Anderson - Bushs Wars

Bushs Wars

TERRY H. ANDERSON

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Copyright 2011 by Terry H. Anderson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, Terry H.
Bushs wars / Terry H. Anderson.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-19-974752-8 (hardback : acid-free paper) 1. United StatesForeign relations20012009. 2. United StatesForeign relations20093. War on Terrorism, 20012009Causes. 4. War on Terrorism, 20012009Influence. 5. Afghan War, 2001Causes. 6. Afghan War, 2001Influence. 7. Iraq War, 2003Causes. 8. Iraq War, 2003Influence. I. Title.
E902.A5745 2011
973.931dc22

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of
America on acid-free paper

To veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
and to my veteran, Rose

You cant possibly figure out the history of the Bush presidencyuntil Im dead.

George W. Bush to his biographer Robert Draper,
December 12, 2006

On September 11, 2001, nineteen terrorists commandeered four passenger airplanes, slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, killing over 2,700, and changed the future of the United States. Shortly after those attacks, President George W. Bush turned to his political adviser Karl Rove and said, I am here for a reason, and this is how were going to be judged. During the next 20 months the president declared his War on Terror, ordered the attack on Afghanistan, and invaded Iraq.

Bushs Wars examines the administrations approach toward terrorism, Afghanistan, and especially Iraqthe most significant event of the first decade of the third millennium.

Bush misled the nation into an unnecessary war, stated one of my Democratic colleagues as civil war raged in that country in 2006. No, a Republican friend stated, Iraq was noble intentions gone wrong. The conversation reflects the two basic interpretations of how and why the United States

Many have written books on aspects of the War on Terror, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Many insiders in Baghdad and Washington, along with former administration officials, have published volumes, including Ali Allawi, Hans Blix, L. Paul Bremer, Richard Clarke, Larry Diamond, Michael DeLong, Tyler Drumheller, Charles Duelfer, Douglas Feith, Tommy Franks, Bob Graham, Chuck Hagel, Scott McClellan, Karl Rove, Ricardo Sanchez, James Stephenson, George Tenet, Joseph Wilson, and Valerie Plame Wilson. Journalists have interviewed thousands in America, Afghanistan, and Iraq, resulting in books by James Bamford, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, David Corn, James Fallows, Dexter Filkins, David Finkel, Michael Gordon, Seymour Hersh, Michael Isikoff, Sandra Mackey, James Mann, Jane Mayer, George Packer, Martha Raddatz, Thomas Ricks, Nir Rosen, Ron Suskind, Bob Woodward, and Michael Yon. Furthermore, the U.S. government has produced The 9/11 Report on the attack, the Duefler and Kay Reports on Iraqs WMDs, the Robb-Silberman Report on intelligence, while an increasing number of veterans have penned their accounts of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, including Gary Berntsen, Colby Buzzell, Donovan Campbell, John Crawford, Andrew Exum, Paul Rieckhoff, Rob Schultheis, and Gary Schroen.

This small library of books has been very helpful, but this volume is differentit is the first history of Bushs Wars.

In order to understand how and why the Bush administration became involved in the War on Terror, the conflict in Afghanistan, and the war in Iraq, the reader needs sufficient background. Thus, I have included two introductory chapters. Introduction East, The Improbable Country and the Graveyard of Empires, briefly traces the origins and problems of establishing the nations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It examines the rise of Islam, the British origins of modern Iraq, and the problems Sunni kings had governing a mostly Shiite nation, which the author Sandra Mackey labeled The Improbable Country. It surveys main themes and events in Iraq up to the Baathist regime in the 1970s, and it also examines the origins and development of Afghanistan, various conquests of that region, which for centuries has been labeled the Graveyard of Empires. Finally, it discusses the evolving British and Russian influence in Afghanistan into the 1970s.

The Introduction West, The United States, Saddam, and al Qaeda, 1970s2000, is more detailed. It introduces Saddam Hussein, his rise to and consolidation of power, and it surveys his attacks first on Iran in 1980 and then on Kuwait a decade later, along with the American response, Desert Storm. The chapter also inspects U.S. relations with Iran and the American response to the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s. The next decade the United States witnessed a new threatIslamic terrorism and the rise of al Qaedaand the chapter examines President Bill Clintons response.

The book then focuses on the main topicthe Bush administration. , Operation Iraqi Freedom, examines the quick victory of U.S. forces and the postwar problems faced by the American administrators Jay Garner and L. Paul Bremer. It investigates Bremers Coalition Provisional Authority and its attempts to rule a nation while Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez and the U.S. military were facing a rising insurgency, one that was beginning to rage by autumn 2003. The next chapter, Bushs War, investigates the conflict from the Ramadan Offensive in autumn 2003 to the end of the Bush administration. It examines how Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his generals tried to fight the insurgency and why they failed as Iraq plunged toward civil war. The next secretary of defense, Robert Gates, along with Lieutenant General David Petraeus and his colleagues, changed the strategy, resulting in the 200708 surge and counterinsurgency, which significantly decreased the violence in Iraq. All the while, and as the administration concentrated on securing the Improbable Country, the Taliban reemerged in the Graveyard of Empires.

I end the book with two short chapters: the Epilogue, which briefly investigates the War on Terror, Afghanistan, and Iraq during the administration of President Barack Obama, up to August 2010, when the last combat troops left Iraq, and Concluding Remarks and Legacies.

As I wrote this book, I continued teaching and assigned an article I published about how the nation became involved in the war in Iraq. Most of my students were shocked that they lived through this era yet knew so little about the conflict. They are not alone; surveys reveal that citizens in this electronic age are unaware of the facts or often are inaccurate in their assumptions about the War on Terror and conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In that sense, as a colleague said to me, by writing this book you are doing a public service. I hope so, for now is time to examine the origins, developments, main events, and legacies of Bushs Wars.