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This is the definitive book on the Iraq War to date. It provides ample evidence that the G.W. Bush regime, along with the Pentagon and the CIA, made a false casus belli for war with Iraq, keenly anticipating an easy victory with Iraqis greeting American soldiers with garlands of flowers as liberators. That, alas, was not to be. Furthermore, what was galling was that the U.S. had absolutely NO comprehesive plan or set of plans for rebuilding the Iraqi economy and re-establishing basic services for the Iraqi people. (By basic services, I mean water, electricity, sanitation services, and civil institutions such as the courts, and fire and police services.) Nor were enough troops provided, not only for waging the war, but also for securing the borders, and laying the foundations for a timely return to normality in Iraq. What was also appalling was that the U.S. government principally used the services of organizations sent to restore basic services in Iraq, which were made up of people who had ABSOLUTELY NO TRAINING OR EXPERIENCE for the reconstruction projects they headed! Indeed, many of these people (several of them were recent college graduates) were chosen because of their political fealty to Bush-Cheney.
To quote the author, "[i]t now seems more likely history's judgment will be that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in the spring of 2003 was based on perhaps the worst war plan in American history. It was a campaign plan for a few battles, not a plan to prevail and secure victory. Its incompleteness helped create the condtions for the difficult occupation that followed. The invasion is of interest now mainly for its role in creating those problems."
I strongly urge any discerning reader with an interest in U.S. foreign policy to read this book with care, comparing it with David Halberstam's "[b:The Best and the Brightest|7766476|The Best and the Brightest|David Halberstam|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1266780415s/7766476.jpg|403286]."