The Iraq War

by John Keegan

Book Overview

The 2003 Iraq war remains among the most mysterious armed conflicts of modernity. In The Iraq War , John Keegan offers a sharp and lucid appraisal of the military campaign, explaining just how the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1400041996
• ISBN13: 9781400041992
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.6" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Refreshing and objective

John Keegan is a noted military historian who has written comprehensive works on the First and Second World Wars, the Napoleonic War, and intelligence in warfare. With all the pro-Arab anti-war hype that has dominated discussion of the Iraq War of 2003 by the USA and UK to liberate Iraq from the monstrous tyranny of Saddam Hussein, it is refreshing to find an objective account where actually gleans that the war to free Iraq was in many ways justified. Keegan studied the war from various perspectives and conducted interviews with General Tommy Franks and the American Secretary of State, Donald Rumsfeld. He successfully writes a history of the causes, complications and effects of the 2003 War, and investigates and explains the real reasons for the invasion, the successes of the American and British forces (with two fascinating chapters on the military campaigns of each) , the collapse of the Republican Guard, the complete lack of will of the Iraqi people to defend the Saddam dictatorship and the fall of Baghdad to Allied troops. The Iraqi people had suffered from Saddam's bloody reign of terror for too long and apart form Saddam's own SS, the Republican Guard and loyalists of Saddam's Fascist Ba'ath Party, the Iraqi people had no reason to defend the Saddam regime. The soldiers of the Iraqi army simply deserted in mass and became civilians. The terrorist fedayeen who opposed the Allied invasion were almost all non-Iraqis, they consisted of Syrian, Saudi, Palestinian, Pakistani and other Islamist who had infiltrated into Iraq. The Kurds in northern Iraq or rather Iraqi occupied Kurdistan as I see it, were unanimous in their support for the allied invasion and the their was widespread support from the Shia in the south who had long been persecuted by Saddam. The media did not wish to report on these many inconvenient truths, in the pro-Arab, anti-war positions of neo-Marxist dogma. furthermore contrary to the accepted leftist-Islamist propaganda that there was a large casualty count, the count of casualties caused to Iraqi civilians as a result of allied actions was very low and the Allies were careful to minimize casualties among the civilian population to a scruulous degree. The author discusses the anti-war hysteria and the marches across the world by the brainwashed minions of radical leftism,and notes that in Britain, the indigenous working class largely supported the war. It was Islamic and other Third world immigrant minorities and the privileged intellectual classes who opposed the liberation of Iraq. The chattering classes of Britain hold on to a contempt for the Britain's white working class because the letter's patriotism is the major obstacle in turning the United Kingdom into an Islamic dominated state run by Islamists and Marxist elites. The first three chapters of the book examine Iraq's history, and include the fact that Iraq itself was an artificial creation of British colonialism in the 1920s, an monstrosity of three

Excellent Precis from our Best Military Historian

`The Iraq War' by the eminent English military historian and journalist, John Keegan is a model of reflective reporting on a recent major historical event, bringing to bear all of Keegan's insight into Anglo-American history and military practice. For starters, I strongly disagree with those reviewers who felt Keegan gives us too much background for at least two reasons. First, the actual military campaign was so short, a narrative of it would hardly fill a book half this size. And second, the background is much more interesting and much less well known to those of us who followed every move of the Third Infantry division and the First Marine expeditionary force on CNN day by day from Kuwait to Baghdad. The most immediate lesson I got from this book are the fact that the Central Command commander, General Tommy Franks is as good or better a commander than his colleague commander of the 1991 Gulf War, `Stormin Norman Schwarzkopf'. If Franks impressed Keegan who has studied and analyzed every major conflict in the 20th century, I have no doubt that Franks was a good man for the military task at hand. A corollary lesson is that for this immediate military task, Franks did in fact have enough troops to accomplish the immediate capitulation of Iraqi armed forces. This does not mean there were enough coalition forces to nail things down after that initial success and it certainly does not mean that Frank's civilian superiors in Washington really understood the Iraqi situation either before the war began or after the coalition gained nominal control of the country. The most interesting aspects of Keegan's summary of the actual combat was the fact that the regular Iraqi troops simply melted away with the approach of American or British heavy units, the heaviest resistance came from neither regular troops nor the elite Republican Guard, but from `fedayeen' irregulars, many of whom were actually Islamic fanatics from neighboring countries such as Syria. The native Iraqis were so uninterested in the war that civilians routinely wandered into combat areas and were often mistaken for fedayeen fanatics. Another interesting aspect of Keegan's narrative of the combat was his characterization of the overwhelming superiority of American and UK troops over their Iraqi opponents. The Iraqi equipment bought from the Soviets was at least two generations behind the allied gear and the third and fourth rate troops were simply no match for the elite Marines, Airborne Divisions, and first line 3rd Infantry division (which is actually more like an Armored division of World War II days). As an eminently balanced reporter and historian, I was very happy to see his outsider's assessment of the American troops and commanders, especially of those periods at the end of March, for example, when so many commentators were prophesying doom and gloom at what was nothing more than a holdup for a desert storm in order for supply lines to catch up with the forward troops. The reall

A Little Closer to an Objective Look at Second Gulf War . . . .

Keegan is firmly in his best element. This is a short, but somewhat depoliticized view of Gulf War II. I say "somewhat" because this War was so completely energized by the omnipresent politics of the left and right, it is too soon for a contemporary observer to view it dispassionately. In time, his book will probably be viewed a lot less derisively by some critical elements once time finally separates the politics from the facts of the war. In this, the book is nearly visionary. Keegan presents one of the few openly approving looks at the War. This is not to say, however, that he is supportive of either Bush or Blair. For Bush, he has rather lackluster acknowledgement, and for Blair outright disdain. However, Keegan concentrates on the cause of the War not being oil, the war on terror, neo-colonialism, personal revenge or anything else popularly conjured up by either the left or the right. Keegan points out that the cause of the war was simple, and stunningly missed by both sides of the political argument: Saddam Hussein brought the war on himself. Hussein was a monster who would use WMD against his enemies. It did not matter whether he had WMD on the day the US/UK invaded - Keegan points to Hussein's well-settled pattern of megalomania and pathological need to maintain and increase his power. In the modern world - this means the acquisition and (based on Hussein's track record)the use of WMD. The French and Russians had long been trying to get sanctions lifted, and thus open ties to a potentially valuable trading partner. It was a publicized fact that France frantically lobbied to get sanctions lifted from Iraq once the WMD inspections demonstrated that Hussein had none. Keegan's work suggests that had sanctions been lifted - without the removal of Saddam Hussein - the checks keeping a violent Iraq in place would be gone, and the acquisition, development use of WMD would have continued. This is where the reason to remove Saddam Hussein must begin and end - with the man, who despite 12 years and countless ignored and openly defied UN Resolutions, would stubbornly prove to be a persistently hostile and destabilizing force in the Middle East. Keegan does not much speak to the future of post-war Iraq. This is likely because his understanding still too attached to the chaos in that country today. There is still too much history to unfold before anyone, particularly a noted historian, can confidently assess the probable path Iraq next takes. This is an excellent book that rises above the strained shouting of activist gadflies (left and right). It is a reasoned, honest look at the facts of a War that have been made controversial by various political interests. Keegan makes a very valid and sadly oft-ignored point that the Second Gulf War was really only about the removal of a monster bent on mass destruction, and ultimately dismantled by those who had wrongfully empowered him in the first place.

A balanced, cogent, analysis and review of the Iraq War.

Mr. Keegan's book (at the centre [center] of the current American Presidential campaign, more so than any other subject) provides a cogent, thoughtful, analysis and review of the Iraq War (the current one). His brief history of Iraq and the surrounding lands, pre, during, and post Saddam Hussein's dictatorial regime, is an excellent context for the issues which help contribute to the current debate about the situation America, and those Allies, such as Britain, have found themselves in, at present. Depending on how one reads what he's said, and one's political persuasion, Mr. Keegan made points (for both sides of the debate) regarding Saddam's connection to Al-Qaeda/Qaida, WMDs, and 9/11. His interview with General Tommy Franks (who's written his own book) also provides an additional insight about the strategy, and how it related to the "prosecution" of this war. Whether one agrees with his arguments, and whether one agrees with the premises and pretexts, of the current American administration, for getting involved in Iraq, and its greater connection to terrorism, which is driving the current debate, this is one of the more (I think) unbiased, i.e., with no pro or con agenda, accounts of the most "controversial" conflict America, and those who have come along with it have found themselves in in modern history. Also, it gives a brief, substantive analysis, and provides a collary to the arguments made in a book (which I've reviewed) "Imperial Hubris", about the fundamentalist, and historically based, motivations behind the Islamic world's conflict with the West, and in particular, America. Worth a read (especially pre-election, regardless of political persuasion, and who one supports, for President Of The United States, on 2 November, 2004.

The best book on the Second Iraq War

This is simply the best account yet published of the second Iraq War. Beginning the way most histories should, it describes a quick review of Iraqi history, from ancient times to Saddam. An overview is given of the short British occupation, and of the development of the various groups of Shia, Sunni and Kurdish Iraqis. Then the book shifts into a short biography of Saddam, describing his tribal roots and the roots of the Ba'ath party of Iraq. Finally the book moves on to cover the `wars of Saddam' against Iran, the Kurds and Kuwait, culminating in the first Gulf War. With this wonderful background the reader is given a fascinating insight into the second Iraq war by someone who reported during it. Keegan seeks to address the fundamental question of how the war was not only different but also `mysterious' in its nature. How did the Iraqi army, which numbered 300,000 men, simply melt away? Although the Iraqis possessed plenty of military hardware in artillery and Armor, it was mostly found abandoned and the army didn't even make a stand in Baghdad where the western press had anticipated a `Stalingrad on the Tigris'.Te may end up as the seminal book on the war. Easily discernable maps point out the development of Iraq as a country and the subsequent positions of the military units on the eve of war. The later chapters detail the hunting of Saddam and his regime officials following the end of large scale hostilities. The only think lacking is the fact that the guerilla war still simmers in Iraq, and it doesn't give any real coverage to Al-Sadr or the other recent flare-ups in rebellion. Seth J. Frantzman