Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco

By David L. Phillips (Westview, 288 pages, $25).

Grade: A-

David Phillips' book Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco could not be more timely, hitting just as a series of documents called the Downing Street memos have come to light.

Purportedly, the memos (which have now been vetted and found to be valid by multiple sources) were minutes from briefings held by the war cabinet of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who resides at 10 Downing Street. They reveal that the head of the British Secret Service believed the Bush administration was fixing the intelligence to fit the policy to invade Iraq, and that there was little or no planning for rebuilding postwar Iraq.

The issue of how to secure and rebuild Iraq once major combat operations were over is the core of Phillips' incredibly well researched and fascinating insider account. As a contracted senior analyst with the U.S. Department of State, he was both aware of and directly participated in the development of a detailed plan for rebuilding Iraq's political, institutional and industrial infrastructure. The author reveals that there was a plan in place to win the peace, but that it was ignored, for partisan reasons, by the Department of Defense.

Phillips' book presents a fly-on-the-wall account of the meetings and conferences involving State Department officials and the Iraqi exile community. The meetings generated ideas for a power-sharing federal system to integrate Iraq's Kurdish, Sunni and Shia communities; a schedule for transitioning between the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and an Iraqi-led interim authority; and the structure of a new constitution.

But such discussions were fraught with difficulties. Iraqi secular leaders bickered with Muslim clerics about whether Islamic law should be enshrined in a new constitution, which threatened to turn Iraq into an Islamic Republic like Iran. And Defense Department favorite Ahmed Chalabi - leader of the Saddam opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress - jockeyed for power by taking over news conferences and hand-picking men for key positions on planning committees.

Eventually, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld scuttled the plan with an unprecedented decision to have the Department of Defense run the postwar occupation, a task usually reserved for the State Department.

Phillips implies that Rumsfeld, at the Pentagon, was fighting a turf battle with Secretary of State Colin Powell - and so several months of planning was sidelined by partisan bickering and, perhaps, ego-driven showboating.

The result is plain to see: The body count continues to grow, insurgents disrupt daily activities all over Iraq and Iraqi authorities fight amongst themselves.

Losing Iraq reveals the glacial pace reconstruction has taken, delayed by terrorist attacks and the haphazard interaction between American generals and civilian authorities, the right hand not talking to the left.

Slowly, elements of the original plan have been resurrected, but in piecemeal fashion, and the once-reviled United Nations has been asked to help broker deals and pick native Iraqi technocrats to salvage the peace.

One item worth noting in the Beltway power struggle was the unusually strong presence of the Office of the Vice President, run by Dick Cheney and his chief of staff. The OVP was involved in every aspect of the buildup to war, the shelving of the State Department plan to win the peace, and the development and deployment of intelligence to make the case for war to the American people.

Which brings us back to those Downing Street memos. The blogosphere is ablaze with speculation and innuendo about the memos and their provenance. But readers of Losing Iraq will find better information in Phillips' account - and from a reputable source.

It's a fascinating, unbiased read, from an author who has witnessed the events first hand.

- Kelly Lemieux

Waging Peace

By Rob Schultheis (Gotham Books, 188 pages, $26).

Grade: B-

When waging war, the lead-off troops take whatever means necessary to capture a territory, even if that means destroying power plants, decimating sewage systems and bombing factories. In the aftermath, the "cleanup crew" arrives to begin reconstruction, healing both the physical and emotional scars that were torn asunder in the conflict.

That's the little-recognized job of the U.S. Army's Civil Affairs Corps, to provide aid and reconstruction work in a territory where "the air is full of anxiety, malice and despair, spiking without warning into homicidal rage."

Members are instructed to fight only if attacked and when there's no alternative, even as they dodge ambushes and roadside bombs to fix sewer lines, power grids, hospitals, schools and anything else torn apart in the combat zones.

Sounds like a dream job, doesn't it? Yet a host of men and women - "everyday Americans, regular Joes" - join the Army's special operations teams annually to do just that. They operate with true grit, sheer nerve and a strong urge to do what's right, says war correspondent Rob Schultheis, who was embedded with one civil affairs unit for six months in Iraq.

His book, Waging Peace, recounts in detail his experience with Civil Affairs Team 13, Alpha Company. Schultheis draws creative and descriptive pictures of the team members, 97 percent of whom are reservists from all walks of life - police, EMTs, teachers, engineers, carpenters, doctors and nurses, farmers, firemen and bankers.

The commanding officer of the CAT-A 13 is the indefatigable Maj. Mark Clark, an ex-Special Forces soldier who "looks like a cross between an old-fashioned silver screen sheriff and a Great Plains Indian chief, with his lanky frame and hawk-eye hatchet face." The fearless Clark has the ability to walk into an angry crowd with a big smile on his face and diffuse tensions without showing anger or a gun.

He and the other team members truly care about the people they're trying to help, according to Schultheis, even when they sometimes get distrust, anger and outright hatred in return. By being there for the Iraqis in the worst of the conditions, they find ways to earn their trust.

Master Sgt. Bob Venters, for example, fishes for carp by night, then gives the fish to the Iraqi workers, who consider it a special food. He also helped a girl with multiple sclerosis by air-freighting in a wheelchair for mobility, as well as art supplies to give her a way to express herself.

Schultheis' book can be amusing as well as surprising. He shares stories, for example, about the feminist Iraqi women, who adore Oprah Winfrey and worry about the happiness of the U.S. soldiers who've come to help them. He also talks about the Iraqis' misguided beliefs, such as their idea that the soldiers' protective goggles have X-ray lenses, allowing them to see through clothing.

The author uses lots of Army slang and acronyms throughout the book, but wisely offers a glossary upfront as an assist to readers not as well attuned to the military. The book's biggest blemish, though, is in the way the author inserts himself and his opinions into the story, rather than letting it play out on its own.

In one case, Schultheis editorializes about what he considers the American public's view of the war in Iraq, saying they see only a "twisted farmhouse mirror image" based on the Abu Ghraib prison story.

Yet Schultheis, too, views the war and its people ambivalently. On the one hand, he describes the Iraqis as "basically a friendly, curious, instinctively hospitable people." Elsewhere, though, he talks about problems with U.S. pump trucks vanishing, largely because corrupt Iraqi officials apparently are selling off the trucks and sharing the profits.

Despite such shortcomings, there's valuable information here about the unsung heroes who do the dirty work required to help push Iraqis toward a better life and democracy. If not for their bravery and generosity, economic and psychological recovery would be an even longer time coming.

- Verna Noel Jones

Jones is a freelance writer for the Rocky Mountain News, the Chicago Tribune and various magazines.

Lemieux is a Denver-based journalist who has written for local publications, such as Westword, as well as publications in San Francisco and New York City.

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