My Year in Iraq

My Year in Iraq

Author: L. Paul Bremer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2006-01-09

Total Pages: 433

ISBN-13: 0743289072

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"BAGHDAD WAS BURNING." With these words, Ambassador L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer begins his gripping memoir of fourteen danger-filled months as America's proconsul in Iraq. My Year in Iraq is the only senior insider's perspective on the crucial period following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime. In vivid, dramatic detail, Bremer reveals the previously hidden struggles among Iraqi politicians and America's leaders, taking us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the White House Situation Room and the Pentagon E-Ring. His memoir carries the reader behind closed doors in Baghdad during hammer-and-tongs negotiations with emerging Iraqi leaders as they struggle to forge the democratic institutions vital to Iraq's future of hope. He describes his private meetings with President Bush and his admiration for the president's firm wartime leadership. And we witness heated sessions among members of America's National Security Council -- George Bush, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice -- as Bremer labors to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. He admires the selfless and courageous work of thousands of American servicemen and -women and civilians in Iraq. The flames Bremer describes on arriving in Baghdad were from fires started by looters. One of his first acts was to request an additional 4,000 Military Police to help restore order in the streets. For most of the next year, as the insurgency spread, Bremer resisted efforts by generals and senior Defense Department civilians to reduce American troop strength prematurely, replacing our forces with ill-trained, poorly led Iraqi police and soldiers. And he lays to rest the myth that the Coalition disbanded Saddam's army, a force comprised of Shiite draftees who had deserted and refused to serve under their former Sunni officers. Bremer also describes his frustration with intelligence operations that concentrated on the search for weapons of mass destruction while the insurgency gathered strength. Bremer faced daunting problems working with Iraq's traumatized and divided population to find a path to a responsible and representative government. The Shia Arabs, the country's long-repressed majority, deeply distrusted the Sunni Arab minority who had held power for centuries and had controlled the detested Baath Party. Iraq's non-Arab Kurds teetered on the brink of secession when Bremer arrived. He had to find Sunnis willing to participate in the new political order. Some in the U.S. government pushed for what Bremer would come to call a cut-and-run policy that would have quickly delivered governance of Iraq to a handful of unrepresentative anti-Saddam exiles. Bremer vigorously resisted this ill-conceived course. He takes the reader inside marathon negotiations as he and his team shepherded Iraq's new leaders to write an interim constitution with guarantees for individual and minority rights unprecedented in the region. My Year in Iraq is required reading for all those interested in the real story of how America responded to its gravest recent overseas crisis.


My Year in Iraq

My Year in Iraq

Author: L. Paul Bremer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2006-11-21

Total Pages: 47

ISBN-13: 141654058X

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An American pro-consul assigned by George W. Bush to direct the reconstruction of Iraq presents a firsthand account of the year he spent there, from his initial shock at the region's underreported devastation and his efforts to write a constitution to protect civil rights to his struggles to provide basic supplies while countering the forces of the Kurds, Shia, and Sunnis. Reprint. 50,000 first printing.


Under the Gun in Iraq

Under the Gun in Iraq

Author: Robert Cole

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2010-05-04

Total Pages: 309

ISBN-13: 1615925554

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A sobering read from another lost front. - Kirkus ReviewsWhat happens when you drop an experienced American cop in the middle of a war zone - with very little preparation or support - to train Iraqi police? Under the Gun in Iraq tells you in high fidelity detail about this vital aspect of U.S. efforts to build a nation.-BRYAN VILA, Ph.D., Professor at Washington State University, former Marine, Los Angeles police officer and cross-cultural police trainerOne moment, I was standing there with my buddies unloading a truck. The next moment, my ears picked up the distinct 'pssst' sound homing in on us.... Hit the ground! someone yelled. Right behind the first mortar was a second, then a third, then a fourth. They each slammed into the earth with an enormous impact. The ground shook. The eight-story building above us shuddered, and we all covered our heads when the windows blew out. As I lay there with glass and debris raining down on me, all I could think was, 'Holy shit, what did I get myself into?'President Bush is fond of saying, When Iraq can stand up, America can stand down. A large part of standing up is having a well-trained police force in place to maintain peace and order.Why is it taking so long to put a solid police force together? How prepared are the Iraqis to carry out their duties? What pitfalls are Americans facing as they try to get Iraqi police up to speed?In this book Robert Cole-a retired California police officer hired by DynCorp as an international police trainer-presents a vivid account of the challenges of training the Iraqis to handle their own security. In blunt, everyday language, Cole gives the reader an unusually candid and often hair-raising glimpse into reality at the street level as he and his colleagues navigate the dangerous sectors of Baghdad, Tikrit, and Kirkuk, dodging explosions and bullets aimed at them by young, Iraqi, wannabe heroes.Cole describes situations not shown in the media that fly in the face of the party line from Washington: men in their sixties being hired as policemen, Iraqi detectives who extract information from people by ramming toothpicks under their fingernails, officers suggesting that the best way to subdue potential suspects who flee is by shooting them in the back, police hunkered down in their barracks who refuse to patrol neighborhoods for fear of violence, an enemy that easily blends into a population armed to the teeth with loaded AK-47s, and the routine frustrations of cultural and language barriers to communication.In sharp contrast to the usual bromides about staying the course, Under the Gun in Iraq paints a brutally realistic picture of the bleak, perilous road ahead. This is essential reading for all Americans seeking an honest understanding of the dire situation in Iraq.Robert Cole was a police officer for over 25 years. He retired from the force in East Palo Alto, California, where he was one of the commanders that helped bring the city back from its status as the murder capital of the United States. Cole recently finished almost two years in the United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti. He served a one-year tour of duty working for DynCorp as an international police trainer in Iraq and will be redeployed for another in 2008.Jan Hogan (Las Vegas, NV) is an award-winning staff writer for Stephens Media who writes for View newspapers and has published numerous articles in AAA's Motorland (now Via), Law & Order, and other publications. She is currently writing her next book on dyslexia.


Baghdad at Sunrise

Baghdad at Sunrise

Author: Peter R. Mansoor

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2008-10-01

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0300142633

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An on-the-ground commander describes his brigade's first year in Iraq after the U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency, in a firsthand analysis of success and failure in Iraq.


A Doctor Looks at War

A Doctor Looks at War

Author: Michael C. Hodges

Publisher: Tate Publishing & Enterprises

Published: 2007-02

Total Pages: 198

ISBN-13: 1598865943

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What would you do if you were sent from all that comforts you into the unknowns of a raging battlefield? In his new book, "A Doctor Looks at War," author Michael C. Hodges, M.D., chronicles his experience in an army combat support hospital during the initial year of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He describes in colorful detail the healthcare treatment of wounded soldiers as well as the Iraqi prisoners and civilians. Written in the form of a journal, his raw emotions are on display-ranging from fear to anger, joy to frustration, and finally, acceptance. In a progressive fashion he is stretched to the limits of endurance and faces physical and emotional hardships when forced to venture outside the limits of his training as a cardiologist. Throughout, he grows in faith, compassion and skill as a physician and learns to fully rely on God.


Private Soldiers

Private Soldiers

Author: Benjamin Buchholz

Publisher: Wisconsin Historical Society

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0870203959

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"Private Soldiers chronicles the 2-127th's year-long deployment from the unique perspective of the soldiers themselves. Written and photographed by three battalion members, the book provides a rare first-hand account of war and life in Iraq. Fascinating soldier interviews reveal the effects of deployment on the troops and on their families back home, and interviews with Iraqi civilians describe the Iraqis' perceptions of life, war, and working alongside Wisconsin troops. Brilliant photography illuminates the 2-127th's year, from training to "boots on the ground" to their return home. And candid photos token by battalion members capture the soldiers' day-to-day lives and camaraderie."--BOOK JACKET.


Surge

Surge

Author: Peter R. Mansoor

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2013-10-29

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0300199163

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“The definitive account . . . A fascinating combination of grand strategy and personal vignettes” (Max Boot, The Wall Street Journal). Finalist for the 2013 Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History Surge is an insider’s view of the most decisive phase of the Iraq War. After exploring the dynamics of the war during its first three years, the book takes the reader on a journey to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where the controversial new US Army and Marine Corps counterinsurgency doctrine was developed; to Washington, DC, and the halls of the Pentagon, where the joint chiefs of staff struggled to understand the conflict; to the streets of Baghdad, where soldiers worked to implement the surge and reenergize the flagging war effort before the Iraqi state splintered; and to the halls of Congress, where Amb. Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus testified in some of the most contentious hearings in recent history. Using newly declassified documents, unpublished manuscripts, interviews, author notes, and published sources, Surge explains how President George W. Bush, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, Ambassador Crocker, General Petraeus, and other US and Iraqi political and military leaders shaped the surge from the center of the maelstrom in Baghdad and Washington. “This is one of the best books to emerge from the Iraq War. I expect it will be remembered as one of the most insightful accounts from an insider of the key ‘surge’ phase of that conflict. The chapter on the Sunni Awakening especially stands out as a terrific overview of that critical development.” —Thomas E. Ricks, author of Fiasco


Iraq + 100

Iraq + 100

Author: Hassan Blasim

Publisher: Tordotcom

Published: 2017-09-12

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1250161312

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One of NPR's Best Books of 2017! A groundbreaking anthology of science fiction from Iraq that will challenge your perception of what it means to be “The Other” “History is a hostage, but it will bite through the gag you tie around its mouth, bite through and still be heard.”—Operation Daniel In a calm and serene world, one has the luxury of imagining what the future might look like. Now try to imagine that future when your way of life has been devastated by forces beyond your control. Iraq + 100 poses a question to Iraqi writers (those who still live in that nation, and those who have joined the worldwide diaspora): What might your home country look like in the year 2103, a century after a disastrous foreign invasion? Using science fiction, allegory, and magical realism to challenge the perception of what it means to be “The Other”, this groundbreaking anthology edited by Hassan Blasim contains stories that are heartbreakingly surreal, and yet utterly recognizable to the human experience. Though born out of exhaustion, fear, and despair, these stories are also fueled by themes of love, family, and endurance, and woven through with a delicate thread of hope for the future. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.


Wheels on Fire

Wheels on Fire

Author: Michelle Zaremba

Publisher: L&R Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 9781555716561

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From February 2004-2005, Staff Sergeant Michelle Zaremba led supply convoys through the streets of Baghdad. A woman in combat, truck driver, Purple Heart recipient, leader of men: roles she never thought she'd be living when she joined the National Guard as a seventeen year old looking for direction.For 365 days, Michelle saw the Iraq War up close, experiencing the terror, the camaraderie and the frustration of being so far away from home for so long.Funny and poignant, Wheels On Fire is one woman's personal experience of war, mosquitoes, bad food, incompetent leadership and camel spiders.Includes more than 50 photos and excerpts from her in-country email correspondence with her hometown newspaper--emails that appeared regularly and made her a local celebrity and hero.


To Start a War

To Start a War

Author: Robert Draper

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2020-07-28

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 0525561056

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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.