Iraq - Beyond "Mission Accomplished": Winning the Unwinnable Insurgent War in Iraq

This book was written in Baghdad by John W. Crockett, a veteran of three branches of service, not a journalist looking for a story. He details what's gone right in the war in Iraq where so many have focused on what's gone wrong. The war in Iraq was once thought to be a hopelessly lost cause. Protesters and political activists demanded the troops be brought home while the counterinsurgency was barely gaining momentum. As violence increased, the Coalition, led by General Petraeus, was often compared to the Vietnam War, but the time for making those comparisons is long past as the Coalition and the Government of Iraq turned a lost cause into a winning endeavor. The insurgent war in Iraq was billed by the press as a lost cause with no chance for victory. Journalists dubbed the Surge the "So-Called Surge" before they even had an inkling what the Surge was meant to accomplish, let alone put into action. Now, those critics are silent and eating their words after the effects of the Surge have been realized. The cause of an insurgency can't be summed up in a fifteen-second sound bite and countering an insurgency takes time. It's not something that's accomplished over night. The Coalition's leadership knew that and put a plan into place that brought about positive change in a country where many thought no change was possible. Crockett's first-hand account of the successful strategies employed by the Coalition and by the Government of Iraq that turned the war around is a refreshing change of perspective when so many books and articles have focused on the failings of the Coalition, comparing the war in Iraq to Vietnam and mis-applying quotes of famous strategists from history. Crockett's account of the events is a positively-biased view of our nation's military and the militaries of our allies. In this insightful book, he makes no pretense of giving a fair account of the events that transpired before and during his time in Iraq.