The Strongest Tribe

Chapter 1

How to Create a Mess

Summer 2003

In late March of 2003, Col. Joseph F. Dunford led 5,000 Marines in a wild dash up Highway One to seize Hantush Airfield, a major base south of Baghdad. Hidden behind dirt berms, Iraqi soldiers fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at the tanks and Humvees roaring by. One machine gun concentrated its fire on a lead Humvee, killing Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Menusa.

When the fighting subsided, Dunford sent out a radio message that he was pushing north to Baghdad. As expected, the Iraqis took the bait and scrambled to block the highway, while Dunford shifted his regiment to fall on Baghdad from the east. At the last minute, higher headquarters ordered him to halt.

That night, I asked Dunford what had happened. He slowly took off his boots, choosing his words. He had brought enough foot powder to go for weeks with two pairs of socks, so you could listen to him without gasping. "Higher headquarters changed the mission," he said. "The main effort now isn't Baghdad; it's the supply lines to the rear. We're to wait."

The division commander, Maj. Gen. James N. Mattis, sent higher headquarters an angry message that the enemy would sniff out the planned feint, resulting in American casualties. "We should attack soonest," Mattis wrote. But three days passed before the Marines were allowed to attack, reclaiming the ground where Gunny Menusa had died. The lower levels had opened an opportunity that higher headquarters suppressed. Obstinately, high-ranking officials later denied that there was an alternative not taken. "There was never a pause," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the press. Yet inside the Pentagon, Rumsfeld himself had demanded to know why the attack had stopped. Gen. Tommy Franks, in command of the invasion, was equally disingenuous in his memoir, claiming there never was a pause-because air attacks had continued.

Mattis disagreed. "I didn't want the pause. Nothing was holding us up," he told Inside the Pentagon. "The toughest order I had to give the whole campaign was to call back the assault force."

Because the campaign ended triumphantly, the incident seemed trivial. Senior levels had ignored the ground commanders, however, a tendency that would persist for several years because the war seemed impossible to lose. As a colonel in the 82nd Airborne Division said to me, "There's no threat that a well-trained platoon can't handle." To a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. The challenge, though, ?wasn't how to employ a platoon; it was how to change the conditions so that there would be no need for that platoon.

On the political and military level, roads not taken mark the history of this war. America was so powerful it seemed any road would lead to a quick exit. Until December of 2006, there was never a choice of "do this or lose." In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln knew he had to fire Gen. George B. McClellan or lose the war. In 1943, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower knew he had to refuse British entreaties to invade France or lose the war. No such historic choices loomed in Iraq.

Indeed, during the first year of the occupation, the going seemed so easy that we split the team and drove down two roads, getting stuck in the sand in both.

Organizing to Fail

After al Qaeda destroyed the Twin Towers in

Share your thoughts on the The Strongest Tribe ebook with other internet viewers!

Title of ebook: The Strongest Tribe
ISBN: 9781588367594
parent-ISBN: 9781400067015
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 08-2008
Released online for download: 08-12-2008
Author of eBook: West, Bing

Format

Encrypted

Sku

ISBN

File size

Security

Printing

Copying

Read aloud

Devices

Digital Editions

Yes

5551885895

9781588367594

4303 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirments

Download reader

Mobipocket

Yes

9781588367594

1236 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirements

Download reader

Microsoft

Yes

1588367592

9781588367594

1986 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirments

Download reader

eReader

Yes

5551885887

9781588367594

2452 KB

n/a

Not allowed

No

Sys Requirments

Download reader

The Strongest Tribe

War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq
Chapter 1

How to Create a Mess

Summer 2003

In late March of 2003, Col. Joseph F. Dunford led 5,000 Marines in a wild dash up Highway One to seize Hantush Airfield, a major base south of Baghdad. Hidden behind dirt berms, Iraqi soldiers fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns at the tanks and Humvees roaring by. One machine gun concentrated its fire on a lead Humvee, killing Gunnery Sgt. Joseph Menusa.

When the fighting subsided, Dunford sent out a radio message that he was pushing north to Baghdad. As expected, the Iraqis took the bait and scrambled to block the highway, while Dunford shifted his regiment to fall on Baghdad from the east. At the last minute, higher headquarters ordered him to halt.

That night, I asked Dunford what had happened. He slowly took off his boots, choosing his words. He had brought enough foot powder to go for weeks with two pairs of socks, so you could listen to him without gasping. "Higher headquarters changed the mission," he said. "The main effort now isn't Baghdad; it's the supply lines to the rear. We're t ... read full excerpt from: The Strongest Tribe ebook

Other Bing West ebooks:

receive alert on new Bing West ebooks

No True Glory: Fallujah and the Struggle in Iraq

"This is the face of war as only those who have fought it can describe it."–Senator John McCain
Fallujah: Iraq’s most dangerous city unexpectedly ...more

Best price: $23.70

The Village

In Black Hawk Down, the fight went on for a day. In We Were Soldiers Once & Young, the fighting lasted three days. In The Village, one Marine squad fought for 495 days -- half...more

Best price: $7.00

Top eBooks in "Military"

Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account

by Nyiszli, Miklos

Auschwitz was one of the first books to bring the full horror of the Nazi death camps to the American public; this is, as the New York Review of Books said, "the best brief ...more

Best price: $9.39

Armored Cav

by Clancy, Tom

A penetrating look inside an armored cavalry regiment -- the technology, the strategies, and the people . . . profiled by Tom Clancy. His first non-fiction book, Submarine, ...more

Best price: $17.00

D-Day

by Beevor, Antony

The definitive account of the Normandy invasion by the bestselling author of Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin 1945
From critically acclaimed ...more

Best price: $32.95

All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

by Kinzer, Stephen

This is the first full-length account of the CIA's coup d'etat in Iran in 1953—a covert operation whose consequences are still with us today. Written by a noted New York...more

Best price: $22.04

Band of Brothers

by Ambrose, Stephen E.

Band of Brothers is the account of the men of the remarkable easy Company, 506th Airborne Division, U.S. Army. Responsible for everything from parachuting into France early D-...more

Best price: $14.92

A Fist In the Hornet's Nest: On The Ground in Baghdad Before, During and

by Engel, Richard

Written from the Baghdad streets leading up to, during and following the war, this book, from the publishers of the New York Times bestseller THe CeLL, will examine ...more

Best price: $8.74

Carrier

by Clancy, Tom

They are floating cities with crews of thousands. They are the linchpins of any military strategy, for they provide what has become the key to every battle fought since World ...more

Best price: $16.00

Churchill's Adaptive Enterprise: Lessons for Business Today

by Kozak-Holland, Mark

Review: This "Back to Our Future" book does a stellar job of mining the project intelligence from Lessons Learned. It cites not just common practice, not just best ...more

Best price: $29.95

Buying the Iraqi Dinar at Exchange Rates and Investing in the Iraqi Stoc

by Equities Investment Research Gro, Trading

Review: This book is worth alot more than the price. Not only does it show you how to open a foreign bank account to buy the dinar at the exchange rate, the author ...more

Best price: $26.45

Other History eBooks Categories

History General (2073)

History General (83)

Africa (78)

Ancient (395)

Asia (288)

Europe (1024)

Middle East (237)

Military (1048)

Native American (39)

United States (1375)

World (539)