The Unseen War in Iraq

The Unseen War in Iraq PDF Author: Richard Saccone
Publisher: Broadmind Press
ISBN: 1565911342
Category : Counterinsurgency
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book

Book Description
"There is a war outside the wire and we fight it every day on patrol, but the enemy is among us. There is another war, inside the wire, that although fought in silence is no less important to your safety. In some ways it is even more important because a man with his guard down is more vulnerable than a soldier prepared to meet his enemy in battle." As a Senior Counterintelligence Agent in Iraq, this is what Dr. Richard Saccone warned during staff meetings with combat troops facing bullets every day. Today's modern leaner military requires the hiring of thousands of contract workers and local nationals to work on U.S. bases performing services from translation to manual labor, light construction, maintenance and more. Out of the several thousand non-military personnel hired, insurgents are unceasing in their attempts to infiltrate, living and working right next to U.S. soldiers every day. Access and information are highly valuable commodities. Whether they are insurgents, sympathizers or working under threat of harm to themselves or their loved ones, it is difficult to know where true loyalties lie. Sifting through this human haystack, searching for the proverbial insurgent needle is the job of Counterintelligence (CI). Skilled CI agents work closely with Force Protection soldiers to identify and eliminate infiltrators and spies before they can harm U.S. forces in the sanctuary of their homes. This is the unseen war; the war not captured by the media. Without revealing classified methods that would undermine the CI effort, Dr. Saccone exposes the reader to the Unseen War in Iraq, a war of cloak-and-dagger and intrigue, a war interesting in its methods and critical to overall success. He reflects on his time spent at Abu Ghraib prison, raises thought-provoking questions relating to the difference between torture and coercive techniques, methods to distinguish between the "good guys" and the "bad guys" and provides deep insight into ways the military could improve their counterintelligence strategy.

The Unseen War in Iraq

The Unseen War in Iraq PDF Author: Richard Saccone
Publisher: Broadmind Press
ISBN: 1565911342
Category : Counterinsurgency
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book

Book Description
"There is a war outside the wire and we fight it every day on patrol, but the enemy is among us. There is another war, inside the wire, that although fought in silence is no less important to your safety. In some ways it is even more important because a man with his guard down is more vulnerable than a soldier prepared to meet his enemy in battle." As a Senior Counterintelligence Agent in Iraq, this is what Dr. Richard Saccone warned during staff meetings with combat troops facing bullets every day. Today's modern leaner military requires the hiring of thousands of contract workers and local nationals to work on U.S. bases performing services from translation to manual labor, light construction, maintenance and more. Out of the several thousand non-military personnel hired, insurgents are unceasing in their attempts to infiltrate, living and working right next to U.S. soldiers every day. Access and information are highly valuable commodities. Whether they are insurgents, sympathizers or working under threat of harm to themselves or their loved ones, it is difficult to know where true loyalties lie. Sifting through this human haystack, searching for the proverbial insurgent needle is the job of Counterintelligence (CI). Skilled CI agents work closely with Force Protection soldiers to identify and eliminate infiltrators and spies before they can harm U.S. forces in the sanctuary of their homes. This is the unseen war; the war not captured by the media. Without revealing classified methods that would undermine the CI effort, Dr. Saccone exposes the reader to the Unseen War in Iraq, a war of cloak-and-dagger and intrigue, a war interesting in its methods and critical to overall success. He reflects on his time spent at Abu Ghraib prison, raises thought-provoking questions relating to the difference between torture and coercive techniques, methods to distinguish between the "good guys" and the "bad guys" and provides deep insight into ways the military could improve their counterintelligence strategy.

The Unseen War

The Unseen War PDF Author: Benjamin S Lambeth
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1612513123
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

Get Book

Book Description
America’s second war against Iraq differed notably from its first. Operation Desert Storm was a limited effort by coalition forces to drive out those Iraqi troops who had seized Kuwait six months before. In contrast, the major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 was a more ambitious undertaking aimed at decisively ending Saddam Hussein’s rule. After several days of intense air strikes against fixed enemy targets, allied air operations began concentrating on Iraqi ground troops. The intended effect was to destroy Iraqi resistance and allow coalition land forces to maneuver without pausing in response to enemy actions. Iraqi tank concentrations were struck with consistently lethal effect, paving the way for an allied entrance into Baghdad that was largely unopposed. Hussein’s regime finally collapsed on April 9. Viewed in hindsight, it was the combination of allied air power as an indispensable enabler and the unexpected rapidity of the allied ground advance that allowed coalition forces to overrun Baghdad before Iraq could mount a coherent defense. In achieving this unprecedented level of performance, allied air power was indispensable in setting the conditions for the campaign’s end. Freedom from attack and freedom to attack prevailed for allied ground forces. The intended effect of allied air operations was to facilitate the quickest capture of Baghdad without the occurrence of any major head-to-head battles on the ground. This impressive short-term achievement, however, was soon overshadowed by the ensuing insurgency that continued for four years thereafter in Iraq. The mounting costs of that turmoil tended, for a time, to render the campaign’s initial successes all but forgotten. Only more recently did the war begin showing signs of reaching an agreeable end when the coalition’s commander put into effect a new counterinsurgency strategy in 2007 aimed at providing genuine security for Iraqi citizens. The toppling of Hussein’s regime ended the iron rule of an odious dictator who had brutalized his people for more than 30 years. Yet the inadequate resourcing with which that goal was pursued showed that any effective plan for a regime takedown must include due hedging against the campaign’s likely aftermath in addition to simply seeing to the needs of major combat. That said, despite the failure of the campaign’s planners to underwrite the first need adequately, those who conducted the three-week offensive in pursuit of regime change performed all but flawlessly, thanks in considerable part to the mostly unobserved but crucial enabling contributions of allied air power.

The Gulf Wars with Iraq

The Gulf Wars with Iraq PDF Author: Jane Bingham
Publisher: Capstone
ISBN: 1432959972
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 82

Get Book

Book Description
This book briefly examines the military and political impact of the Gulf wars, along with their imapct on civilian populations.

Cobra II

Cobra II PDF Author: Michael R. Gordon
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0375424245
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Get Book

Book Description
Written by the chief military correspondent of the New York Times and a prominent retired Marine general, this is the definitive account of the invasion of Iraq. A stunning work of investigative journalism, Cobra II describes in riveting detail how the American rush to Baghdad provided the opportunity for the virulent insurgency that followed. As Gordon and Trainor show, the brutal aftermath was not inevitable and was a surprise to the generals on both sides. Based on access to unseen documents and exclusive interviews with the men and women at the heart of the war, Cobra II provides firsthand accounts of the fighting on the ground and the high-level planning behind the scenes. Now with a new afterword that addresses what transpired after the fateful events of the summer of 2003, this is a peerless re-creation and analysis of the central event of our times.

Hidden Battles on Unseen Fronts

Hidden Battles on Unseen Fronts PDF Author: Patricia P. Driscoll
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1935149016
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 420

Get Book

Book Description
Compelling stories of American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with what are now considered this war's signature injuries-- TBI and PTSD -- along with the experiences of our mental health professionals newly mobilized to assist them.

Fear and Loathing in George W. Bush's Washington

Fear and Loathing in George W. Bush's Washington PDF Author: Elizabeth Drew
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 9781590171288
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 84

Get Book

Book Description
Many Democrats in the Senate are fearful of George W. Bush and "his unscrupulous political strategist, Karl Rove," writes Elizabeth Drew. The House, meanwhile, is run by Republican Whip Tom DeLay, "the mean-spirited partisan from Texas" who has polarized the chamber along party lines. How did we get to this point under a president who ran on a promise to unite rather than divide, and how has our government been affected? Elizabeth Drew's answers to these questions begin by exposing the cynicism of the Bush presidential campaign, orchestrated by Rove. She also reveals the deep division between the neocons in the Defense Department and the realists in the State Department. The controversy between the two camps, she finds, has "brought out bitterness and knife-wielding of a sort that Washington has seldom seen." The result, she concludes, is that "the increasing unwillingness to compromise is not only blocking legislation but, it is not overdramatic to say, is subverting fundamental concepts of democracy." Russell Baker in his preface writes: "In Washington an age of moral and philosophical sterility is deeply entrenched, and as Elizabeth Drew's reporting attests, the result is not pretty .... Since [the end of the cold war] government has seemed to be mostly about raising money to get elected, and then reelected repeatedly in order to service those who put up the money. There is no moral urgency in it, no philosophical imperative at work."

To Start a War

To Start a War PDF Author: Robert Draper
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0525561056
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Get Book

Book Description
One of BookPage's Best Books of 2020 “The detailed, nuanced, gripping account of that strange and complex journey offered in Robert Draper’s To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America Into Iraq is essential reading—now, especially now . . . Draper’s account [is] one for the ages . . . A must-read for all who care about presidential power.” —The Washington Post From the author of the New York Times bestseller Dead Certain comes the definitive, revelatory reckoning with arguably the most consequential decision in the history of American foreign policy--the decision to invade Iraq. Even now, after more than fifteen years, it is hard to see the invasion of Iraq through the cool, considered gaze of history. For too many people, the damage is still too palpable, and still unfolding. Most of the major players in that decision are still with us, and few of them are not haunted by it, in one way or another. Perhaps it's that combination, the passage of the years and the still unresolved trauma, that explains why so many protagonists opened up so fully for the first time to Robert Draper. Draper's prodigious reporting has yielded scores of consequential new revelations, from the important to the merely absurd. As a whole, the book paints a vivid and indelible picture of a decision-making process that was fatally compromised by a combination of post-9/11 fear and paranoia, rank naïveté, craven groupthink, and a set of actors with idées fixes who gamed the process relentlessly. Everything was believed; nothing was true. The intelligence failure was comprehensive. Draper's fair-mindedness and deep understanding of the principal actors suffuse his account, as does a storytelling genius that is close to sorcery. There are no cheap shots here, which makes the ultimate conclusion all the more damning. In the spirit of Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August and Marc Bloch's Strange Defeat, To Start A War will stand as the definitive account of a collective process that arrived at evidence that would prove to be not just dubious but entirely false, driven by imagination rather than a quest for truth--evidence that was then used to justify a verdict that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a flood tide of chaos in the Middle East that shows no signs of ebbing.

Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq

Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq PDF Author: Ahmed S. Hashim
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801459982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Get Book

Book Description
Years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a loosely organized insurgency continues to target American and Coalition soldiers, as well as Iraqi security forces and civilians, with devastating results. In this sobering account of the ongoing violence, Ahmed Hashim, a specialist on Middle Eastern strategic issues and on irregular warfare, reveals the insurgents behind the widespread revolt, their motives, and their tactics. The insurgency, he shows, is not a united movement directed by a leadership with a single ideological vision. Instead, it involves former regime loyalists, Iraqis resentful of foreign occupation, foreign and domestic Islamist extremists, and elements of organized crime. These groups have cooperated with one another in the past and coordinated their attacks; but the alliance between nationalist Iraqi insurgents on the one hand and religious extremists has frayed considerably. The U.S.-led offensive to retake Fallujah in November 2004 and the success of the elections for the Iraqi National Assembly in January 2005 have led more "mainstream" insurgent groups to begin thinking of reinforcing the political arm of their opposition movement and to seek political guarantees for the Sunni Arab community in the new Iraq. Hashim begins by placing the Iraqi revolt in its historical context. He next profiles the various insurgent groups, detailing their origins, aims, and operational and tactical modi operandi. He concludes with an unusually candid assessment of the successes and failures of the Coalition's counter-insurgency campaign. Looking ahead, Hashim warns that ethnic and sectarian groups may soon be pitted against one another in what will be a fiercely contested fight over who gets what in the new Iraq. Evidence that such a conflict is already developing does not augur well for Iraq's future stability. Both Iraq and the United States must work hard to ensure that slow but steady success over the insurgency is not overshadowed by growing ethno-sectarian animosities as various groups fight one another for the biggest slice of the political and economic pie. In place of sensational headlines, official triumphalism, and hand-wringing, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq offers a clear-eyed analysis of the increasingly complex violence that threatens the very future of Iraq.

The Iraq War

The Iraq War PDF Author: John Keegan
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book

Book Description
"The Iraq War is important to our understanding of a conflict whose full ramifications are as yet unknown."--BOOK JACKET.

Invisible Wounds of War

Invisible Wounds of War PDF Author: Marguerite Guzman Bouvard
Publisher: Prometheus Books
ISBN: 1616145544
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Get Book

Book Description
There’s no real homecoming for many of our veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They may go through the motions of daily life in their hometowns, but the terrible sights and sounds of war are still fresh in their minds. This empathic, inside look into the lives of our combat veterans reveals the lingering impact that the longest wars in our nation’s history continue to have on far too many of our finest young people. Basing her account on numerous interviews with veterans and their families, the author examines the factors that have made these recent conflicts especially trying. A major focus of the book is the extreme duress that is a daily part of a soldier’s life in combat zones with no clear frontlines or perimeters. Having to cope with unrecognizable enemies in the midst of civilian populations and attacks from hidden weapons like improvised explosive devices exacts a heavy toll. Compounding the problem is the all-volunteer nature of our armed forces, which often demands multiple deployments of enlistees. This results in frequent cases of post-traumatic stress disorder and families disrupted by the long absence of one and sometimes both parents. The author also discusses the lack of connectedness between civilian society and military personnel, leading to inadequate healthcare for many veterans. This deficiency has been highlighted by the urgent need to treat traumatic brain injuries in survivors of explosions and the high veteran suicide rate. Bouvard concludes on a positive note by discussing some of the surprising and encouraging ways that the chasm between civilian and military life is being bridged to help reintegrate our returning soldiers. For veterans, their families, and especially for civilians unaware of how much our soldiers have endured, The Invisible Wounds of War is important reading.