The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq
Bing West. New York: Random House, 2008. 448 pp. Illus. Maps. Appen. Notes. Bib. $28.
Reviewed by Deborah Kidwell
Although the United States was losing the war militarily in its initial stages, as Bing West argues in this book, by the fall of 2006 the hard work, expertise, and determination of military personnel in theater had quelled the insurgency, significantly reduced the violence, and provided at least the possibility of success for a stable and self-sustaining Iraq. West credits warriors like Marine Major Douglas Zembiec, killed in Baghdad in 2007, the leadership of General David Petraeus, and the counterinsurgency methods advocated by Army FM 3-24 for the improvement. The book's title derives from a comment West attributed to an Iraqi colonel in 2004: "Americans," he had said, "are the strongest tribe."
West has considerable experience as a Marine veteran, news correspondent, analyst, and government official. During more than five years in the region, he accompanied at least 60 American and Iraqi battalions on hundreds of patrols and operations, conducted in excess of 2,000 interviews, and viewed numerous campaign plans.
It was left to military leaders, West argues, to adopt an effective operational strategy. He is, for the most part, even-handedly critical of politicians, the media, military leaders, and the public. He maintains that President George W. Bush and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld failed not only to provide adequate leadership, but also to convince the American people to support the war. He believes the military initially placed too little importance on the advisory effort and failed to identify the Iraqi population until after the insurgency had developed. He perhaps overemphasizes the public's lack of support, divisiveness, and unwillingness to sacrifice.
West credits three decisions—Bush's surge strategy, then-Lieutenant General Raymond T. Odierno's broad attack on al Qaeda insurgents in and around Baghdad, and General Petraeus' decision to disperse U.S. forces within neighborhoods—with providing an environment for success. The gains are fragile, he cautions; even as the Iraqi Army shows progress and citizens reclaim their country from al Qaeda and the vicious factionalism often encouraged by Iran, corruption and incompetency continue to plague the government ministries and local police. West warns against the premature imposition of sovereignty, sending too few troops, and of constructing a bifurcated command structure like that under Ambassador L. Paul Bremer and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez.
While the disconnect West describes between some civilian governmental agencies and the military is palpable, one must also recognize that the military, by its very nature, is capable of accomplishing what civilian institutions cannot achieve. West perhaps expects too much from the State Department. The two institutions have distinctly different purposes and capabilities. State lacks manpower, security forces, and has far greater diplomatic visibility than the military. State seeks to cooperate with an existing government using primarily the tools of persuasion, leverage, and funding; the military can more easily become the law where none currently exists. More specifically, West criticizes Bremer's Ba'athist purge and the decision to dissolve the Iraqi Army.
Although it seems reasonable that de-Ba'athification helped to create favorable conditions for the insurgency, West fails to consider alternatives. As the Allied forces dismantled the former Japanese empire in the post-World War II era, they often retained Japanese and former colonial authorities, with varying immediate results, but often with long-term historical burdens that continue to affect the current strategic environment.
West provides a fairly standard interpretation that emphasizes the expertise of the American military. His heroes are primarily the battalion commanders who understood the war. He skillfully informs the reader of the efforts of the Soldiers and Marines fighting in Iraq and thus, provides a well-written, informed, and comprehensive account of events.
Through the Wheat: The U.S. Marines in World War I
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired) and Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, U.S. Marine Corps (Retired). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. 344 pp. Maps. Illus. $34.95.
Reviewed by Colonel Jon T. Hoffman, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve
The U.S. Marine Corps was born on 10 November 1775, but it did not come into its own as a military force until World War I. The victory of the 4th Marine Brigade at Belleau Wood in June 1918 was not only the Corps' largest and bloodiest battle in its first 142 years, but it also set a standard of courage and determination in heavy combat that became a touchstone for future generations of Marines. Moreover, a service that had never mustered more than a few thousand men until just a few years before World War I, would end that conflict having a strength of 75,000. The Corps' success in battle and in managing a structure that large laid the groundwork for its prominent role in every American war that followed.
While it is strange that there has been no definitive narrative history of the Marines in World War I until now, it is not surprising that Through the Wheat, which masterfully fills that gap, has come from two of the very best of the Corps' historians. The late Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons served with distinction in combat in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, then went on to establish the Marine Corps History and Museums Division and lead it through its first quarter century. His friends and mentors included many giants of the Corps who had made their reputations during World War I. When ill health threatened to prevent him from completing this work of more than two decades, he asked Colonel Joseph H. Alexander to help him finish it. A veteran of two tours in Vietnam, Alexander has written award-winning books on the history of the Corps, including Utmost Savagery, his account of the epic battle at Tarawa.
Their collaboration on World War I is both seamless and flawless. Avoiding the temptation to focus solely on the 4th Marine Brigade, the authors tell the full story of the Corps' growth as an institution during the crucible of global conflict. They chronicle the challenges the Corps faced of training tens of thousands of raw recruits, forming and shipping its largest combat force to date to Europe on short notice soon after the United States entered the war, building up a fledgling aviation arm, while simultaneously handling its traditional role of expeditionary duty in Haiti, Santo Domingo, Cuba, and elsewhere.
Simmons and Alexander skillfully use diaries, letters, and oral histories and interweave the tales of the men who fought, organized, and pioneered. They flesh out the lives of these Marines. Among them are the obvious heroes, such as future Commandant Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates and Gunnery Sergeant Dan Daly, one of only two Marines to receive two Medals of Honor for separate feats of valor. But we also meet James Gallivan, who enlisted in 1894, rose to the rank of first sergeant only to be busted back to private, then made it back to first sergeant again and passed up retirement in 1917 to go off to war at the age of 50.
Retired Marine and veteran combat artist Charles G. Grow contributes illustrated maps that visually set the scene of action. The book's only shortcoming is that it provides few footnotes to identify the sources of quotes and facts.
After nearly a century, Simmons and Alexander have given us a thorough account of the Corps in the war that made it a modern military force to be reckoned with in a book that may remain the standard for the next hundred years.
Analyzing Intelligence: Origins, Obstacles, and Innovations
Roger Z. George and James B. Bruce, Eds. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2008. 340 pp. Index. $29.95.
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hanley, U.S. Air Force (Retired)
When President Bush issued Executive Order 12333 on 30 July 2008, he gave additional definition to what the Intelligence Reform Terrorism Protection Act of 2004 established as public law: the adaptation of national intelligence programs to the dangerously mutable threats we face today. The new EO reflects the primacy of intelligence in the war on terrorism, not only in its discussion of new national security institutions such as the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security but also in its emphasis on the sharing of terrorism-related information among federal agencies and state, local, and tribal governments. Law and policy thus recognize that intelligence is the strategic pivot of the current fight, so readers of Proceedings who seek a deeper understanding of how we might wage war more effectively should put Analyzing Intelligence at the top of their reading list.
Edited by Roger Z. George and James B. Bruce, both respected, long-serving intelligence professionals, this book offers timely and perceptive observations on the practice or, as the authors are at pains to argue, the profession of intelligence. The assertion that intelligence is a profession defined by a mature body of knowledge, theory, and doctrine is by itself a rather ambitious point of view, but the contributing authors make a nearly airtight case that intelligence is indeed a discrete discipline.
Rebecca Fisher and Rob Johnston, for example, write with discernment on the question of what "professionalization" actually means. In arguing that the goal of establishing intelligence analysis as a discipline in its own right is "not as distant as some might assume," they draw out useful comparisons between intelligence and professions such as medicine, law, and library science.
Three essays explore the often tense relationship between intelligence analysts and the policy-makers they advise. Readers pressed for time are encouraged to read these first, because they go to the heart of the matter as to why we don't fully exploit our impressive array of collection techniques and systems. History shows us that most intelligence failures derive from faulty analysis rather than deficiencies in collection, and the essays by John McLaughlin ("Serving the National Policymaker") and James B. Steinberg ("Transparency and Partnership") attack this perennial vexation from the perspectives of both the analyst and the policymaker, while Gregory F. Treverton ("Intelligence Analysis") surveys the nature and causes of intelligence that is either politicized in self-injurious ways or irrelevant because of sterile analysis, i.e., interpretations that don't take full account of contemporary diplomatic and political contexts.
Also fascinating are the essays that constitute the section, "Enduring Challenges." George calls attention to the fact that intelligence is the foundation of strategy. In their essay, "Analytical Imperatives," Bruce and Michael Bennett examine intelligence from the often unjustly downplayed aspect of denial and deception. The authors shed new light on an enduring if often subdued truth, that much intelligence failure can be explained not by technical or managerial blunders but on account of moral and intellectual infirmity.
It's impossible to read Analyzing Intelligence without recalling that armed conflict remains an essentially human transaction, in spite of our habit of trying to apprehend the causes, conduct, and consequences of war with technological wizardry and procedural hygiene. The contributors remind us that however much intelligence professionals traffic in analysis, report writing, and mechanical manipulations, they are, at heart, students of human nature. A point of view, no doubt, that would be applauded by the progenitor of modern intelligence, Sherman Kent, whose classic work, Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy (1949), informs the spirit of this indispensable work.
Warrior King: The Triumph and Betrayal of an American Commander in Iraq
Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Sassaman, U.S. Army (Retired) with Joe Layden. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008. 307 pp. $25.95
Reviewed by Lieutenant Colonel Terence J. Daly, U.S. Army Reserve (Retired)
The United States' defeat in Vietnam had consequences that outlasted generations of American Soldiers who fought and bled there. The U.S. Army's answer to its failure to eliminate the Vietnamese communist insurgency was figuratively to dust off its hands and say, "That's the last time we do counterinsurgency."
This is not the place to go into the details of Operation Iraqi Freedom and the failure to plan for events after Saddam Hussein's regime was destroyed. The ad hoc Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) quickly proved ineffectual and dysfunctional. Further, CPA Chief L. Paul Bremer made two disastrous decisions: first, to ban members of the sole political organization Saddam Hussein had tolerated, the Ba'ath Party; and second, to dissolve the Iraqi Army. The military command, the Combined Joint Force Task Force-7, was equally untrained for counterinsurgency, and failed even to recognize that one was developing. By September 2003 Iraq was in a state of anarchy and nascent insurgency.
Into this perfect storm of failure blew Army Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Sassaman. Sassaman had graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he was a star varsity quarterback, and was later commissioned in May 1985 as a second lieutenant of infantry. By June 2003, then a lieutenant colonel, Sassaman assumed command of the 1st Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, part of the 4th Infantry Division in Iraq as a heavy mechanized infantry battalion in a counterinsurgency.
The Army's failure to study counterinsurgency doctrine had a particularly serious effect on the relationship between senior commanders and their subordinates, especially at the brigade-battalion level. The Army is accustomed to doing its business within a hierarchy, where the senior officers are presumed to know more than their subordinates. In Iraq, however, everyone was learning on the job. Battalion commanders were younger and thus tended to be more flexible. Also, realizing that their brigade commanders did not understand this unexpected form of warfare any better than they did, they were less tolerant of orders that they saw as misguided and likely to get their Soldiers killed or wounded unnecessarily.
In his book, Sassaman dismisses his brigade commander as a careerist politician whose tactics were "plainly the worst in the theater." He claims that this commander never went on night patrols or operations with his subordinate units, unlike the other brigade commanders in the division. Sassaman was conditioned by his Army training to be aggressive in combat to win. He writes that when his brigade commander told him to be less aggressive, "on that day, in October 2003, I was about to depart from being a member of the . . . brotherhood of senior officers." Relations between Sassaman and his brigade commander rapidly deteriorated and soon, according to Sassaman, "a pattern of disrespect and disobedience" had been established in which the latter felt he could disregard his brigade commander whenever he saw fit.
It is a truism that one must learn to take orders before one can give them. An officer cannot remain effective when he has developed a "pattern of disrespect and disobedience" of those above him, regardless of how right he thinks he is, and this behavior cannot help but be observed and spread in the tightly knit community of a battalion in combat. On the night of 3 January 2004, two of Sassaman's Soldiers forced two Iraqi detainees into the Tigris River, where one of them may have drowned. All the facts of the incident are unlikely ever to be fully known, but one fact stands out: Sassaman told the two Soldiers' company commander to withhold information from Army investigators. As a result, Sassaman was punished under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and his career effectively ended.
Sassaman rationalizes telling his subordinates to withhold information by blaming his brigade commander for being a weak leader, the civilian and military leadership for its inadequacy in Iraq, and the personal pain he felt at his battalion's casualties. He never honestly faces the fact that his own "disrespect and disobedience" led him to undermine the necessary discipline on which an army lives or dies. In the humble opinion of this reviewer the Army is better off without him.