How We Got Here (3/19/07)

I started this a week or so ago, and to follow up, here's more from Bob Woodward’s “State Of Denial,” the third book in his "Bush At War" series (the first post in the series I started is here, and the second is here)...

(pp. 152-153)

The war began on March 19th with a target-of-opportunity strike on Dora Farm, a complex southeast of Baghdad on the bank of the Tigris River, where Saddam was incorrectly thought to be hiding.

Appropriate that this began with a miss as opposed to a hit.

As a pure military operation, the invasion seemed to go astonishingly well. On Day 3, the 3rd Infantry Division was 150 miles into Iraq, and Saddam’s army was either being defeated or dissolving. Still, some of the former Iraqi soldiers were coming back dressed in civilian clothes or in the black-and-white garb of the Saddam Fedayeen, the militia commanded by Saddam’s son Uday. Unprotected Iraqi civilian fighters were throwing themselves on armored formations. Mostly, they were being slaughtered. They tried insane, impossible, suicidal tactics, attacking tanks on foot, or trying to ambush Bradley Fighting Vehicles with small arms.

(Senior Military Intelligence Office Steve) Rotkoff wrote a haiku (as he was in the habit of doing throughout, frequently capturing what was going on better than anyone else, and in fewer words)…

Saddam Fedayeen
Where the hell did they come from?
Everyone missed it

(Maj. Gen James A.) “Spider” Marks concluded that Saddam loyalists were pointing guns at the civilians’ backs: You either attack the Americans or you die right here. The Iraqi people were simply and deeply fearful. A few days after the invasion, Marks, (General David) McKiernan and a couple of others were talking it over with (CIA Director George) Tenet in Kuwait.

“So, what do you think?” Marks asked the CIA director. “You know, these guys are fighting. They’re coming at us.”

“I can’t fucking figure it out,” Tenet said.

(Oh yeah - sorry about the bad word, but it's a direct quote.)

Tenet comes off as sympathetic prior to 9/11 in the book, but he ends up as lost in the Iraq mess as everyone else over time (and certainly not deserving of a medal), though I will give him points for some refreshing candor, so totally atypical for those sorry clowns who have brought us this mess.

Here and here are excellent related posts.