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Posted By Thomas E. Ricks
Monday, December 12, 2011 - 6:40 AM
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Here is a list of books on the Iraq war. But it leaves out one of my new favorites, which I finally got around to reading recently. I liked it so much I decided to interview the author.
Tom Ricks: This
is a terrific book. Was it difficult to report and write? I would imagine so.
Did it invade your dreams? How did you, and those close to you, get through it?
Jim Frederick: … The book was
difficult to write, but not quite in the way you suggest. The subject matter
was dark, brutally so. But every time I started feeling oppressed or beaten
down by it, I just reflected on the soldiers I was interviewing and remembered:
They had to live it, so stop feeling sorry for yourself and focus on telling
their story. So it wasn't actually hard in that way. I tried to be
compassionate without letting the subject matter invade my personal life or, as
you say, my dreams.
Now, that being said, the book was extraordinarily difficult because while I
have been a journalist my entire adult life, I had never felt such pressure to
Get The Story Right. The soldiers I spoke to (and it was well over 120 of them,
over several years, and I interviewed a core of about 20 or 30 main players
over and over again over that period) trusted me to a degree I have never
really been able to fathom. A lot of them claimed to hate the mainstream media,
yet they trusted me far beyond the degree I would ever trust a journalist. And
from their trust I felt just a massive, massive burden: that if I don't get
this right, it will not only be a professional and personal embarrassment, but
I will have let them down and confirmed all of their worst assumptions about
journalists and modern journalism. Not that I wrote the book to please them, of
course. I often told them that I had a professional obligation not to care
whether they "liked" the book or not when it was finished, but it was a primary
goal of mine to ensure those who were there thought it was accurate and
fair-minded and captured the spirit of the deployment. Thankfully, I have heard
from scores of the men in the book, and they have told me exactly that: that
they might not have liked everything they read, but they thought that it was
fair and accurate.
TR: I was down at "The Swamp," an outpost
near the power plant just west of your guys' AO, in February 2006, and saw some
of the unhappiest American soldiers I'd ever seen. I know that the Triangle of
Death was tough, but so were a lot of other places, like Sadr City and Ramadi.
Why do you think the 101st guys were so demoralized?
JF: I was not with, nor did I interview, the men of the 2-502nd who were in
that AO around the Swamp, so I can't really speak to their particular
situation. But if I can extrapolate from what I know about 1-502nd across all of
the 101st Airborne during that time, I would say a lot of it had to do with
them falling into a very muddled period of extreme strategic breakdown. They
were at the tail end of the seek and destroy era of terrorist hunting, and it
was not going well. This was the absolute darkest era of the war, when the men
knew in their hearts that what they were being asked to do was not working, but
there were no better alternatives at the time. This was a full year before COIN
really got going so I think those days you got a lot of the hopelessness from
the men on the ground who knew the current strategy was doomed a year before
the White House or the Pentagon were willing to admit it.
TR: You do a great job of showing why the
chain of command is in many ways to blame for the crimes that occurred. But as
portrayed, the chain kind of fades out above brigade. It would seem to me that
your argument is that the division commander, Generals Casey and Chiarelli, and
Secretary Rumsfeld above them, are also to blame for what happened. Is that
correct? Did you ever get a chance to interview them for this book?
JF: You are correct that I would lay blame all the way up the chain of command
and that, yes, my examination does pretty much cut out at the brigade level.
There are a couple of reasons for this. First, I assessed that there had been
many books already about the Iraq war told from the general, Pentagon or White
House level. And the more reporting I did, the more I became captivated by the
intimate, on the ground stories of men at war that I was collecting. And I
thought I had not seen a lot of books like that (Memoirs by soldiers? Yes,
lots. Journalistic accounts of a full deployment of men at war in Iraq? Not
many). So I decided that the focus was going to be platoon, company and
battalion. Second, having expanded my lens all the way to battalion, I was a
bit overwhelmed already by the reporting task ahead of me. To add several more
battalions' experience, let alone division command and on up the chain from
there, it was pretty easy for me, once I got going to say: that is just out of
scope. To keep the narrative lens focused and novelistic, I need to cut it at
battalion. (And I know, I have heard from many men who served during this time,
telling me that I thus let brigade and division get off "easy." I can see that,
but I simply had to cut the frame somewhere.) And finally, I was blessed by the
fact that a lot of men I interviewed, on up to captains and majors, and
sergeants first class and first sergeants were really, really rubbed raw about
their experience and decided, eyes wide open, that they were going to be 100 percent
candid with me. And I will be grateful to them until the day I die, since the
book lives on the back of their honesty. But when I started getting to the lieutenant
colonel and colonel level of my research, that's when I perceived that the Army
field grade officer mutual protection society started to kick in. According to
them, everybody was just a great officer, and everybody did helluva job, and
nobody was to blame for anything bad that happened. I just didn't feel like I
was getting candid, unvarnished, unfiltered accounts of events or people at
those levels. So that made it especially easy to say, okay, I'm not going to
focus on that level, because these guys are more interested in reciting the
party line than in telling me what they really think.
TR: How has the Army reacted to this
book? I've heard that you've been invited to speak at West Point about it. Is
that right? Any other official reactions? Unofficial ones?
JF: The Army's strong positive reaction has been among the most gratifying and
rewarding aspects of this whole experience. Before the book was released, I was
a little worried that people might misunderstand what they book was about. I thought
they might think it was anti-American or anti-Army, when I viewed it as a
hugely pro-soldier and pro-Army. I always viewed it as a book about leadership.
Admittedly, this unit had far more examples of bad leadership than good, but
that's what I was outraged about, and I hoped that one of my audiences would be
a pre-deployment staff sergeant or lieutenant who might read the book and maybe
do something a little different or avoid a mistake or two. And from all the
feedback I have gotten, that's exactly how the Army at the very highest levels
has received the book. Not as something to feel attacked about, but as
something they can learn from.
The feedback from West Point in particular has been
extraordinary. I have been up there three times now to speak to cadets, and the
Commandant made Black Hearts the
inaugural book in his personal leadership development book club for cadets.
When he shook my hand and told me I would be considered a lifetime friend of
West Point, well that was a career high for me. Beyond that, I have heard about
numerous units that have put it on their pre-deployment reading lists and other
smaller captains and majors leadership classes around the Army have made it
required reading. And then there are individual soldiers. I have heard from
almost everyone portrayed in the book and their feedback has been, without
exception, positive. And many of the men in the book check in just with me
every couple of months, just to fill me in on what they're up to now. I value
those relationships very much. And then I hear from soldiers who were there at
different times, or near there, or new and newly deploying soldiers on a weekly
basis, and we're getting into nearly three years since the book was published,
so that has been very gratifying. And finally, a major constituency I hear from
is soldiers' wives, a lot of whom say: my husband doesn't talk much about his
deployments, but now I feel like I know a little better what he's been through.
I get a lot of letters that bring tears to my eyes, to be honest.
TR: How did the book do in sales? I feel
a bit guilty in asking -- I've had a copy since it came out, but could not bring
myself to read it until recently when a retired general more or less insisted
that I read it.
JF: Was it a bestseller? No. But it did respectably well, all told. My
publisher seems happy enough. And every time I'm tempted to get down about the
fact that the sales were not through the roof, I remember that it is about a
war crime, committed by Americans. Not really Band of Brothers territory. But
the book was better received critically than I ever dared dream. And then to
also have it embraced by the military the way it has as a leadership teaching
tool has been doubly gratifying. So I hope the book has a long tail, and it seems
to have a good shot of entering the Iraq/Afghanistan War canon, if not a more
general canon of war literature. I am very proud of all of that.
TR: Are you glad you wrote it?
JF: Absolutely. It was the kind of book I always dreamed of writing, and it turned
out exactly like I hoped it would. I hope I have the honor and luck to write
another one like it someday.
Tom,
I read it earlier this year, easily one of the best two or three Iraq War books published so far. Glad to see the Commandant of Cadets has embraced it. I seldom write in books anymore, but I regularly marked that one up, as I saw some potential pitfalls that a unit deploying to Iraq in its waning days could succumb to. Junior officers under my command will read it to understand what can happen if they are not vigilant. Another book I just recently finished was SAPPERS IN THE WIRE: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF FIREBASE MARY ANN. That one is also worth your time as a tragedy of what can happen to a unit when leadership is not on azimuth.
The Iraqis remember, even if we do not.
The Black Hearts killings are especially significant to me. I read that book while in Iraq, learning that American soldiers raped and killed a 14 year old child, murdering her family and setting fire to her home to hide the evidence.
About a third of the way into the book I realized that the incident took place only a mile or two from where I sat, that it took place in the area where my Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) worked, that we regularly visited the town nearest the kill site. Yet none of us knew this. I asked my State Department colleagues, as well as the soldiers we were embedded with, and while some had heard of the atrocity, all were surprised to learn it took place on ground we regularly traveled. It was never included in any of our preparatory briefings for Iraq service. Our bosses wanted us ignorant, or, more likely, were ignorant themselves. The chain of responsibility, even for knowing, ran higher up than us.
You can damn well bet that the Iraqis we met remembered, even if we did not.
Peter Van Buren
wemeantwell.com
Oh for the love of God, Peter, will you quit blaming everyone else for not being prepared? If you were too lazy or too incompetent to research the area you would be working in, then you should not have been there. Before I went, I read everything I could about what I was doing and where I would be at. How in the world you got to go there and get paid a hell of a lot of money and then exploit it for a book despite your crappy attitude is beyond me.
Oh for the love of God, Peter, will you quit blaming everyone else for not being prepared? If you were too lazy or too incompetent to research the area you would be working in, then you should not have been there. Before I went, I read everything I could about what I was doing and where I would be at. How in the world you got to go there and get paid a hell of a lot of money and then exploit it for a book despite your crappy attitude is beyond me.
I worked much higher up that chain at the same time you were there. We had the expectation that you would have done your research on your AO...if you failed to do that it's on you. The tools were there. No one was trying to hide anything from anybody.
Well, thanks for the note that it was all my fault that I should have read Black Hearts before heading out to my PRT. Yeah, I wish I had as well.
So where was the State Department reading list for PRTs/Iraq that now includes Black Hearts? Still don't have one.
Where was the area specific training/briefing? Still don't have it for Afghan PRTs.
It is called setting people up to succeed. If I was higher up the chain as you claimed to have been, I'd make a point of telling my subordinates about key events in their AO, recommending books they read, ensuring they got briefed, seeing it as a big part of my job to make sure they were prepared. Most PRT leaders were just thrown out there and most had no Middle East experience, never mind Iraq.
Or, if you're a State Department "leader," you instead withhold information so you can use it to criticize your underlings later for not being prepared.
Man up and take some responsibility for those below you in the chain instead of just sucking up and criticizing; it is called l e a d e r s h i p and you won't find it in the State Department library.
Peter
wemeantwell.com
It's called a book store and a library and a computer
There were three simple solutions to your inability to understand Iraq before you volunteered to get paid a lot of money. You could have gone to a book store to find books and even magazines on what you were about to do. Or how about a library. Main State has a good library. Then there's that internet thing. You could have even gone to work and looked up internal documents. Failure to prepare yourself for a job that was going to pay you an outrageous amount of money, fly you home three times for three weeks each and then give you a cushy follow on assignment seems like a dereliction of your professional responsibility.
Worth reading for any combat leader. Every officer in my brigade read it this summer. My girlfriend even read it and couldn't put it down.
The thing that sticks with me after reading the book is the tough decision that we must make sometimes: When has a leader become toxic enough to pull him? And if I don't have "authority" to pull him, do I do it anyway and hope my chain-of-command backs me up?
It also drives home the point that leaders must know their soldiers...which is easier said than done.
Above all, I think this is a leadership book.
Last year I made this book required reading for my senior Army ROTC cadets. Through out the semester, we used the leadership dispalyed (or not displayed) as an ongoing discussion that brought the "standard" curriculum into a more real context. Cadet through lieutenant colonel, we all learned from this book.
Thanks to Jim Frederick for writing it .
Q&A format delivers some good writing/reporting advice, too.
Thanks, Tom, for providing Frederick's insights not only into the content of his book, but into the writing/reporting of it as well. His observations regarding the pressure to Get Things Right, and the necessity of framing one's story-telling efforts within the context of a specific level of command, are very useful. Affirming, even.
"Attack!"
Another excellent Jim Frederick point
This "let's save the officers" culture, when officers clearly have not been doing their job, evidently is SOP.And why not? Seems to be working great.
As pointed out in Best Defense only a few days ago, one reason no murder convictions arose from the Haditha killings because the marines on station were complying with official rules of engagement at the time, rules that the USMC later redrafted. First and second ROEs were drafted and imposed by officers, but heaven forbid harming any officer about whatever was wrong in the first set.
The Abu Ghraib story is similar, and more or less an inevitability when senior officers decided that the 320th Military Police Battalion would not be required to undergo the appropriate, long-established army training in how to run a jail before it was handed the job. But in court-martial terms, nothing wrong there above the sergeant level.
The gaily collegial observations officers handed Mr Frederick about other officers as reported here call to mind the 18th century wisdom of Benjamin Franklin: "We must hang together, gentlemen ... else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."
The convicted murderers and their co-conspirators for the most part conducted themselves as if they had no appreciation for the seriousness of what they had done and were facing. AP's description of James Barker's reaction after he got 90 years says it best:
"Barker, 23, showed no reaction when the sentence was read. Afterward, he smoked a cigarette outside as a bailiff watched over him. He grinned but said nothing as reporters passed by."
FYI, for those unfamiliar with the OIF 05-07 task organization and has not read the book, 2/101 operated in the Multinational Division-Baghdad area of responsibility with 4th Infantry Dvision as a higher HQ.
...is that it's not a true-crime account, which I expected at first.
It does a great job of telling the story of the unit, and the crime is one part - the worst part - of the entire deployment.
Even with all the memoirs about Iraq, I agree that there are few on-the-ground accounts from a unit's perspective..."Good Soldiers" is another top-quality one.
Great to hear Fredericks' insights, and especially how he was concerned for his professional reputation while he navigated his sources. I'm shocked he got the cooperation, so it shows how good a reporter he must be.
Echoing some of the comments above
I'm just a staff guy in this man's Army, but I have made every one of my officers read this book.
It shows what happen when we send Soldiers into the field without the proper training, support, or guidance.
I've said before that I thought the book was good but not great.
I do wonder at Mr Frederick's interviewing. It's very clear the LTC Kunk's organization was severely hampered by his leadership. I can't defend him based on the portrayal in the book. That said, I wonder what Kunk's view of the relationship with Frederick was after reading the book?
I have to say that as a former BN CDR in Iraq, there but for the grace of God go I. I fought like hell to keep my guys on the straight and narrow, and in most ways was successful. But I know that if I had a PFC Green in my ranks it was likely that something bad and stupid might happen before I and my chain of command discovered and stopped the guy. That was a natural fear, not because of fear of repercussions, but an overwhelming fear of harming the war effort - mission accomplishment
Frederick critiques the officer protection society, but he is now a party to that problem when he reels a guy in during interviews and then casts him well under the bus in the book. I'm guessing Kunk doesn't want to talk to him anymore.
Again, Kunk failed, no question about it. I don't know the answer, I just feel that I don't know if I would be signing up to talk to a journalist any time soon, present company excluded of course.
If your command is in good shape...
I think you'd be fine.
I dealt with two battalion commanders as an embedded reporter.
One was friendly, but kept most official interaction between me and his XO.
The other sought me out whenever he saw me, made time to talk to me, asked me questions about my perceptions, etc.
It was not a surprise which unit's soldiers had an overall better attitude about their progress and role in the war. It often all comes down to communication...
I was recently had the discussion with folks here at Leavenworth about the BC and BCT Commander's perspective and it was told to me that they did not want to talk about it. In fact, the BCT CDR apparently was so ardently against discussing the matter that the case study was not included the Leadership classes here till after his departure. No firsthand proof of it just what was communicated to us by a faculty member.
Hunter:
If LTC Kunk spoke truthfully to Mr. Frederick, and Mr. Frederick reported what he said accurately, how can that be considered throwing him under the bus?
Dear Tom,
Thank you for this post, and the terrific interview with Jim Frederick. I enjoyed "Black Hearts" as well, and agree with your take on it.
There's another book out there that's similar in some ways, and I *strongly* recommend it: "None of Us Were Like This Before." Like "Black Hearts," it covers how US forces engaged in grave misconduct, and does so in a way that's highly respectful of soldiers - and unvarnished in its honest approach. Also, it widely cites your book, "Aftermath," in a way that shows how similar cases emerged elsewhere in the war theater. Most of all, it show how devastating torture was not just for the detainees (and counter-insurgency policy), but for the soldiers themselves. It's definitely an important read, and belongs next to "Black Hearts" in the cannon of books included at West Point. I'd love to see you do an interview with the author of "None of Us..." as well. He took one helluva journey writing the book.
Respectfully,
Alexander A.
Tom,
I just looked in my notes for "None of Us..." and noticed that he quoted your book "Fiasco." My bad...
Thanks,
A. A.
Great book--Don't agree with everything.
Without a doubt, I thought that "Black Hearts" was the best book to come out of the Iraq War (sorry Tom). The author did an excellent job of not just covering the story, but describing the circumstances around the incident in "The Triangle of Death". I am glad that it has become almost required reading for deploying units.
However, I have one critical comment. I can't agree with the narrative that it was the Battalion Commander's leadership style led to the rape and murder of the Iraqi family. Yes, he probably was an a*&hole, but there are undoubtedly other commanders that behaved in this manner, with no rapes and murders occurring under their watch.
Furthermore, nowhere, does it say that LTC Kunk encouraged "overly" aggressive behavior among his troops, which would foster a command climate where these actions would be tolerable. This is in constrast to COL Steele (3/101 during OIF VI) and COL Tunnell (5/2 Stryker in Afghanistan), where war crimes can be partially attributed to their leadership style.
Again, I thought it was an excellent book, and I applaud the author's efforts.
I was with 2/101 in 05/06, and have tons of stories to tell on our time there. I read the book shortly after it first cam out and thought it was preey fair. Some command teams in the Brigade had issues Kunk and his CSM Edwards, the Brigade Commander and BDE CSM had a relationship where they hardly spoke to one another, an issue that went months back to pre-deployment training at LTP at Ft. Polk. The Battalion 3 never left the FOB, and a us vs them attitude seemed to develop within that battalion.
That being said, 1/502 was in a really shitty area, at a really shitty time. They were undermanned for the mission they got, the interesting thing I noticed from the book is how the BN leadership seemed to never listen to the lower units when they voiced concern about the mission, however the battalion leadership was always voicing concern to higher when taskings came down.
Perceptions on how well higher HQ had it compared to life in Yusafiyah, Mahamdiyah, and Lutifiyah were common, all one had to do was go to 4ID HQ, see every CHU with T-Walls around it, then head to those FOBs with Soldiers in tents, and little in the ways of Force Protection. Standards were developed for BCTs operating in Central Baghdad, a different terrain, and a different enemy that were the same for those operating in South Baghdad. There was vittually no Iraqi Police presense in South Baghdad, and the day before a station was to open it was destroyed (Yusafiyah). To be the mayor of Mahamdiyah was the easiest way to get killed...which brings up another point, by the time leadership learned that the poltical (Mayors, etc...) leaders were not the ones in charge, but rather the tribal leaders, it was too late in the deployment to build those relationships.
The author was dead on with his portrayal of SFC Fenlenson, great person, but put in the wrong situation.
I don;t think the author blamed the battalion commander for the killings, it was the totality of Green being in the army in the first place, the confluence of personalities in that platoon, the lack of supervision at checkpoints, the command climate, the demands of combat, the desire for revenge, and a host of other issues, It's impossible to blame just one cause, and I thought the author did a decent job of that.
What I found missing from the book was the description of the MiTT that was at the same FOB as 1/502.
That being said, the Brigade did have some success in fight against Al Quaida in South Baghdad.
Lost most things in life, I don't think you can call the deployment of 2/101 in South Baghdad a complete success, nor a complete failure.
An interesting side note, not 1 of the three Infantry/RSTA Battalion Commanders from that deployment was selected for Brigade Command, and the Brigade Commander, who many thought was on a fast track to GO never made flag. Of course, the Division commander of 4ID continued on his way to 4-stars.
I like what you have to say about multiple causes. I would say the same if asked about my experience.
The BN CDRs may not have been selected for brigade command, but wasn't Tom Kunk selected for promotion to COL, War College, and isn't he the G3 for USARPAC? Very, very interesting.
you are correct, and actually they all got promoted to O6...just no command
Those are all good 2nd prizes (sarcasm) but I'd exchange them all for "my" good reputation.
As SD notes the unit had a hard time in a hard place, the BlackHearts book focuses on the failure of one platoon in particular - with very little addressed to the the remainder of the BN outside that CO. For all we know they might have all been spectacularly successful, but that story is hardly told in the book - its been awhile since I read the book so correct me if I am wrong. There's no question in my mind that the BN CDR bears a great deal of responsibility for that failure - even if he didn't have a f'ed up methodology, he's the boss and he (should) take the fall.
I'm not surprised that Kunk has been advanced, disappointed but not surprised.
BTW my overall appraisal of the book is not based on my concern over balance, my overall appraisal "good but not great" is based on it being a well-researched history, but not an overly compelling read. The crime story, in and of itself, is compelling but I just didn't think the story said "anything" beyond that crime story. There wasn't any analysis or synthesis on what we needed to learn from the story, or maybe not enough. Again, I admit its been awhile since reading it, but it just left me cold at the time. Meh. (It sits on my shelf 8 feet away but I am sorry I don't have the time or interest to re-investigate). In the words of Dick Clark's American Bandstand, "It's a great tune but I can't dance to it."
In response to the IBARVETERAN's question of Col Kunk being the G3 at USARPAC - he's not the G3 actual, just assigned to a position in the G-3.
If you thought this was good read "The Good Soldiers"
I tried to pick this book up a couple times at the local bookstore but it didn't really jump out at me...I do recommend "The Good Soldiers" by David Finkel as the book that best captures the essence of the surge time period and details a battalions out of FT Riley's descent into darkness..good read and I'll leave it at that.
"The Good Soldiers" = "The War Criminals that got away."
2-16 IN were the guys that starred in the first Wiki-leaks video that blew the lid off things in '10.
That gun-cam footage was a 2-16 "Ranger Death March" or "Ranger Dominance Mission", where they send out a platoon to go piss of Mahdi Militia until they get into a fight.
http://www.thenation.com/article/38034/wikileaks-baghdad?page=0,1
I don't know what's worse, the hyper aggressive (and completely ineffective) actions 2-16 took in '06-'07 or their borderline cowardice they displayed in '09-'10.
can you elaborate on the issues during the 09-10 tour?
Aside from the complete lack of engaging the populace of Al-Siniyah, Bayji or Sharqat, having half of their company commanders being played by JRTN "informants", being too afraid to go out on mission and having TF 16 or ODA do their work for them every night?
There was also the rampant rumors of their CSM sleeping with a 1SG.
I was in east Baghdad when one of the BCTs of 1ID owned Liberty. In retrospect it seems like dealing with JAM was a lot easier than all the Sunni nonsense.
Tom,
Interesting that you did not want to read this book for some time.
When I first read your book, Fiasco, right after it came out, I was stunned. Like a lot of civilians, I knew things were not going well, but did not understand just what was going wrong. I started to get an idea after reading your book and besides being stunned, was also angry.
When I would talk about this with co-workers and friends, the prevailing mood was "I don't want to know about it". They did not use those exact words, but that was exactly their message. They did not want read, talk or think that we might have screwed this one up.
It was easier to listen to talk radio and Fox news telling them everything was ok, just stay the course, it is just the mainstream media making it look bad. And of course, if you question the strategy, you are not supporting the troops. I had some very intelligent people just tune me out when the subject came up.
There had been such a build up to this war, all of it positive and optimistic, so much emphasis that this war would be different, that they simply could not accept how different the reality was. And let's remember, very few of them had loved ones, or even acquaintances, in Iraq, and they were told that our support of the war was to live life large. They were doing their part.
I am still amazed at the depth and quality of debate within the military and I am encouraged by it.
Tom, based on your recommendation and the comments that have be been posted, I will get this book before the year is out. But I will wait until after Christmas to read it.
It's easy enough to concentrate on the war crimes but from a macro level what have been far more important are the force protection incidents, carried out as standard operating procedures within existing ROE's.
As an illustration of this is this recent piece by Liz Sly in the Washington Post.
http://tinyurl.com/842le2t
After eight years of war and tens of thousands of casualties the US cannot achieve its strategic goals (a significant presence in a friendly, client state and from which it can project a credible military threat in protection of its interests) because there was no chance of being able to pass an act of immunity from local prosecution through the Iraqi parliament.
That is waste.
It's important and people need to hear it.
Merry Christmas ,Christmas top gift
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Regarding the list of books that is cited as must reads - where are Thunder Run, The March Up, Boots on the Ground, anything done by Concord Publishing? And you have got to include all of the Doonesbury comics on Iraq. They have been the most perfect and accurate depiction of the war - from the prep to the withdrawal.
And the absolutely hilarious Babylon By Bus. If you read any about reconstruction that one is it.
i Agree in retrospect it seems like dealing with JAM was a lot easier than all the Sunni nonsense. Thanks for sharing!
wait a minute, if Silent Shwan is right, what does that do to Finkel's narrative in "The Good Soldiers?"
And if they were the good soldiers in 06/07 how do they go to the not so good soldiers (again assuming S.S. is right) in 09/10?
Moreover how does the 101st go from being the fair haired boys under Petraeus in Mosul in 03/04 to the black hearts in 05/06?
Maybe the problem is that these purported unit-triumph-narratives are naive to how conditions on the ground, combined with problematic leadership, make such clean breaks between good and bad much more murky.
gian
What you don't see from the Good Soldiers
is the TOC in disarray, the insanity of the S2 being shut down left and right by the XO and CSM. The ridiculous KLEs or the CO's ridiculous plans.
You have to remember that "Colonel K" is Ralph Kauzlarich, Pat Tillman's XO during his fratricide. The same guy who did a superb half-assed 15-6 on his death.
"These people have a hard time letting it go. It may be because of their religious beliefs"
"When you die, I mean, there is supposedly a better life, right? Well, if you are an atheist and you don’t believe in anything, if you die, what is there to go to? Nothing. You are worm dirt. So for their son to die for nothing and now he is no more... I do not know how an atheist thinks, I can only imagine that would be pretty tough."
These are the words of a United States Army Officer to a press reporter and does he get reprimanded? Nope, he gets to command an Infantry Regiment going to Baghdad for the Surge.
Going along your thought process Gian, I would wager that positive culture in the Army is harder to maintain, while it's far too easy for that positive culture to become overturned by those who don't adhere to the high moral standards required to conduct COIN/LIC operations effectively.
A few weeks ago the Army Times ran an article about another questionable officer, COL Tunnell.
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/11/army-report-blames-lapses-on-stryker-commander-112711w/
Sorta like the Light Side/Dark Side. it only takes one bad action to lead people down the slippery slope to abandoning the Geneva Convention and Executive Orders.
Regarding the willingness of senior leaders portrayed in the book to talk about their experience or cover for other officers:
The BN S3 from 1/502 in Black Hearts is currently a battalion commander (82nd Airborne), and he recently set up a 2-day ethics symposium for the entire BN leadership, in which the main topic was Black Hearts. Good training for junior leaders, and he certainly did not shy away from talking about the episode, although the discussion was mostly confined to the company and below, he did not say much either way regarding the BN/BDE-level leadership.
SilentShwan your "war criminals" comment is slanderous and factually incorrect. During OIF 06-08, 2-16 IN conducted effective partnered counterinsurgency operations in a miserable part of East Baghdad that had largely been ceded to the enemy in the two and a half years prior to "the surge." The infamous wikileaks video should be viewed in the context of the other events that occured that day and in the preceeding weeks and months. 2-16 IN conducted difficult COIN operations with remarkable restraint with regards to employment of lethal measures, while maximizing the use of partnered operations. -An Iraqi partner battalion and brigade that was more competent and confident in large part to the efforts of the soldiers and leaders of 2-16 IN.
I cannot speak to 2-16 IN's performance in OIF 09-10.
Regards
- Using a 30MM cannon on a crowded street to engage personnel who were not PID'd as having weapons would seem to count for these two grave breaches in the Geneva Convention. Later on in the Video, a Hellfire was launched at a building, killing a family.
"Willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health"
"Extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly"
That's not even counting LAW/LOAC principles of proportionality, distinction, and necessity.
This wasn't the only incident where 2-16's methods we're questioned. I earlier mentioned the "Dominance Missions". It was no secret that 2-16 wouldn't listen to any intel from other 4th BCT units, and blacklisted their HUMINT team.
As for effective COIN. When the Mahdi Militia burns down one of your TOCs as you're on the way out, you can pretty much assume that the only "effective" measure in your AO was the Cease-Fire that Sadr agreed to. Whilst almost every other unit in the 4th BCT was making gains in the surge, pretty much the only successful operation 2-16 did was escorting Geraldo Rivera around.
http://www.myspace.com/video/constitutional-insurgent/the-mighty-mustache-visits-my-little-slice-of-heaven/23171975
In fact, it's almost like everybody was just a great officer, and everybody did helluva job, and nobody was to blame for anything bad that happened.
I read the book. I saw the gunship's video. I'm an expert.
First, there is only one context for the events that day - the situation that day. Forget weaponry used on other days in other places - not relevant. Even the author has tried to distort the very facts he recounts in the book. That incident boils down to overeager, unthinking, immature assholes in the cockpit and unthinking guys on the ground clearing the pilots to fire when they did not have eyes on the target area. The pilots want only one thing - to get in the game. Ironically, their equipment gave them the best view of the scene, although they saw what they wanted to see. They were unwilling to get closer to the scene because - why? What were they afraid of?
That day, the book describes modest opposition with desultory gunfire. The 2-16th didn't require air support for what they were encountering. The pilots saw bunches of people and what turned-out to be a reporter and a photographer. The pilots saw the camera and lens as a gun. The people showed no sign of moving towards the troops and the troops had not see the people blocks away. That's from the book and the reporter fired upon.
Later ROE placed a greater responsibility on the ground element to authenticate targets for IDF and aviation support. It may be irrelevant, but the battalion commander was a naive, simple, dumbass. He created the infamous PowerPoint slide that befuddled GEN Petraeus. He might have made a decent high school football coach, but probably not. Based upon what others have said here, the pilots probably all have been promoted to positions where that they can do greater damage.
The part of the video footage that really threw me was the pilot urgently begging to engage on the basis of an immediate threat to the troops down the street (as the photographer crouches against the wall with his 12 inch long 80-200mm zoom) then, after permission is granted, takes the time to traverse back into the square in order that he can kill all the men there rather than the one who poses the threat. That willingness to waste time tells another story.
Rorschach Ink Blot Tour of Duty
Silentshwan, it seems you and I witnessed and or participated in the same events and came to completely different conclusions with regards to methods, partnerships, ROE and effectiveness, both within 2-16 IN and the larger BCT.
Im sure there were valid reasons for all of the engagements to include type of weapon employed as recorded on the gun camera video. That was but a couple engagements in a long fight that day, and keep in mind that was at the height of the surge when all of Baghdad was burning. If that gun camera footage bothered you then you would absolutely wet yourself if you knew of or witnessed the firewpower employed in Sadr City, Ramadi or Fallujah, as well as earlier during the invasion.
Baghdad was a complex COIN problem. Many of the districts across the city had distinct differences with regard to who the "enemy" was, the grip they had on the locals we were trying to separate them from, and a variety of other political and economic conditions, not to mention coaltion resources applied to the problem. 2-16 IN inheritied a very tough AO that had been an enemy safe haven for years. They loosened the grip of JAM and their proxies on the area while empowering and improving the Iraqis they partnered with. There was much hard work to be done long after 2-16 departed.
Not sure what your point is on a Geraldo visit. It's a red herring to our discussion. Most units host the media at some point whether they want to or not. Smart commanders and units embrace those opportunities to educate, inform and facilitate media access.
Regards
Since I don't Recall 1-4 CAV, 1-28 IN or 2-32 FA requesting fire support on civilians or employing any other questionable tactics to secure the rest of 4-1's AO.
Knowing the culture of 2-16 (here's another red herring: America's worst domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh was a 2-16 Ranger) when McCord says he was given ROE the likes of:
“If someone in your line gets hit with an IED, 360 rotational fire. You kill every motherfucker on the street.”
I believe him. It doesn't hurt his case that the CO of 2-16 at the time was the same guy who set the conditions for Pat Tillman's fratricide. I don't care how hard of an AO an Infantry Regiment is given, you conduct warfare like professionals and if that means ROE puts one hand behind your back then tough luck because that's LIC.
Also, the ball is still in your court trying to prove 2-16 did an effective job in Baghdad. Even Finkel himself explains that 2-16s' AO was retaken by JAM the month leading up to their departure.
" 'What the f*ck?' a soldier said as he looked at surveillance images where the new, mighty, just-completed security tower was supposed to be standing, but all he could see was a sad little pile of rubble.
It was all gone, by dawn all of the 2-16's area, so vibrant just the day before, was a ghostly area of shuttered stores, emptied streets, and no people outside other than roaming groups of men who were carrying guns, planting bombs, and setting fires."
- Page 243.
So unless you want to present better proof, I'm going to stick to my assessments that T-walls did a better job keeping the peace than 2-16.
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