America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History (73 page)

 24.
Quoted in Thomas K. Adams,
The Army After Next
(Westport, 2006), 136.

 25.
Franks,
American Soldier,
331.

 26.
It was literally the case that PowerPoint slides supplanted more orthodox planning methodologies. Here, too, Rumsfeld was expressing his disdain for military convention. Thomas E. Ricks,
Fiasco
(New York, 2006), 75.

 27.
Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor,
Cobra II
(New York, 2006), 5–7, 22–23; Ricks,
Fiasco,
42–43.

 28.
Gordon and Trainor,
Cobra II,
4, 29, 31–32.

 29.
Franks,
American Soldier,
428.

 30.
Franks,
American Soldier,
416. Franks devotes over a hundred pages (328–437) to detailing plans and preparations for Operation Iraqi Freedom and barely fifty (478–530) to its actual execution.

 31.
Most famously, General Eric Shinseki, then serving as army chief of staff, stated publicly in February 2003 that occupying Iraq was likely to require a force of several hundred thousand troops. Senior civilian officials in the Bush administration dismissed this projection as “wildly off the mark.” Eric Schmitt, “Pentagon Contradicts General on Iraq Occupation Force’s Size,”
The New York Times
(February 28, 2003).

 32.
With the vote occurring in October 2002, just prior to the off-year elections, the count was 77–23 in the Senate and 296–133 in the House of Representatives. Prior to the Second Persian Gulf War, members of Congress nursing presidential ambitions who had voted against the resolution authorizing the use of force had paid a steep political price. Opposing Desert Storm was subsequently deemed a disqualifying error. This time around, ambitious senators such as Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry had no intention of suffering a similar fate. All three were among the prominent Democrats who joined Republicans in voting for war.

 33.
Patrick E. Tyler, “A New Power in the Streets,”
The New York Times
(February 17, 2003).

 34.
Anne E. Kornblut, “President Undeterred by Antiwar Protests,”
The Boston Globe
(February 19, 2003).

 35.
For samples of prescient opposition to war, see Eric S. Margolis, “Iraq Invasion: The Road to Folly,”
The American Conservative
(October 7, 2002); and “An Open Letter to the Members of Congress,”
The Nation
(October 14, 2002).

 36.
Max Boot, “The End of Appeasement,”
The Weekly Standard
(February 10, 2003).

 37.
During the campaign to overthrow Saddam, coalition air forces flew over twenty thousand combat sorties, three-fourths of them against Iraqi ground forces. The latter figure reflects the degraded state of Iraqi air defenses and command-and-control capabilities when the war began—there wasn’t much left to attack. U.S. forces provided over 90 percent of the aircraft involved. Of the twenty-eight thousand pieces of ordnance expended, over 70 percent were precision guided munitions. The number of fixed-wing aircraft lost to enemy action was one—a U.S. Air Force A-10 Warthog. “Operation Iraqi Freedom—By the Numbers” (April 30, 2003),
afhso.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-130613-025.pdf
, accessed April 18, 2015. This document is a statistical compendium assembled by CENTCOM’s air component.

 38.
“This Will Be a Campaign Unlike Any Other in History,”
The Wall Street Journal
(March 22, 2003). The article provides a complete transcript of CENTCOM press briefing.

 39.
Jim Dwyer, “A Gulf Commander Sees a Longer Road,”
The New York Times
(March 28, 2003).

 40.
Gregory Fontenot et al.,
On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom
(Washington, D.C., 2004), 89. This U.S. Army publication provides a preliminary official history of the Third Persian Gulf War’s first phase.

 41.
Fontenot et al.,
On Point,
339.

 42.
Franks,
American Soldier,
524.

 43.
CENTCOM’s OPLAN 1003V broke into four phases. Phase I was “Preparations.” Phase II was “Shape the Battlespace.” Phase III was “Decisive Operations,” which meant getting to Baghdad. Phase IV dealt with post-combat actions. “U.S. Central Command Slide Compilation, ca. August 15, 2002; Top Secret / Polo Step, Tab K,” National Security Archive,
nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB418/
, accessed April 15, 2015.

 44.
It began: “I, General Tommy R. Franks, Commander of Coalition Forces, do hereby proclaim that: Coalition Forces in Iraq have come as liberators, not as conquerors.” It went on to promise that the forces under his command would help Iraqis “heal their wounds,” while building a representative government and protecting Iraqi oil. Franks,
American Soldier,
528–29.

 45.
Roger Roy, “In Free Baghdad, Looters Claim Everything They Can Carry,”
Orlando Sentinel
(April 10, 2003).

 46.
Mark McDonald, Jonathan S. Landay, and Drew Brown, “Chaos Reigns on Streets in Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk as Looters Take Everything,” Knight Ridder Tribune News Service (April 11, 2003).

 47.
John Daniszewski and Geoffrey Mohan, “Looters Bring Baghdad New Havoc,”
Los Angeles Times
(April 11, 2003).

 48.
“DoD News Briefing—Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers” (April 11, 2003).

 49.
According to rumor, GIs were distributing pornography to Iraqi children and using night vision devices to ogle Iraqi women. “Violent Response: The U.S. Army in Al-Falluja,”
Human Rights Watch
(June 2003), 5.

 50.
Elizabeth Neuffer, “U.S., Iraqis at Odds on Protesters’ Deaths,”
The Boston Globe
(April 30, 2003); Christine Spolar, “13 Iraqis Killed at Protest, Scores Injured,”
Chicago Tribune
(April 30, 2003).

 51.
In an incident at Mosul two weeks earlier, U.S. Marines had killed ten Iraqi demonstrators. David Rohde, “Clash in Mosul Complicates Already Troubled U.S. Arrival,”
The New York Times
(April 15, 2003).

 52.
William Knarr and Robert Castro, “The Battle for Fallujah,” Institute for Defense Analysis (September 2009), 12.

 53.
“General Jay Garner on Iraq,”
BBC Newsnight
(March 19, 2004), transcript at
gregpalast.com/bbc-newsnight-reportgeneral-jay-garner-on-iraq/
, accessed April 17, 1015.

 54.
Douglas Feith reputedly wanted Garner simply to “declare Chalabi president.” Dov S. Zakheim,
A Vulcan’s Tale
(Washington, D.C., 2011), 163. Zakheim was a senior Pentagon official during George W. Bush’s first term.

 55.
The text of both orders is available at the CPA website,
iraqcoalition.org/regulations/
, accessed April 17, 2015.

 56.
Ricks,
Fiasco,
324.

 57.
“Third Infantry Division Commander Live Briefing from Iraq” (May 15, 2003).

 58.
“Maj. Gen. Odierno Videoteleconference [
sic
] from Baghdad” (June 18, 2003).

 59.
“DoD News Briefing—Mr. Di Rita and Gen. Abizaid” (July 16, 2003).

 60.
“Videoteleconference [
sic
] from Iraq with Maj. Gen. Odierno” (July 25, 2003).

 61.
“Lt. Gen. Sanchez Briefing on the Confirmation of the Deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein” (July 23, 2003).

 62.
“Lt. Gen. Sanchez Interview on CNN” (July 27, 2003).

 63.
“Briefing on the First Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq” (September 9, 2003). The speaker was Lieutenant General James T. Conway.

 64.
“Army Maj. Gen. Swannack, Jr. Video Tele-conference from Baghdad” (November 18, 2003).

 65.
“Commander, 4th Infantry Division, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, via Teleconference from Tikrit, Iraq” (October 27, 2003).

 66.
“Live Video Teleconference with General Abizaid” (November 13, 2003).

 67.
Casualty figures come from
icasualty.org
, accessed April 23, 2015.

 68.
“Ambassador Bremer Briefing from Baghdad” (December 14, 2003).

 69.
“82nd Airborne Division Commanding General’s Briefing from Iraq” (January 6, 2004).

 70.
“4th Infantry Division commanding General’s Briefing from Iraq” (January 22, 2004).

 71.
“Media Availability from Baghdad, Iraq” (December 16, 2003).

 72.
“Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on the Treatment by Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and Other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq During Arrest, Internment, and Interrogation” (February 2004).

 73.
Dexter Filkins, “Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns,”
The New York Times
(December 7, 2003).

 74.
Jeff Wilkinson, “U.S. Blasts Iraqi Homes of Suspects,”
The Philadelphia Inquirer
(November 18, 2003).

 75.
Carl E. Mundy III, “Spare the Rod, Save the Nation,”
The New York Times
(December 30, 2003).

 76.
Brian Bennett et al., “Losing Hearts and Minds,”
Time
(December 8, 2003). For a detailed critique of U.S. tactics in this phase of the war, see Ricks,
Fiasco,
214–69.

 77.
Josh White, “U.S. Generals in Iraq Were Told of Abuse Early, Inquiry Finds,”
The Washington Post
(December 1, 2004).

 78.
“Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade” ([March 2004]).

 79.
Ricardo S. Sanchez,
Wiser in Battle
(New York, 2008).

 80.
Donald P. Wright et al.,
On Point II
(Washington, D.C., 2008), 169.

 81.
L. Paul Bremer,
My Year in Iraq
(New York, 2006).

 82.
Janis Karpinski,
One Woman’s Army
(New York, 2005).

 83.
Quoted in Ricks,
Fiasco,
362.

 84.
Available on
icasualties.org
, accessed April 24, 2015.

 85.
Amy Belasco, “The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11” (December 8, 2014), 14. This is a report issued by the Congressional Research Service.