What Was Asked of Us
Oral History of the Iraq War by Soldiers Who Fought It
Chapter One
Winners and Losers
If you ask people when the American military campaign in Iraq ran into
trouble, chances are most would point to the looting and lawlessness that
happened right after the fall of Baghdad. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is
that the actual push to Baghdad was a huge success, the product of brilliant
planning by the finest military strategists in the world. According to this
interpretation, nothing went seriously wrong until after Saddam Hussein's
regime toppled and there were not enough boots on the ground to maintain law
and order. President George W. Bush pushed that theme even further when he
suggested, incongruously, that the problems besetting the ongoing Iraq campaign
were the result of phase one being too successful - "catastrophic
success" was the phrase the president used.
As a result, specific battles on the way to Baghdad - some particularly
intense and deadly - are either largely unknown by the general
public or gravely misunderstood. Nasiriya is best ... read full excerpt from: What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It ebook
