'Cobra II' offers first detailed look at Iraq invasion
I finished reading "Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq" a few days ago and found it to be one of the best nonfiction books that I’ve read this year.
"Cobra II" (Pantheon, 603 pages) hit bookstores in March and gives the inside story of what went on behind the scenes in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The book follows with a look at the invasion itself and details the early months of the occupation through the summer of 2003.
Written by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, "Cobra II" is already being hailed as the best available source of information on what actually happened in the days leading up to the war and in the months after the fall of Baghdad. Gordon is the chief military correspondent for the New York Times, and Trainor is a retired Marine Corps general.
The book carries much weight because the authors relied on a wide range of source material, including still-secret military documents and interviews with the top field commanders in the U.S. and Iraqi militaries. The book also takes a look at the war from many different angles, offering descriptions of classified meetings and detailing the perspectives of Iraqi leaders.
I highly recommend the book to anyone in the reading audience who has been to Iraq, Kuwait or Jordan during the past three years, especially our local national guardsmen and soldiers fresh from active duty. (I spent a year in Iraq and Kuwait, beginning in 2003, and anytime a date was mentioned in "Cobra II," I kept trying to figure out where I was at the time.)
I was especially interested in the portions of the book that described the major battles that took place in the war’s early going. The authors of "Cobra II" did a good job of carefully reconstructing the principal battles from primary sources including many interviews with both military leadership and front-line soldiers.
I was particularly impressed by how the authors described the differences between Desert Storm and the current war in Iraq. During Desert Storm in the early 1990s, Iraqi troops gave up by the hundreds, maybe thousands. That wasn’t the case during the recent invasion of Iraq as our soldiers, airmen and Marines met with a desperate and determined force of Iraqi Republican Guard and Fedayeen fighters.
Will the book be read 100 years from now? That’s a hard question to answer. I suspect only time will tell. I can say with certainty that "Cobra II" will be widely read in the coming months and years as people try to make sense of the on-going, complicated war in Iraq. The book does have the potential to be a work of enduring importance, a book that gives a detailed account of the most reported, yet least understood, war in American history.
In the end, I enjoyed the book, and I recommend it to anyone in the reading audience with an interest in the war Iraq and how the U.S. military fights modern wars. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give the book a solid 7.5.
"Cobra II" (Pantheon, 603 pages) hit bookstores in March and gives the inside story of what went on behind the scenes in the days leading up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The book follows with a look at the invasion itself and details the early months of the occupation through the summer of 2003.
Written by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor, "Cobra II" is already being hailed as the best available source of information on what actually happened in the days leading up to the war and in the months after the fall of Baghdad. Gordon is the chief military correspondent for the New York Times, and Trainor is a retired Marine Corps general.
The book carries much weight because the authors relied on a wide range of source material, including still-secret military documents and interviews with the top field commanders in the U.S. and Iraqi militaries. The book also takes a look at the war from many different angles, offering descriptions of classified meetings and detailing the perspectives of Iraqi leaders.
I highly recommend the book to anyone in the reading audience who has been to Iraq, Kuwait or Jordan during the past three years, especially our local national guardsmen and soldiers fresh from active duty. (I spent a year in Iraq and Kuwait, beginning in 2003, and anytime a date was mentioned in "Cobra II," I kept trying to figure out where I was at the time.)
I was especially interested in the portions of the book that described the major battles that took place in the war’s early going. The authors of "Cobra II" did a good job of carefully reconstructing the principal battles from primary sources including many interviews with both military leadership and front-line soldiers.
I was particularly impressed by how the authors described the differences between Desert Storm and the current war in Iraq. During Desert Storm in the early 1990s, Iraqi troops gave up by the hundreds, maybe thousands. That wasn’t the case during the recent invasion of Iraq as our soldiers, airmen and Marines met with a desperate and determined force of Iraqi Republican Guard and Fedayeen fighters.
Will the book be read 100 years from now? That’s a hard question to answer. I suspect only time will tell. I can say with certainty that "Cobra II" will be widely read in the coming months and years as people try to make sense of the on-going, complicated war in Iraq. The book does have the potential to be a work of enduring importance, a book that gives a detailed account of the most reported, yet least understood, war in American history.
In the end, I enjoyed the book, and I recommend it to anyone in the reading audience with an interest in the war Iraq and how the U.S. military fights modern wars. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give the book a solid 7.5.
posted by Lee Peacock at 4:39 PM
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