amazon.com - 2/10/2009
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Amazon.com Review Amazon Best of the Month, February 2009 : Anyone who read Fiasco , Thomas E. Ricks's superb, bestselling account of the Iraq War through 2005, and has followed the war since has likely noticed that many of the heroes of that devastating book, the officers and analysts who ...
independent.co.uk - 2/17/2009
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independent.co.uk —
In what could turn out to be the
greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started
to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn ( 88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall ...
(more)
A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff -
...
voices.washingtonpost.com - 2/13/2009
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voices.washingtonpost.com —
An excerpt from this war criminal's wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kristol According to journalist Dana Milbank, Kristol was "perhaps
the most outspoken supporter of the Iraq War".[9] On September 18, 2002, he declared that a ...
(more)
Why Gregg Withdrew - PostPartisan - Quick takes from The ...
bloomberg.com - 2/16/2009
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bloomberg.com —
Iran Is Helping Taliban in Afghanistan, Petraeus Says
(Update1) By Henry Meyer Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Iran
is helping Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, said General David Petraeus , who is in charge of U.S. forces in the Central Asian nation and ...
(more)
India & Pakistan
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2009 In Iraq
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
Thomas Ricks has a new book out on Iraq. Here's part of an interview with Ricks: I actually think 2009 in Iraq is gonna be a lot tougher than 2008, for three reasons:
--Elections in Iraq tend to be destabilizing, and there are three scheduled for this year, with national elections at the end of the year.
--At the same time, large numbers of American troops, who have been keeping a lid on things, probably will be withdrawn. General Odierno says at the end of the book that he thinks things will get dicey at the end of his year and the ...
Ricks: Thanks To Bush’s Gamble, We’re Stuck In Iraq
Wonk Room —
... For the first ThinkProgress book review, I’ve been reading Tom Ricks’ The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. Ricks’ previous book, ...
Republicans and the Obama Foreign Policy
The Atlantic Politics Channel —
... For conservatives, the dramatic turnaround of the American military effort in Iraq might be the central achievement of the Bush years. As Thomas Ricks tells the story in The Gamble, the surge strategy began when a small coterie of junior officers, retired generals, and conservative defense intellectuals, many of them based at the American Enterprise Institute, formed their own "Team B" to press the Bush administration for a new approach, one that forcefully rejected the growing consensus that the U.S. should accelerate the withdrawal of military forces. Though Obama has ...
A Bullet-Proof Character
Flopping Aces —
... to soldiers, following a missile attack drill Thursday afternoon.
Pfc. Joshua Hutcheson, 101st Airborne Division Public Affairs staff
Everyone is familiar with the story of how General Petraeus almost lost his life when he was shot through the chest during a live-fire training exercise. Well, the most detailed account I’ve come across thus far can be found in Thomas E. Ricks’ The Gamble.
The Gamble, Chapter 3: Keane Takes Command, Pg 85-88: ...
Obama and Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan
Ben Smith's Blog —
Remember when the surge was controversial? The leading Democrats opposed it at the time; now one of the great ironies of Obama's presidency is that, though his national career was launched out of opposition to President Bush's Iraq policy, he's now fulfilling what was (eventually) Bush's policy in Iraq.
Anyway, a great read on the subject to day is Dexter Filkins' review of Thomas Ricks's new book. The review surveys the surge and the Sunni Awakening, and looks on to Afghanistan:
Obama seems to have concluded that we must engage in flat-out ...
Early Notice: Thomas E. Ricks at the Pritzker Military Library on September 10, 2009.
Chicago Boyz —
... to discuss this most recent book The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. The event will be free and open to the public. ...
Related Content
The Gamble Continues
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com 2/26/2009 —
Surprise! There's an ominous detail in the 19-month Iraq withdrawal plan that the president is apparently signing off on this week. Withdrawal will barely happen at all this year, as US troops become a kind of last-resort guarantor of order ...
The Next Steps To Get Out Of Iraq
wonkroom.thinkprogress.org 2/27/2009 — Our guest blogger is Peter Juul , Research Associate at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
Today, the New York Times reports that President Obama plans to withdraw only two combat brigades from Iraq prior to that country’s next national ...
The Beginning of the End? Obama, Gates Outline Iraq Drawdown
attackerman.firedoglake.com 2/27/2009 — Update : In a conference call with reporters immediately after President Obama's Iraq-withdrawal speech , Defense Secretary Bob Gates said that the withdrawal plan has the support of key military leaders.
"I'm obviously very supportive of ...
Anbar Rising
mudvillegazette.com 3/12/2009 — Continuing our sixth anniversary review - this post from early October, 2006 was a compilation and examination of events largely ignored (or simply reported as discrete acts of more or less random violence) at the time in Western media. Many would ultimately come to regard the "Awakening" ...
Barack W.
andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com 2/24/2009 — Thomas Ricks worries : It seems to me that by vowing to get out of Iraq in 16 months, President Obama is not departing from the mistakes of George Bush, but repeating them. That is, Bush was persistently overoptimistic about Iraq. His original war ...
"The Gamble"
justoneminute.typepad.com 4/7/2009 — I am raving about "The Gamble" by Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post. His topic is the surge in Iraq and this book follows his earlier "Fiasco -The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005". Fiasco, believe it or...
The Unlikely Dissident
julescrittenden.com 2/8/2009 — Ricks on Odierno. A Washington Post surge series kicks off today with an "unlikely dissident," a look at Odierno's role in shifting US strategy from moving out of the cities to moving into them, from drawdown to victory. A couple of highlights and ...
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