About book The Assassins' Gate: America In Iraq (2006)
Given the recent rise of ISIS in the Middle East, understanding the origins and character of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has become exceptionally important. In Assassins' Gate, George Packer, a journalist with the New Yorker, covers the lead-up to the war as well as the occupation through 2006. The book is a narrative history, with prominence given to conversations Packer had with government officials, soldiers, scholars, and Iraqis. While this may not grant readers a comprehensive account of the war, it nonetheless makes for an engaging read and gives the war and occupation a much needed human perspective. Reasons for (and Against) WarPacker sets the scene for the war with the rise of the neoconservatives and the end of the first Gulf War. Regarding the former, the emphasis is on the leaked 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, which declared that the US's "first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival." (p. 13) Moreover, the "overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power" in the Middle East "and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil," (pp. 21-22) a sentiment echoed in President Obama's 2013 UN speech, where he declared that the US is “prepared to use all elements of our power, including military force, to secure our core interests in” the Middle East which include “the free flow of energy from the region to the world.” Incidentally, this is one of the only implications of oil as a cause for the war, despite Iraq's critical location in the middle of what President Eisenhower described as the “most strategically important area of the world.” (p. 150, Hegemony or Survival, Noam Chomsky)As for other causes, Packer only briefly mentions WMDs, quickly (and, I think, rightly) dismisses the idea of an Israel-lobby sparked war, and spends the majority of the first 99 pages devoted to the causes of the war discussing the liberal case for it: removing a brutal dictator and spreading democracy in the Middle East. For Packer, who “belonged to the tiny, insignificant camp of ambivalently prowar liberals” (p. 87), this is the most convincing case, as put by such Iraqi exiles as Kanan Makiya. Packer's guiding examples are the interventions in Haiti and the Balkans in the 1990s, which he sees as examples of benevolent uses of American military power to further humanitarian goals. Packer doesn't question this premise, although it is far from obvious. For example, John Schear, a former Obama administration Defense Department official, argues in Foreign Affairs that intervention in Haiti was precipitated not by the humanitarian crisis but largely because refugees were inundating US shores and its proximity to the US. Schear argues that in “the Balkans, the key challenge was securing Europe's uncertain passage to post-Cold war stability” rather than humanitarian catastrophe. John Mazarr, professor at the National War College, suggests that such interventions in the 1990s were “a solution to an unusual concern confronting U.S. policymakers in this era: what to do with a surplus of national power” once the Soviet Union had collapsed. (p. 115, Foreign Affairs, 2014, vol. 93, no. 1)Moreover, Packer ignores one of the major causes of the humanitarian crisis in Iraq: US-UK led sanctions. He instead puts the onus of Iraqi suffering on Saddam almost exclusively. (In the afterword to the paperback edition, Packer finally acknowledges that sanctions “ruined the lives of millions of Iraqis” though he stops short of saying they killed anyone.) Estimates of the death toll resulting from sanctions vary but are consistently in the hundreds of thousands. Take, for example, Packer's observation of “green ponds of raw waste, eighteen inches deep”, as sanitation and waste treatment were in abysmal conditions in Shia enclaves of Baghdad and Iraq more generally. While Saddam clearly didn't favor the Shia, the impact of sanctions cannot be overlooked. Under the UN Oil-for-Food program (OFP), “the severely inadequate financial allocations to the water and sanitation sector remained life-threating for a large part of the Iraqi population” according to Hans von Sponeck, the UN official in charge of the OFP in the late 1990s. Furthermore, the US and UK blocked 32 percent of all water and sanitation contracts for the country during the time of the OFP program. (p. 47-8, A Different Kind of War, Hans von Sponeck) Since the OFP was ostensibly meant to be temporary, it did not budget for investment, a further drain on the sanitation infrastructure of Iraq. The impact of OFP was similar across other sectors. In addition, the US bombing during the 1991 Gulf War reduced much civilian Iraqi infrastructure to rubble, compounding the problems of sanctions. All of this is elided by Packer, which is interesting considering his frequent references to the welfare of Iraqis as an important reason for his support of the war (we never find out what his position was regarding sanctions).Packer tends to be highly critical of the antiwar movement, seeing them as “moralists” who “don't take much interest in the details or the consequences.” (p. 85) He finds the “most appealing face” of the antiwar movement to be Eli Pariser of Moveon.org, who argued that the cost to US international stature and troops probably wasn't worth it. Apparently Packer couldn't find an antiwar activist who opposed the war on legal or principled grounds, or he doesn't find those to be worthy reasons to oppose war.OccupationThe Bush administration's postwar planning was woefully unmatched for the challenges the occupation would face. Largely, this was a result of hubris and prioritizing war fighting over occupation. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's desire for a low-manpower war ensured the US would not be able to provide basic security to the newly conquered country. The administration believed that the US would be able to withdraw several months after taking out Saddam's regime. Clearly, this did not come to pass. Instead, crucial mistakes which the US made early on – not quickly providing security and preventing looting, not holding local elections almost immediately (attempts by Marine commanders in Najaf were made to hold an election, but were shut down by the Coalition Provisional Authority, or CPA [p. 189]), and debaathification of government ministries, especially the army, among many other missteps. Packer finds bright spots in the efforts of individuals in the occupation, such as Major John Prior or CPA official Drew Erdmann, who are earnestly trying to do their best for Iraqis given their respective situations. For example, Erdmann organizes faculty elections of university presidents, a remarkable early display of limited democracy in occupied Iraq – limited in that if the faculty elected candidates unacceptable to the CPA, they would have been vetoed. (p. 188) However, workplace elections of managers by their staff were outlawed by CPA head Paul Bremer in June 2003. (p. 81, Fuel on the Fire, Greg Muttitt) Furthermore, Bremer anounced that he would veto any interim constitution which “declared Islam to be the principal basis of law” (p. 263) ensuring that any Iraqi imprint on the interim constitution via the CPA-appointed Governing Council would be constrained within specified boundaries. Bremer said “he would approach the running of Iraq like a demanding corporate executive” (p. 190) which he did in part by reaffirming a Saddam-era law banning labor unions (p. 49, 115, Fuel on the Fire, Greg Muttitt) and promoting privatization of key Iraqi industries. Escalating ViolenceOne of the highest-profile battles of the war was in Fallujah, which came to the attention of American audiences following the mob killing of four US security contractors on March 31st, 2004. This is also the precipitating event for the increased violence in spring 2004 that Packer cites. (p. 297) While it is true that the killings significantly ratched up the US offensive, it had actually begun five days earlier, on March 26th. Hostility in Fallujah towards the occupation dated back to an incident where US troops shot 17 peaceful demonstrators outside a school; at a follow-up protest days later, three more were killed. (p. 96, Fuel on the Fire, Greg Muttitt) Packer also fails to detail the level of atrocities committed by the US offensive (p. 324), where ambulances were targeted by snipers, the city's only hospital was occupied, and the water tower of the hospital was used as a sniper position, all flagrant war crimes. (p. 96, ibid.; 4/23/04, The Guardian, Rory McCarthy) Credible allegations have also been made regarding use of white phospohorus and depleted uranium in Fallujah, the latter likely responsible for a huge uptick in birth defects and miscarriages in the city. Packer believes that it took “the lid of totalitarianism” (p. 336) to keep sectarian tensions under control in Iraq, although he does mention that many Iraqis told him the sectarianism didn't exist prior to the invasion and had only been increased by the US occupation, even if Packer doesn't believe it. Polls confirm what the Iraqis told Packer: “September 2003 polls showed that only 29 percent of Iraqis believe it important that leader should represent “my sect””. (p. 74, Fuel on the Fire, Greg Muttitt) When the CPA unveiled its Governing Council, however, Bremer announced that it would “represent the diversity of Iraq: whether you are Shiite or Sunni, Arab or Kurd, Baghdadi or Basrawi, man or woman, you will see yourself represented in this council,” indicating that Iraq politics wasn't to be governed by ideas but rather by ethnicity. (p. 73, Fuel on the Fire, Greg Muttitt)Around half a million Iraqis died following the invasion of Iraq. (2013, PloS Medicine, Hagopian et al.) According to the standards applied at Nuremberg, aggression is “the supreme international crime”; “it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.” Packer labels the Iraq war “a tragedy” (p. 463) but to apply the same principles of Nuremberg, it is also a serious crime, whose echoes are still heard today, now in the form of ISIS.
Coming home from a night-in-progress, I started this book, thinking, 'S**8 Sean, I'm not into your thick non-Fiction tomes on the wars of meglomaniacal clowns and their cronies,' but I started to really get into the Prologue and finally got it.I won't lie, it's not the easiest for me to follow, since Sean is the History teacher and fascinated by all things historical. Yet, along the lines of nearly every book pushed on Jon Stewart and Steve Colbert's shows, it's a book I feel I must work to comprehend.The premise is actually quite simple: The War in Iraq as an experiment that was planned out perhaps 3-5 years prior to the actual invasion, as a means at attempting to create stability in the Middle East. Really, we all knew it had nothing to do with bin Laden, al Qaeda and all the rest, but the book brings in intellectual thinkers such as Wolfowitz, desperately trying to manipulate the squeamish "doves" not too crazy about entering another potential Vietnam and authors like Kanan Makiya who warned of the dangers and problems in the region in the mid 1980s.The shocker of it: Cheney was NOT the grand instigator that we may have originally thought—at least not as far a the first 55 pages is concerned. Packer describes him as a quiet businessman who happened to be thrust into a role that fit his personality to a tee.Robert Kagan, one of Packer's greatest sources helps to clarify the buildup and much of the philosophies and closed-door discussions happening in the few years before Sept. 11, 2001, which he calls "the turning point.""Did we keep alive a certain way of looking at American policy at a time when it was pretty unpopular? Yes. I think probably you need to have people do that so you have something to come back to. And, in a way, then you have a ready-made approach to the world," (38).12-17-09Last read in Jan. 201059—Eschatology (lit. 'study of the last') is a part of theology and philosophy concerned with what are believed to be the final events in the history of the world, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world. While in mysticism the phrase refers metaphorically to the end of ordinary reality and reunion with the Divine, in many traditional religions it is taught as an actual future event prophesied in sacred texts or folklore. More broadly, eschatology may encompass related concepts such as the Messiah or Messianic Age, the end time, and the end of days. 98—2nd P = Feisal Istrabadi“I knew no one who spent four decades in exile knew what was going on in Iraq. I didn’t and Kanan didn’t. The only difference was I was a hell of lot more cautious. He always made promises he could not keep,” (Chicago lawyer, said of Istrabadi).And then there's their own "Body of Lies" tangle:106—7—Body of Lies (BoL)110-11—Bush’s take-away #1112—What about “nation building”?116—“costs of Post-War117—Wolf’s delusions concerning Afghanistan “Predators”—bottom, BoL118—“There was no Plan B.” “Major, your deluding yourself.”119—General Anthony Zinni, “a power vacuum if Saddam Fell…”From these notes, I meant to expound upon them and follow-up. Yet, it's been nearly 11 months and still I haven't gotten back to this amazingly complex book.More in time.....
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كتاب يؤرخ عن الغزو الامريكي للعراق ..من الاستعداد للغزو وتخبط الادراة الامريكه وصناع القرار وجهلهم عن المنطقة..الى الاحتلال الامريكي ومابعدها من فوضى,والاقتتال الطائفي..كان لا يوجد هناك قانون فقط أحتلاال..الكاتب هنا تحدث مع شخصيات عراقية وامريكيه..مغرمة بغزو العراق..وضح وجهات نظرهم..وذكر أحداث ووقائع ماقبل الغزو وأثناء الاحتلال الامريكي وأزمة الاكراد..وفترة حكم بول بريمر لا أتذكر الاحداث قبل الغزو واثناء الاحتلال..وعن هذه الفترة بالذات كنت صغيرة..وساعدني هذا الكتابلمين يريد ان يقرا عن هذة الفترة أنصحة بهذا الكتاب..أنني مهتمه جدا بهذةالفترة.. الكتاب تحدث عن هذة الفترة على الاقل من وجهه نظر امريكية ..لكنني سأبحث في الكتب العربية التي تتحدث عن هذه الفترة بدون تحيز وطائفيه..لكي تكتمل الصورة لديأنه كتاب تاريخي سياسي..لكنة مؤلم حقا..منذ الغزو الى يومنا هذا مازال أخبار العبوات الناسفة السيارات المفخخة تصلنا من العراق..ومزيد من الضحايا الابرياءما أشقى بلاد العرب:(
—R.f.k
Less a history of the war than a first-person account of travels in Iraq and conversations with a wide range of individuals caught up in events surrounding the early days of the U.S. invasion. The war is always present but it's somehow remote, a backdrop that affects the stories Packer tells without being the focus of them.A wide range of perspectives are represented here, including a U.S. soldier thrust into the role of a civil administrator, an Iraqi intellectual anxious to see Saddam removed and an American anti-war activist. There's equal weight given to U.S. and Iraqi voices, a welcome reprieve from most American writing on the topic. It's this broad range of views, along with Packer's obvious affection and respect for his subjects, that make the book work.Highly recommended for anyone interested in thinking about the war more as an event that affected human beings and less as a political construct.
—Absurdfarce
I got this book from the school library, and later bought it for my dad for Christmas. George Packer reports from Iraq from the initial days of the invasion until about 2005 or so when the book was published. He details how misguided and ill-conceived the entire Iraq operation was from the beginning, not that this will come as a revelation to anyone. The State Department had written up post-invasion plans that were basically ignored because the pentagon assumed that it wouldn't need them. The Coaliton Provisional Authority that was initially in charge of Iraq had essentially no training or resources. If you saw the recent movie "No End in Sight" it covers much of the same ground. Packer is critical of the administration, but not in an overzealous way.What is surprising about this book is that Packer manages to present a compelling case against withdrawal. Through a series interviews and profiles of Iraqis, Packer gives you a sense of how much is at stake for those working to rebuild their country. Those Iraqis that have cooperated with the Americans in the interest of democracy and civil rights, have risked their own and their families' lives. If we abandon Iraq, a civil war will occur on a much larger scale than at present, and the first casualties will be these Iraqis who have nobly attempted to reconstruct their country despite incredible odds. A withdrawal would de fact condemn them to death at the hands of extremists. An Iranian-American friend of mine once made the case that these people are doomed anyway and that the sooner we withdrawal, the sooner this civil war will run its course and allow the Iraqi people to move on. No one can know the ultimate effect that a withdrawal would have on the country and in my estimation it is too much of an unknown to be a prudent option. I'd love to read a sequel that covers 2005-2008, with all that has changed in the interim: the Al Askari Mosque bombing, the new government, General Petraeus, the surge, the alignment of Sunnis in some provinces against al Queda in Iraq, etc...Well, I just looked it up and he apparently has a piece in the New Yorker from 2007, I guess I'll stop typing and read that now.http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/20...Nick
—Nick
