I missed the first part of the show but Russert briefly interviewed the author of "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq" which is touted as an exhaustive analysis of the build-up to war and its aftermath. The author stated that, having created a miserable mess of it, we would be in Iraq for another 10 to 15 years - not news to alot of cynics like myself.
However, it seems quite obvious that the Iraq War has EVERYTHING to do with oil and nothing whatsoever to do with WMD, or creating Democracy in the Middle East or whatever the the raison du jour has been or happens to be now. In 10 to 15 years, the effects of futher diminished worldwide oil supplies will be fully and obviously upon us. There could be no realistic thought of America's leaving the region at all.
It seems to me that a more accurate title for the book would have been "Deliberate Fiasco", as this is most probably what was originally intended by the White House - lie, bluster, obfuscate, alarm, snow, propagandize, subvert, convert, divert the media, bankrupt the nation... do whatever it takes just to get America's fat ass IN THERE; deal with the consequences later. Beg for forgiveness later. Everyone knew what would happen after the the invasion of Iraq: a complete disintegration of the country, a process still playing out as the situation continues to worsen.
In the Iraq War, the mainstream media seems to have been a primary tool of the war party in Washington. And the book "Fiasco", rather than an indictment of Washington, appears to be part of the overall media conjob on the public and simply serves to lay another brick on the permanent infrastructure the US is building in Iraq.
Amazon
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('source', 'T')he definitive military chronicle of the Iraq war and a searing judgment on the strategic blindness with which America has conducted it, drawing on the accounts of senior military officers giving voice to their anger for the first time.
Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post senior Pentagon correspondant Thomas E. Ricks's Fiasco is masterful and explosive reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, based on the unprecedented candor of key participants.
The American military is a tightly sealed community, and few outsiders have reason to know that a great many senior officers view the Iraq war with incredulity and dismay. But many officers have shared their anger with renowned military reporter Thomas E. Ricks, and in Fiasco, Ricks combines these astonishing on-the-record military accounts with his own extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to create a spellbinding account of an epic disaster.
As many in the military publicly acknowledge here for the first time, the guerrilla insurgency that exploded several months after Saddam's fall was not foreordained. In fact, to a shocking degree, it was created by the folly of the war's architects. But the officers who did raise their voices against the miscalculations, shortsightedness, and general failure of the war effort were generally crushed, their careers often ended. A willful blindness gripped political and military leaders, and dissent was not tolerated.
There are a number of heroes in Fiasco-inspiring leaders from the highest levels of the Army and Marine hierarchies to the men and women whose skill and bravery led to battlefield success in towns from Fallujah to Tall Afar-but again and again, strategic incoherence rendered tactical success meaningless. There was never any question that the U.S. military would topple Saddam Hussein, but as Fiasco shows there was also never any real thought about what would come next. This blindness has ensured the Iraq war a place in history as nothing less than a fiasco. Fair, vivid, and devastating, Fiasco is a book whose tragic verdict feels definitive.