fabulous book by two serious people. Like most books of the genre, the text is replete with detailed references to military units and other nomenclature that would leave a retired Colonel nodding sagely while leaving the layperson scratching his head at times. Not a criticism so much as a cautionary note.

This is a must read book for someone who wants a comprehensive, top-to-bottom understanding of the invasion of Iraq.

If you look at the references of this book, it is dozens of pages listing all of the first-hand interviews that were done for this book. Everyone from GEN McKiernan down to company commanders were interviewed and it shows in the incredible top to bottom detail. This book comes down very hard on many people and shows how much of the problems we face in Iraq today are of our own making. It is frustrating beyond belief to read about the micromanaging of Donald Rumsfeld or the idiocy of then MG Ray Odierno. Then there are some fascinating accounts of the individual battles from the sergeants and company grade officers. You see how many people tried to do the right thing or actions that would have greatly helped the US and Iraqis.

Michael Gordon's and Bernard Trainor's "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq" tells the story of Operation Iraqi Freedom from the initial planning stages through the summer of 2003. This is a very comprehensive book and based, in part, on a secret report created by the Joint Forces Command after the war. Although this book has generally received fawning reviews, I had very mixed feelings as I read the book.

As others have noted, the authors tell a comprehensive, thorough story of the entire campaign. They usually offer good analysis and (at times) good criticisms, supported by the facts. However, their criticisms often outshine the better parts of the book.

The authors are extremely critical of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, General Tommy Franks, and many others who planned and executed the invasion. The authors criticize the planners primarily for ignoring the need to invade with a much larger force. While they are certainly justified to be critical of a war that was supposed to last a few months and is now dragging into its fifth year, their criticisms form the thesis of the book and become a repeated mantra that permeates the entire narrative. This really detracts from the story they are trying to tell and often tell well.

The authors' treatment is not even-handed and their critical outlook clouds the story of the invasion. The authors focus so much on the negatives of the initial campaign to capture Baghdad that they ignore what an immensely successful campaign it was -- no one expected the Iraqi regime to fall in four short weeks. However, reading their narrative one would think that the American forces (the authors ignore the British forces) made mistake after mistake and were lucky to even reach Baghdad. Their story lacks the perspective that even the best-laid plans can be thrown away once contact is made with the enemy. The story they ignored was that, like all military operations, Operation Iraqi Freedom, was fraught with mix-ups, screw-ups, miscalculations, blunders, and other problems - Clausewitzian friction. However, the American forces overcame all of this and waged an extremely successful land campaign.

One other negative was that the book lacked a real unity of approach to describing the war. The authors attempted to narrate the war from the "big-picture," but then, during the actual fighting, spent a lot of time describing the blow-by-blow and minute-by-minute actions of the fighting at the platoon, company, and battalion level. The story was too detailed when they took this approach to selective engagements. While authors such as Max Hastings may be able to pull this off as part of their larger narrative, it was cumbersome and distracting when Gordon and Trainor tried to.

Two other criticism: 1) This book completely ignored the British actions in and around Basra; and 2) This book didn't "complete" the story and take the story to a logical stopping point (such as the Sadr uprising in April 2004). The authors just trailed off in the summer of 2003 (they didn't even cover the UN bombing that summer) instead of showing how one of their major criticism - lack of sufficient troops - could have made a major difference in late 2003 and early 2004.

Overall, though, this is a very good book for anyone interested in the military planning and history of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Despite the many problems listed above, the book is thorough (if not even-handed) and full of good information.

this has been the best book writen (in my opinion) about the planning of the invasion of iraq and the first year of the occupation. i really think it is critical of everyone involved (republicans, democrats, civilians, media, military and even the iraqis) and accurately shows how all sides misjudged the situation.

Three of my CDs had dropouts; not enough to stop them from playing. I looked at the last CD and it has several scratches on it. [I just opened the case]. Seems like Random House contracted with the absolute cheapest supplier for their products.



The content (book) is very complete in a depressing way. Only the Captains and Majors seem to come out as heroes; the GOs seem to suffer from Careerism. During the runup to the war Tommy Franks was obviously "played" by Rummey; but he seemed to be easy pickings. Franks theatrical yawning during the discussion of casualties [with British officers present and immediately after a fratricide incident where U.S. killed British soldiers] is especially endearing.



Is it January 2008 yet?

Three of my CDs had dropouts; not enough to stop them from playing. I looked at the last CD and it has several scratches on it. [I just opened the case]. Seems like Random House contracted with the absolute cheapest supplier for their products.

The content (book) is very complete in a depressing way. Only the Captains and Majors seem to come out as heroes; the GOs seem to suffer from Careerism. During the runup to the war Tommy Franks was obviously "played" by Rummey; but he seemed to be easy pickings. Franks theatrical yawning during the discussion of casualties [with British officers present and immediately after a fratricide incident where U.S. killed British soldiers] is especially endearing.

Is it January 2008 yet?

I really enjoyed this book and it's content. Offered an inside look at what really happened behind the sceens before and after the invasion.

COBRA II: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE INVASION AND OCCUPATION OF IRAQ is finally in paperback, offering the national best-selling story to collections looking for affordable lending copies of one of the top books on the Iraq War. Unique access to still-secret documents blend with interviews with top field commanders and reviews of the army's own policies and procedures to make for a vivid, definitive title which still stands heads and shoulders above the many competing books on the topic.

Of the 82 reviews here so far, only 4 are less that 3 stars. That is because this is a tremendous, if at times plodding, history of the Iraq War. It kept my interest because of the description of the battles and the analysis of the people. It is must reading for everyone who wants a clear understanding of how we got where we are.

Cobra II is a dense, informative research project focused on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, Ret., invested their time and energy to bring to light the highs and lows of military strategy in the rarely seen day-to-day operations of the Oval Office and Pentagon.

Gordon is the chief military correspondent for The New York Times, where he has worked since 1985. He has covered the Iraq War, the American intervention in Afghanistan, the Kosovo conflict, the Russian war in Chechnya, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the American invasion of Panama.

General Trainor, a retired three-star Marine Corps general, served as the military correspondent for the New York Times from 1986 to 1990. As a military consultant for ABC News, he currently serves as the Director of National Security Programs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and writes a weekly column on military affairs for the New York Times news service.

Pulled from multiple interviews with high-level officials and military commanders, as well as publicized accounts from the news headlines, Gordon and Trainor flesh out the reasons why the Bush administration chose to invade Iraq and the consequences of transforming military strategies the Pentagon had in place since the Civil War into a leaner ground force that was supposed to be as effective as a larger one.

Regardless of what the reader's politics or beliefs are about the Iraq war, Cobra II reveals that when history repeats itself how egos, suppositions and war rarely result in a positive outcome.

Armchair Interviews says: Worth the effort to read for the average citizen to become more informed.

Cobra II is a dense, informative research project focused on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E. Trainor, Ret., invested their time and energy to bring to light the highs and lows of military strategy in the rarely seen day-to-day operations of the Oval Office and Pentagon.

Gordon is the chief military correspondent for The New York Times, where he has worked since 1985. He has covered the Iraq War, the American intervention in Afghanistan, the Kosovo conflict, the Russian war in Chechnya, the 1991 Persian Gulf War, and the American invasion of Panama.

General Trainor, a retired three-star Marine Corps general, served as the military correspondent for the New York Times from 1986 to 1990. As a military consultant for ABC News, he currently serves as the Director of National Security Programs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and writes a weekly column on military affairs for the New York Times news service.

Pulled from multiple interviews with high-level officials and military commanders, as well as publicized accounts from the news headlines, Gordon and Trainor flesh out the reasons why the Bush administration chose to invade Iraq and the consequences of transforming military strategies the Pentagon had in place since the Civil War into a leaner ground force that was supposed to be as effective as a larger one.

Regardless of what the reader's politics or beliefs are about the Iraq war, Cobra II reveals that when history repeats itself how egos, suppositions and war rarely result in a positive outcome.

Armchair Interviews says: Worth the effort to read for the average citizen to become more informed.

Two of the biggest mistakes listed in the Epilogue are the misreading of the foe and the failure to adapt to the battlefield and lot of blame for that rests with General Tommy Franks. Could it be that these two big mistakes have been finally corrected? There are some early signs that the surge in Baghdad is working. Let us keep our fingers crossed. Unfortunately the war did not end with the publication of this excellent book.

This is an interesting book. Anyone who is interested in an alternative to the right wing talk radio and tv news should seriously consider checking out the Thom Hartmann radio show opposite Rush Limbaugh weekdays at: thomhartmann dot com / showlisten.shtml

Whether democrat, republican, or indepedent, so many of the facts out there are completely ignored by the mainstream media and talk shows. This show is one strong example of an examination of the facts regardless of your political affiliation. I am not affiliated with the show in any way, just struck by the facts so many seem to ignore.

This is an interesting book. Anyone who is interested in an alternative to the right wing talk radio and tv news should seriously consider checking out the Thom Hartmann radio show opposite Rush Limbaugh weekdays at: thomhartmann dot com / showlisten.shtml

Whether democrat, republican, or indepedent, so many of the facts out there are completely ignored by the mainstream media and talk shows. This show is one strong example of an examination of the facts regardless of your political affiliation. I am not affiliated with the show in any way, just struck by the facts so many seem to ignore.

This is a very good book, but its not going to be for everyone. Its a passive but fair accounting of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Nobody comes out of the book looking very good. And rather than a single flaw, the book unintentionally makes the case that the entire process broke down from pre-war planning to execution to the postwar situation.

Rumsfeld failed because he is a bad manager and a bad leader. Rather than setting parameters and letting his people come up with a plan, he forced himself and his assistants into the process. The military plan became a plan driven by his political considerations rather than strictly military ones. At the top level of the military, the JCS was shown to be powerless to influence events given that power in the military had been devolved to what amounted to regional commanders like Tommy Franks.

Tommy Franks come across as one of the worst people in the book. For all his talk and all his bluster, he didn't stand up for himself or for the military. And once the war started, he ran away from it and his responsibilities into retirement as fast as he could. Franks was the one person in the chain of command who could have stood up to Rumsfeld, but when the time came he didn't do it.

The war plan itself was a strategic and tactical failure. The book shows a plan that was focused on destroying the Iraqi military and state rather than taking control of the country. In page after page, it can be seen that the insurgency didn't start after the war. The insurgency was the war since day one. "Victory" was ultimately achieved by bypassing or ignoring the real war. The US could go anywhere in the country and apply force at any particular point, but it could "hold" nothing. When Baghdad was reached, they lacked the force to control the city and all law broke down as a result. In the end, the error has always been in pursing a policy in Iraq without the necessary forces to make it happen. The political leadership of the US (from Bush downward) wanted a political result in Iraq but didn't want to pay the price. Every time this has happened in American History, its led to disaster from the burning of washington in the war of 1812 to Vietnam.

The actual fighting of the war comes alive in the book as nowhere else. For all the embedded reporters and coverage of the war, few places other than this book can explain what really happened. It was not the walk-over people think it was and the initial phase of the war should have caused a whole lot of deep rethinking to go on within the miltiary about future wars. But that has not happened.

As far as the postwar period, this isn't the best book for looking at that phase of the operation. It goes through the obvious things like how various ill-considered political ideas of neo-cons in washington turned into policy in Iraq which fueled the growth of the insurgency.

As far as the insurgency goes, the book is good in showing that it existed since the first day of the war, that it had nothing to do with international terrorism and that it had little to with Saddam Hussein once the weapons were passed out. The political people at the Defense Department believed US troops would be greeted as liberators and they even prepared for whole units of the Iraqi army to come over to the US side. When confronted with that not happening and with a rather obvious insurgency in Iraq, they chose to deny reality. They, like many in America, took a small crowd cheering the bringing down of a statue of Saddam in the middle of Baghdad by an American military unit who put a US flag up to celebrate as proof that their delusions were the truth.

The conclusions I took from the book is that the US had a bad plan in Iraq that was never going to work because the resources available were not what was required. That the plan was bad because Rumsfeld and the civilian leadership at the Pentagon put political objectives above military reality and that the uniformed military (Tommy Franks) did not stand up for itself when the pressure came. Finally, the insurgency in Iraq existed from day-one of the war and that for political reasons, the decision makers in government preferred to pretend it did not exist.

Its important that people read this book, start understanding the military lessons of the war and put aside all the political delusions about the war. What the book says to me about the current situation is the same as the start of the war. The US has two choices: We either put in the necessary force to win or we get out. The politicians non-choice of saying we can't afford to put in the forces to win and that we can't politically afford to get out is always a false choice.

This is a very good book, but its not going to be for everyone. Its a passive but fair accounting of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Nobody comes out of the book looking very good. And rather than a single flaw, the book unintentionally makes the case that the entire process broke down from pre-war planning to execution to the postwar situation.

Rumsfeld failed because he is a bad manager and a bad leader. Rather than setting parameters and letting his people come up with a plan, he forced himself and his assistants into the process. The military plan became a plan driven by his political considerations rather than strictly military ones. At the top level of the military, the JCS was shown to be powerless to influence events given that power in the military had been devolved to what amounted to regional commanders like Tommy Franks.

Tommy Franks come across as one of the worst people in the book. For all his talk and all his bluster, he didn't stand up for himself or for the military. And once the war started, he ran away from it and his responsibilities into retirement as fast as he could. Franks was the one person in the chain of command who could have stood up to Rumsfeld, but when the time came he didn't do it.

The war plan itself was a strategic and tactical failure. The book shows a plan that was focused on destroying the Iraqi military and state rather than taking control of the country. In page after page, it can be seen that the insurgency didn't start after the war. The insurgency was the war since day one. "Victory" was ultimately achieved by bypassing or ignoring the real war. The US could go anywhere in the country and apply force at any particular point, but it could "hold" nothing. When Baghdad was reached, they lacked the force to control the city and all law broke down as a result. In the end, the error has always been in pursing a policy in Iraq without the necessary forces to make it happen. The political leadership of the US (from Bush downward) wanted a political result in Iraq but didn't want to pay the price. Every time this has happened in American History, its led to disaster from the burning of washington in the war of 1812 to Vietnam.

The actual fighting of the war comes alive in the book as nowhere else. For all the embedded reporters and coverage of the war, few places other than this book can explain what really happened. It was not the walk-over people think it was and the initial phase of the war should have caused a whole lot of deep rethinking to go on within the miltiary about future wars. But that has not happened.

As far as the postwar period, this isn't the best book for looking at that phase of the operation. It goes through the obvious things like how various ill-considered political ideas of neo-cons in washington turned into policy in Iraq which fueled the growth of the insurgency.

As far as the insurgency goes, the book is good in showing that it existed since the first day of the war, that it had nothing to do with international terrorism and that it had little to with Saddam Hussein once the weapons were passed out. The political people at the Defense Department believed US troops would be greeted as liberators and they even prepared for whole units of the Iraqi army to come over to the US side. When confronted with that not happening and with a rather obvious insurgency in Iraq, they chose to deny reality. They, like many in America, took a small crowd cheering the bringing down of a statue of Saddam in the middle of Baghdad by an American military unit who put a US flag up to celebrate as proof that their delusions were the truth.

The conclusions I took from the book is that the US had a bad plan in Iraq that was never going to work because the resources available were not what was required. That the plan was bad because Rumsfeld and the civilian leadership at the Pentagon put political objectives above military reality and that the uniformed military (Tommy Franks) did not stand up for itself when the pressure came. Finally, the insurgency in Iraq existed from day-one of the war and that for political reasons, the decision makers in government preferred to pretend it did not exist.

Its important that people read this book, start understanding the military lessons of the war and put aside all the political delusions about the war. What the book says to me about the current situation is the same as the start of the war. The US has two choices: We either put in the necessary force to win or we get out. The politicians non-choice of saying we can't afford to put in the forces to win and that we can't politically afford to get out is always a false choice.

A detailed account of the decisions and the decision makers that led to the Iraq (Bush) war. So far, the best book on how the United States became involved in this mess.

A very descriptive and detailed presentation of the pre invasion and invasion of Iraq.

I enjoyed it immensely.

This book is a must read if you are really interested in learning about how we got to where we are in Iraq. The first 170 pages are dry, but there are many, many nuggets within this reconstruction of our war planning prior to the invasion. This is followed by a riveting narrative of the military's drive to Baghdad (at least I found it so - the difficulties of command and control, the vagaries of military intelligence, the valor of our soldiers, the egos and different perspectives that compete - it's all there). If you have some familiarity with the military, it will bring back to you all the difficulties of planning/executing. If you are unfamiliar with military operations, this work is an excellent depiction. Also suggest reading Fiasco - together, these two books cover how we got to war and what it looked like from the beginning (which wasn't much different from now). As an aside, Cobra II does not cover the occupation of Iraq except initially.

I came upon this book, looking for a basic historical view of the Iraq invasion.

Not the insurgency, not analysis, and definitely not American Patriotic hype. I got what I wanted, a straight forward blow by blow account of the invasion. The details on the war were good, and provided both high level strategy accounts, as well as specific information on what happened at every stage of the war.

While that's all great, I did find some deficiencies:

1. Like most journalist books, the book focused only on those events that the author was aware of, or gave any importance to. So the northern and western invasions of Iraq were given 10 pages each. Obviously, more information on those aspects of the war will require further reading.

2. The first 100 pages were on the political leadup to the war. I didn't find the information very thorough or useful. If I need the politics, then I'll delve into Bob Woodwards many books that deal only with the US political side of the invasion.

3. The lack of lists, charts, diagrams and appendixes was almost delibitating. There are references to over 1000 people in the book, and trying to keep track of everyone was impossible. I was forced to establish my own list of who was who, and where.

Conclusion: I find this a good book as a primer on the invasion. With this book, I imagine I'll need to read up on several more books on the invasion to get an even picture. Including one from the Iraqi perspective.