The Gamble
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Amazon Best of the Month, February 2009: Anyone who read Fiasco, Thomas E. Ricks's superb, bestselling account of the Iraq War through 2005, and has followed the war since has likely noticed that many of the heroes of that devastating book, the officers and analysts who seemed to understand what was going wrong in the war when the rest of the political and military leadership didn't, have since been put in charge, starting with General David Petraeus, the cerebral officer who took command in Iraq and led what became known as "the surge." Ricks, the senior Pentagon correspondent at the Washington Post, has stayed on the story, and he returns with his second book on the war, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. As good (and influential) as Fiasco was, The Gamble may be even better, telling the remarkable story of how a few people inside and outside the Pentagon pushed the new strategy through against opposition across the political spectrum and throughout the military top brass, and then, even more remarkably, how soldiers put the difficult plan into action on the ground and managed to sharply reduce the chaotic violence in Iraq. But the story doesn't end there, and Ricks's bracing conclusion--that the American military, like it or not, will still have a necessary role in Iraq for years to come--makes it likely that this may not be the last book we have from him on the subject. --Tom Nissley
Questions for Thomas E. Ricks
Amazon.com: The Gamble is the history of what has become known as "the surge." What do you think the public understands about the surge, and how does that compare with what you've seen from up close? Thomas E. Ricks: I think there are two big misunderstandings about the surge. The first is that the surge "worked." Yes, it did, in that it improved security. But it was meant to do more than that. It was supposed to create a breathing space in which Iraqi political leaders could move forward. In fact, as General Odierno says in the book, some used the elbow room to move backward. The bottom line is that none of the basic problems facing Iraq have been addressed--the relationship between Shia, Sunni and Kurds, or who leads the Shias, or the status of the disputed city of Kirkuk, or the sharing of oil revenue. The second misunderstanding is just how difficult the surge was. People back here seem to think that 30,000 troops were added and everything calmed down. In fact, the first six months of the surge, from January through early July 2007, were the toughest months of the war. When troops moved out of their big bases and into little outposts across Baghdad, they got hammered by bombs and rockets. It took some time before being among the people began to lead to improved security, and during that time, a lot of top American officials in Iraq weren't sure the new approach was working. General Petraeus says in the book that he looks back on that time as a "horrific nightmare." Amazon.com: Let's start with that second point. Because The Gamble is in many ways the story of a remarkable success: a minority of officers and analysts who pushed through a new plan for the war against opposition across the political spectrum and throughout the military leadership, and then, even more impressively, soldiers who put the plan into action on the ground and managed to stem a great deal of the violence in Iraq within a matter of months. The new counterinsurgency approach to the war was one you had argued for in Fiasco, but in the most violent days of early 2007, how did you think it was going to turn out? Ricks: I was very skeptical back in early 2007 about the surge. I think there were two reasons for this. First, there was little evidence that the U.S. military was going to be able to operate differently, and more effectively. After all, they had been fighting there for longer than we fought in World War II, and the only thing we had to show for it was that in 2006, Iraq was going straight to hell. Also, I didn't get out to Iraq in 2007 until May, on the first trip I did for this book. It was only then, five months into the surge, when I got on the ground there, that I sensed how different the American leadership was from earlier on. Everybody, and I mean everybody, in the U.S. military, was talking about counterinsurgency, and making protecting the Iraqi population their top priority. That was a huge change from earlier on in the war, when different units seemed pretty much to do their own thing--one outfit would be drinking tea with the sheikhs, another was banging heads. The new candor and understanding in the Americans was striking. One that May 2007 trip, I went into Green Zone and got from David Kilcullen a really thorough and insightful briefing into the state of play in the streets of Baghdad. That was a big change from earlier on, when officials inside the Zone had no idea what was happening out there. I remember also one general, David Fastabend, an advisor to Petraeus, beginning a conversation then by saying, "We have done some stupid shit" in Iraq. There clearly was a new gang in town. Amazon.com: And many of the people who had been put in charge, Gen. Petraeus first among them, were well known to readers of Fiasco as advocates for counterinsurgency. But one who wasn't turns out to be one of the crucial figures in your story: Gen. Ray Odierno, who early in the war was one of the ones banging heads. By the time 2007 rolls around, he's Petraeus's top commander in Iraq and he's a changed leader. What happened to him? Ricks: The change in General Odierno is one I wrestled with throughout the reporting of this book. He seemed so different, so in sync with Petraeus on the counterinsurgency plan. And he was of almost no help in figuring it out. "General Odierno, you strike me as so changed from the guy I wrote about in Fiasco. I can't figure out how that happened." "Hey Tom: Your problem, not mine." I think two major things happened to him between 2004, the end of his first tour in Iraq, and the end of 2006, when he came back for his second tour. First, his son was badly wounded in Baghdad, losing an arm to an RPG. Second, when he came back to Baghdad, he saw that the place was falling apart, and that the war could be lost on his watch. That has a way of concentrating the mind. What he did then was kind of astonishing: He went around his bosses and basically cooked up the surge. He was the only officer in the chain of command who was for it. (Petraeus also was for it, but he hadn't yet arrived in Iraq.) I think he showed genuine moral courage in what he did. It was a huge risk, going against all his bosses. As I say in the book, he was the natural father of the surge, and Petraeus was the adoptive father. I have no problem saying that General Odierno is one of the heroes of this book. Amazon.com: While we're talking about the surge, there's one basic thing to clarify: despite the name, as you say, "the surge was more about how to use troops than it was about the number of them." What did the new counterinsurgency tactics translate into on the ground, and why do you think they worked to the extent they did? Ricks: This is a hugely important question, so I want to take some time on it. There were two key aspect to the different use of troops. First, they had a new top priority: protect Iraqis. (Until February 2007, the top priority of U.S. forces in Iraq was to transition to Iraqi control.) Second, to do that, they had to move out into the population. Before this point, they were doing a lot of patrols from big bases, usually in Humvees. They would be in a neighborhood maybe one hour a day, and the other 23 hours of the day belonged to the insurgents. Now, they were living in the neighborhoods, and constantly going out on short foot patrols. They got a lot more familiar with the people, often visiting every single family, and conducting a census. In military terms, they were mapping the sea in which the insurgent swam. Familiarity made them far more effective, and also constrained the movements of insurgents. For all that, there are other important factors in why Iraq changed, and they shouldn't be forgotten. First, by the time the U.S. military moved into the streets of Baghdad, the city was largely ethnically cleansed. Second, in the spring of 2007, in a huge policy shift, General Petraeus began putting the Sunni insurgency on the payroll--essentially paying them not to attack us. This split them off from al Qaeda in Iraq, and isolated the terrorist extremists. Once the Sunni insurgency was seen to be on our side, even temporarily, the Shiite fighters under Moqtadr al Sadr went to ground. Otherwise, Uncle Sam would have been training all his firepower on them. The problem is that all these arrangements are temporary, and could easily unravel. For example, the Sunni insurgents made a separate peace with the United States. They never have given up their objection to Shiite control of Iraq and of the Iraqi army. So what we may have done is simply delay that fight--and armed both sides in the meantime. |
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| 08-11-09 | 4 | (NA) |
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Ricks writes of The Surge and its aftermath with insight, compassion, and intelligence. Should be read by any American wondering what has gone right and what has gone wrong in Iraq. Very highly recommended!
(Review Data Last Updated: 2009-08-13 18:48:48 EST)
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| 08-07-09 | 4 | (NA) |
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The travails of us policy and military engagement in Iraq have been dominating the news for the better part of five years since the invasion in 2003 until some time in 2008. The reason is quite obvious: what was supposed to be a very quick and decisive military operation that would turn Iraq into a free and peaceful society turned out to be a military and political disaster. And yet the news from Iraq stopped dominating the headlines some time in 2008. The reason for this dramatic turnaround is quite clear: it is the new US strategy that was designed to increase the number of US troops on the ground and engage with the Iraqi society on a much more direct basis. This strategy and the way that it came about is the theme of this book. Unlike many other books that have come out in recent years, this one is largely written from the military's point of view. If there is a single name that come to symbolize "The Surge" that would be the name of general Petraeus. Unjustifiably maligned by some war opponents early on in his new assignment of turning the situation in Iraq around, he has become a stellar example of professionalism and success with one of the most difficult military assignments ever. But Petraeus was not the only one in the military who contributed to the development of the new strategy. There are many others, either on active duty or as civilian advisers, who have helped shape and develop the new strategy. This book does a very good job of describing those contributions and giving credit to people who have largely labored behind the scenes. It features many combat commanders and their troops, and it gives many examples from the frontlines that help illustrate and affirm the main points.
What makes this book particularly interesting and valuable is the sheer amount of first-hand interview material. Almost all of the main military protagonists are featured, and many of their most important experiences recoded and presented in an easy journalistic style. The approach to policy that the book adopts is pragmatic rather than ideological. It gives as sober of an assessment of what happened during the war as one can find these days. It concludes with a sobering prediction of where the military engagement is headed, and a prediction that a substantial US presence is likely to remain in Iraq for many more years, if not decades. The only issue that I have with the book is that it may contain too much information: some of the points could have been made with far less material. But otherwise this is an excellent read and a must for anyone who is interested in what has really been happening with The Surge and why it worked in the end. (Review Data Last Updated: 2009-08-13 00:11:01 EST)
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| 07-12-09 | 4 | (NA) |
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I did not read Fiasco, but heard enough about it to start following Ricks' Foreign Policy blog and pick up The Gamble. It is a real insider's account to the so-called "surge" in Iraq. Ricks sketches out the problems US forces (and Iraqi civilians) were facing between 2005 and 2007, how different figures inside and outside the military establishment sought to address these problems, what direction the military finally went in, how they executed their new strategy, and all the problems still to come.
I read The Gamble just after reading The Accidental Guerrilla, written by one of the figures in Ricks' book, David Kilcullen. The books compliment each other nicely, as Kilcullen offers a broader explanation of the strategy the "surge" emulated and The Gamble gives a good blow by blow of getting the strategy initiated and executed in Iraq. There were two shortcomings in Ricks' book that are not meant to detract from it, but I mention to serve as warnings to prospective readers: 1. Ricks largely spoke to people who supported the "surge" and not those who opposed it. Those people come, in Ricks' book, in two forms. First are those within the military establishment who want to disengage from Iraq. These are people like Admiral Fallon, the deposed commander of Central Command or General Casey, who was pulled out of Iraq but, somewhat amazingly, was promoted to Chief of Staff of the Army. Second are those outside the military establishment who could more easily be described as "anti-war." That would include protesters, but also political figures like Russ Feingold. There perspective on Iraq and the strategic shift are not really present. Part of the problem this creates is that Ricks seems to disagree with Bob Woodward's assessment of how the "surge" came to be. I have not read The War Within, but the impression I have from Ricks' book is that Woodward interviewed more people in the White House than Ricks and not surprisingly, came away with a different view of how it came to be. The truth is likely somewhere in between and Ricks' book is not a comprehensive telling. Again, I have not read Woodward's book, so I do not know if his is. 2. Ricks makes reference to the change in approach by Sunni and Shia Iraqi militants, but he spends more time on the practical results of this shift then how it came to pass. Based on his work and Kilcullen's, the timing was somewhat coincidental with the "surge" and not caused by it. That is a really important issue, because a "surge" like strategy might not work in other countries if the timing does not occur the same way. Ricks does not have rose tinted glasses. He is candid in the huge challenges the US still faces in Iraq, and that Iraqis themselves face. He does not really indicate why he thinks remaining there is so important, but reasons can be surmised from his writing. The book offers an insider's perspective to the "surge" and is a good case study of the strategy the "surge" embodies. The book is worth reading, but beware its shortcomings. [...] (Review Data Last Updated: 2009-08-13 00:11:01 EST)
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| 07-08-09 | 1 | (NA) |
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Although the book is excellent, Amazon and the publisher are charging way too much money for the Kindle version. A brand new hardcover copy of the book was just discounted for $16.27; meanwhile, the Kindle version is 13.81...only $3 less!!! This is ludicrous.
While I enjoy my Kindle and loved the book, I will recommend everyone I know to avoid both as long as the price of the electronic version remains more than $10. (Review Data Last Updated: 2009-07-12 01:03:02 EST)
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| 07-02-09 | 5 | (NA) |
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This is another sound work by Tom Ricks. Some reviewers have talked about bias, but only because they believe that the surge was a success, pure and simple. It was not. Additionally, the surge itself was not the main engine of increased stability; it was the separate deal US forces finally made with vast elements of the former Sunni Arab insurgency (many of which had been seeking such a deal as early as 2004), bitterly opposed by the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Maliki. Ricks points out how the surge was, to a great extent, a means to an end: Iraqi national reconciliation, which is not at all complete--largely because of the intentional foot-dragging on the part of the same Shiite-dominated Iraqi government that opposed the principal element of what has become known as the surge and has been unwilling to bring disgruntled, potentially violent, Sunni Arabs into the political mainstream. As Ricks so accurately points out, because that robust ethno-sectarian reconciliation has not taken place, despite all that US forces accomplished between Fall 2006 and mid-2009, there is still a a very real chance that some of the stability achieved by the surge could evaporate. There are clear indications the US government (as well as the Iraqi government) are very concerned about this as US forces pull out of Iraq's cities that are an ethno-sectarian mix, so why should people be criticizing Ricks for placing due emphasis upon this critical--and obvious--point?
(Review Data Last Updated: 2009-07-12 01:03:02 EST)
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We exchanged emails with Tom Ricks for a few weeks before the publication of The Gamble, a time which saw, among other things, the inauguration of Barack Obama and regional elections in Iraq. You can read the full exchange on the Amazon books blog, Omnivoracious.com. Here are some highlights: