Mother Jones – An interview with Lt. Col. John Nagl on Iraq.
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Mother Jones – An interview with General Zinni on the current state of affairs in Iraq.
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Wall Street Journal – Robert Kaplan writes that “Our soldiers like what they do. They want our respect, not pity. “
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Washington Post – Final part of Rick Atkinson’s excellent series. The US military is making progress by disrupting supply chains, but bombers are adapting.
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Washington Post – Part 3 of Rick Atkinson’s series. Between the spring of 2005 and summer of 2006, the number of IED attacks doubles; promising technologies to combat attacks fizzle.

See also: Washington Post – When ‘Physics Gets in the Way’.
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Washington Post – Part 2 of Rick Atkinson’s superb series on IED’s. Frustration mounts in 2004 and 2005 as various efforts fail to stop roadside bombs. And a new menace appears on the battlefield: the EFP, or explosively formed penetrator.
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Washington Post – A series by Rick Atkinson explores how the roadside bomb, or IED, is a proximate cause and metaphor for the miscalculation, improvisation that have characterized the war in Iraq.

See also: Washington Post – Part 1: ‘The IED problem is getting out of control. We’ve got to stop the bleeding.’

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New Yorker – George Packer asks how should we withdraw from Iraq?
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Small Wars Journal – David Kilcullen who has just completed a tour in Iraq as senior counterinsurgency adviser to the Multi-National Force summarizes the current state of affairs in Iraq.
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New York Times Magazine – In a Sunni stronghold just south of Baghdad, the U.S. military has been persuading militants to switch sides. But itís not at all clear that the enemyís new enemy is really a friend???A superb article by Michael Gordon showing the current state of affairs in Iraq.
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks describes the situation facing the British in the south of Iraq.
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The Times – One of the key strategists behind Americaís last-ditch ‘surge’ in Iraq, Colonel HR McMaster explains his thinking to Marie Colvin, our award-winning correspondent, who has spent decades covering the Middle East and has witnessed the bloody reality of life in Baghdad. McMaster insists that ësustained stabilityí is possible ñ eventually. But was the surge the right policy too late?
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Washington Post – The Pentagon is wargaming possible US exit strategies from Iraq.
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks asks if General Petraeus is being set up by the Bush administration as a scapegoat if conditions in Iraq fail to improve.
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Daily Telegraph – Sir Alastair Horne insightfully compares the war in Iraq to the war in Algeria.
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PBS Frontline – What went wrong, and why, in America’s tragically failed effort to find a strategy for success in Iraq.

Read the transcript and the excellent set of insightful interviews.
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Wall Street Journal – Superb essay by Greg Jaffe on the current state of the US Army’s junior officer corps in light of their experiences in Iraq.
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New Yorker – How General Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties.

Most interesting is this ending quote from General Taguba: “From the moment a soldier enlists, we inculcate loyalty, duty, honor, integrity, and selfless service. And yet when we get to the senior-officer level we forget those values. I know that my peers in the Army will be mad at me for speaking out, but the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that the major U.S. offensive launched last weekend against insurgents in and around Baghdad has significantly expanded the military’s battleground in Iraq — “a surge of operations,” and no longer just of troops, as the second-ranking U.S. commander there said yesterday — but it has renewed concerns about whether even the bigger U.S. troop presence there is large enough.
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that U.S. military officials are increasingly envisioning a “post-occupation” troop presence in Iraq that neither maintains current levels nor leads to a complete pullout, but aims for a smaller, longer-term force that would remain in the country for years.
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Washington Post – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates announced yesterday that Marine Gen. Peter Pace will step down as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in September, a move that Gates said will avert the contentious congressional hearings that would be needed to reconfirm the nation’s top military officer. Pace will leave after just two years in the post, the shortest stint as chairman in more than four decades. The surprise announcement yesterday at the Pentagon amounts to Pace being fired before a customary second two-year term.
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Navy Times – Sean Naylor reports that tribes that once resisted the coalition are now volunteering to become police???a potentially extremely positive development???a very interesting analysis of the current situation on ground in Iraq.
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New York Times Magazine – War has displaced millions in Iraq, creating the largest refugee problem in the Middle East since 1948. As they flee their country, are they taking the war with them?
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Washington Post – The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks writes that more than one-third of U.S. soldiers in Iraq surveyed by the Army said they believe torture should be allowed if it helps gather important information about insurgents. Four in 10 said they approve of such illegal abuse if it would save the life of a fellow soldier.
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