Washington Post – Colin Powell’s most significant moment turned out to be his lowest. An excerpt from “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell,” by Karen DeYoung.
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Washington Post – Despite growing pressure to oust secretary of defense in second term, president decided change would be too disruptive to conflict in Iraq. A final excerpt from Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial.”
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Washington Post – A vast dichotomy existed between what the administration knew about Iraq and what it said publicly, internal debates and documents show. An excerpt from Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial.”
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Newsweek – It was Bushís decision. But Rumsfeld drove the dynamic on Iraq. How the SecDef blew it. An excerpt from Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial.”
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks notes that although Iraqi security personnel numbers have increased, so, too, has the violence in Iraq.
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Washington Post – An overview of Bob Woodward’s latest book on the war in Iraq, entitled “State of Denial.”

New York Times – Book Says Bush Ignored Urgent Warning on Iraq
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Q and A – An interesting interview with Rajiv Chandrasekaran who was the Baghdad bureau chief for the Washington Post. His new book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” describes what life is like inside the “green zone” in Iraq and reveals in part why the American occupation of Iraq was such a disaster.
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Washington Post – The U.S. commander in western Iraq said he agrees with the findings of a pessimistic classified report recently filed by his top intelligence officer but also insisted that “tremendous progress” is being made in that part of the country.
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks reports that the chief of intelligence for the Marine Corps in Iraq recently filed an unusual secret report concluding that the prospects for securing that country’s western Anbar province are dim and that there is almost nothing the U.S. military can do to improve the political and social situation there.
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Wall Street Journal – Greg Jaffee gives an insightful look into CENTCOM commander General Abizaid’s strategy on how to fight and win the Long War. This is an appropriate article to read on the anniversary of 9/11???
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C-SPAN – View an excellent one hour interview with Thomas Ricks in which he discusses his book “Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq.” (RealMedia format)
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New York Times Magazine – Michael Gordon looks at the Iraqi Army and finds its soldiers to be underpaid, underequipped and frequently AWOL. And then thereís the problem of serving a government that hardly exists in a country thatís tearing itself apart.
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Foreign Affairs – By toppling Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration has liberated and empowered Iraq’s Shiite majority and has helped launch a broad Shiite revival that will upset the sectarian balance in Iraq and the Middle East for years to come. This development is rattling some Sunni Arab governments, but for Washington, it could be a chance to build bridges with the region’s Shiites, especially in Iran.
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Washington Post – Transcript of an excellent online discussion with Thomas Ricks regarding his new book.
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Marine Corps Gazette – Thoughts on the applicability of the French colonial experience in Algeria to fighting Islamic insurgencies.

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Washington Post – The second excerpt from Thomas Ricks’ new book on Iraq entitled “Fiasco” looks closely at the actions of the Fourth Infantry Division during the occupation and the negative consequences they had.
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Washington Post – In this excerpt from his new book Fiasco, Thomas Ricks says that the real war in Iraq — the one to determine the future of the country — began on Aug. 7, 2003, when a car bomb exploded outside the Jordanian Embassy, killing 11 and wounding more than 50.

That bombing came almost exactly four months after the U.S. military thought it had prevailed in Iraq, and it launched the insurgency, the bloody and protracted struggle with guerrilla fighters that has tied down the United States to this day.
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Q and A – Transcript of a program in which Steve James & Sgt. Zack Bazzi discuss “The War Tapes.” This is a documentary featuring three New Hampshire National Guardsmen who were given cameras to record their year deployment in Iraq. It is an excellent cinema verite look at the war in Iraq through the eyes of the troops on the group. The documentary’s Web site is at www.thewartapes.com
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Defense and the National Interest – William Lind notes two significant signposts in Iraq.
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Center for Defense Information – An interesting analysis of the current situation in Iraq by Douglas Macgregor. (PDF format)
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Defense and the National Interest – An interesting analysis by Chet Richards on the situation in Iraq. (PDF format)
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Army Times – Sean Naylor on how close the US Special Forces have recently come to capturing the al-Qaida leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
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Washington Post – Thomas Ricks notes that as the U.S. military struggles against persistent sectarian violence in Iraq, military officers and security experts find themselves in a vigorous debate over an idea that just months ago was largely dismissed as a fringe thought: that the surest — and perhaps now the only — way to bring stability to Iraq is to divide the country into three pieces.
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Defense in the National Interest – William Lind’s view of the general’s revolt against Rumsfeld.
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Defense and the National Interest – William Lind comments upon the U.S. Army War Collegeís Strategic Studies Institute analysis of the Iraq War entitled “Revisions in Need of Revising: What Went Wrong in the Iraq War,î by David C. Hendrickson and Robert W. Tucker.
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