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Chat with Author Tom Ricks, 12 noon Monday
 
11:29
5:36
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  Good morning and welcome to Books for Politico. Our guest today is Thomas E. Ricks. author of "The Gamble: General David Petraeius and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008."  

My Q and A with Tom is posted below. Starting at noon, Tom will take your questions for about an hour. You may submit questions in advance as well. Tom
is a former colleague of mine at the Washington Post and a contributor to POLITICO's Arena. His full bio is here.



"The Gamble" is a sequel to Tom's bestselling book, "Fiasco."   Here's what the New York Times said when reviewing "The Gamble":

"Thomas E. Ricks’s devastating 2006 book, “Fiasco,” provided a lucid, tough-minded assessment of the Iraq war, brilliantly summing up the political and military mistakes that had brought the United States, after more than three years of occupation, to a terrible tipping point there. Drawing upon the author’s reporting on the ground in Iraq and his many sources within the uniformed military, “Fiasco” chronicled how the United States “went to war in Iraq with scant solid international support and on the basis of incorrect information,” and how flawed assumptions, drastic planning failures and plain old-fashioned hubris led to a “derelict occupation” that fueled a burgeoning insurgency.

In his equally powerful and illuminating new book, “The Gamble,” Mr. Ricks, who covered the military for The Washington Post from 2000 to 2008, takes up the story where he left off in “Fiasco.” This volume recounts how Iraq came close to unraveling in 2006, how the Bush administration finally conceded it was off course, and how a new set of commanders — headed by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno — began putting a radically different strategy in place.

That strategy, often referred to as the surge, not only involved the addition of some 30,000 troops but also, more important, featured new counterinsurgency tactics (which made the protection of Iraqi civilians a priority) and a new realpolitik approach to dealing with insurgents.

Mr. Ricks writes as both an analyst and a reporter with lots of real-time access to the chain of command, and his book’s narrative is animated by closely observed descriptions of how the surge worked on the ground, by a savvy knowledge of internal Pentagon politics, and by a keen understanding of the Iraq war’s long-term fallout on already strained American forces.

While Mr. Ricks praises General Petraeus’s success in helping the military regain the strategic initiative in Iraq as an “extraordinary achievement” — reducing violence and reviving “American prospects in the war” — he also reminds us that the surge was meant to “create a breathing space that would then enable Iraqi politicians to find a way forward,” and that that outcome is still unclear. “The best grade” the surge campaign can be given, he says, “is a solid incomplete.”


5:38
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  Tom: Welcome and thanks for doing this.


Your book ends with this chilling line: “The events for which the Iraq war will be remembered probably have not yet happened.” Could you explain?


Tom Ricks:

This is actually a thought that came from Ambassador Ryan Crocker, the top American diplomat in Iraq for the last couple of years. His point, made in interviews with me at the beginning of last year and again near the end of it, was that it will be a long time before this is all over, and so before we know how it turns out.


5:39
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  

Why did it take so long for U.S. leadership to change course in Iraq?


Tom Ricks:
That is really one of the tragedies of the war. Imagine if back in 2004 officials at the Pentagon and the White House had said, “You know, General Sanchez is failing, and General Petraeus did will with the 101st Airborne up north, so let’s put Petraeus in charge.” Why didn’t they? I think because both the White House and the Pentagon didn’t understand the war and refused to believe what they were being told about it by the media and by the CIA.


But of course they didn’t. make that change. I think it was only the 2006 midterm elections that woke up President Bush. He finally stopped being the cheerleader in chief and started being the commander in chief—that is, asking his generals tough questions, holding them accountable, and looking for other, more effective officers. I’m no Bush fan, but I do think that December 2006, when he revamped his approach to the war, was his finest moment.

5:45
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  

And this related question: You say of Donald Rumsfeld that while “everyone makes mistakes, Rumsfeld’s tragic flaw was his inability to change course after making them.” Could you explain?

Tom Ricks:
While Rumsfeld was defense secretary, there was an inflexibility at the top of the Pentagon. I lay that at Rumsfeld’s feet. I heard again and again about people who told him about a problem, and were attacked for it. Ken Adelman, an old friend of Rumsfeld’s, has talked about his own experience that led to a breach in their friendship. In ‘The Gamble,’ two distinguished defense thinkers, Andrew Krepinevich and retired Gen. Jack Keane, discuss their own harsh encounters over Iraq with Rumsfeld or with his aides.

5:47
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  

You suggest a rather gross disconnect now between perceptions here at home and perceptions among those closest to the situation about how long Americans will be there, and be there losing lives. Do I read you right?

Tom Ricks:
Yes. I think the closer you get to Baghdad, the more you’ll find people thinking that this war is far from over and that the outcome isn’t going to be anything Americans recognize as victory. I know a lot of Americans want to get out of Iraq as fast as we can. I know I do. But I think that leaving tomorrow morning would be like driving drunk and recklessly down the interstate at 125 mph, clipping several cars, crossing the median, and then crashing into a storefront, and hopping out and saying, “You better clean up this mess. I’m bored. And I’m broke.”


Look, I think staying in Iraq is immoral. But I think that leaving would be even more immoral. There are no good answers here, only less bad ones. Everything is the fruit of the poisoned tree, the original decision to pre-emptively invade Iraq on false premises. Everything we do is I think tainted by that original sin.

5:48
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  

You say that “the surge, while making short-term security gains, also may have carried hidden long-term costs that will only become fully apparent when Obama is president.” What are you referring to?

Tom Ricks:
There is a real danger that the surge just kicked the can down the road. That is, all the major questions that vexed Iraq before the surge are still hanging out there. How to split up oil revenue? What is the relationship to be between Sunni, Shia and Kurd? Where does power reside among Shiites? Will Iraq have a strong central government or be a loose confederation? All of these questions have provoked violence in the past, and could again in the future.


My bottom line is that the surge failed. It improved security, so it succeeded militarily, but not politically, and its stated purpose was to lead to a political breakthrough. Didn’t happen.

5:51
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  

What would you say are the major differences between this book and your previous one on the war, ‘Fiasco’?

Tom Ricks:
‘Fiasco’ argued that the war was worse than people thought in mid-2006. ‘The Gamble’ says it isn’t as good now as people think in early 2009.


Also, while ‘Fiasco’ was an indictment, this is more a narrative, a story of people who didn’t necessarily support the war but trying to do the best for their country. Some people have told me it is better written than ‘Fiasco.’ I’d like to think so, but I don’t have the distance to make that judgment.

5:52
Fred Barbash-Moderator -  

How has the media done in the Iraq war, after the initial controversy of whether it was snookered on WMD?

Tom Ricks:
For several years, it was ahead of the government and the military in understanding the situation. But I think that once the surge began, the media lost that lead. Counterinsurgency was difficult to understand, and often counterintuitive. How could the military take more casualties and still be succeeding? How could a commander in the gung-ho American military think that sometimes the best thing to do was nothing?


On top of that, the media, like the American people, seems bored with the story. I think that is worrisome, because this thing is far from over. Just because you walk out of a movie in the middle doesn’t mean the movie stops.
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