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How America Lost Iraq

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Aaron Glantz, a reporter for Pacifica Radio, has written a compelling first hand account of his experiences in Iraq between early 2003 and early 2005. This is new journalism at its best. Mr. Glaantz is very upfront about where he is coming from as a supporter of human rights for all, whether they be Americans, Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, or Iraqi Christians. He is quite willing to acknowledge the atrocities of Saddam's regime as well as of the terrorists and U.S. forces. Living among the Iraqi people and sometimes mistaken for one by U.S. soldiers, he brings clarity to a complex situation and puts a human face on people under enormous pressure that you won't soon forget. Glaantz's honesty comes through in a way you never see in the mainstream media, whose reporters are often isolated from the day to day lives of Iraqis in their suites at the Palestine hotel. He is also quite willing to turn his eyes on himself, asking "How many people can you interview whose relatives have been killed before you start to crack--or worse, tune it all out?"

In addition to a strong narrative arc that describes how American liberators became occupiers became oppressors, the book is filled with details and conversations that make pieces of the puzzle that is Iraq fall into place. To pick one example, his discussion of kidnappings in Iraq brings up thought-provoking points that one rarely hears voiced. Glaantz notes an Associated Press report that "80 percent of the roughly 170 foreigners kidnapped in Iraq had been peacefully released. Overall, it seemed hostages directly involved in the occupation [this would include contractors working for the military] fared much worse than their civillian counterparts" (217). Details that should be reassuring turn out to be disturbing, such as Glaantz's comment that the soccer stadium converted into a mass grave in Fallujah "turned out to be a lot smaller than I imagined it" which necessitated the bodies being buried very close together, "and each mound has a small concrete slab as a headstone, the name of the person hand-scrawled with red paint. Sometimes there are more than one name" (273).

Although he gives you his own opinions (and identifies them as such), many of the book's most powerful moments come when he gives the voices of the Iraqis scope. To take one example, a simple conversation with a shopkeeper suggests a chillingly plausible reason for the number of suicide bombers: there are people willing to pay them, rumors suggesting one might get as much as $250,000. As the shopkeeper explains, "Of course some people will take money to explode themselves . . . That way their family and and their grandchildren will be able to live well in the future." While huge sums go to military contractors and to protect oil interests, little goes to help the locals. As the shopkeeper wistfully comments, "If some of the money went to unemployed Iraqi people . . . there would be fewer bombings" (119-20). The passage is shocking, not only because it critiques U.S. policy, but because it suggests that many of the "fanatics" may not be fanatics at all, but simply people who are trying to protect and provide for their families by victimizing the families of others. Can the noblest of ends justify the worst of means? It is a question that some Iraqis answer in the affirmative, but obviously many in the U.S. answer the same question in the same way. Ultimately, this cycle of violence underlies the whole book, and it applies to both Iraqi history as well as to U.S. actions in the Middle East.

Although the book is hardly a justification of the invasion of Iraq, the book is by no means an unrelenting attack on U.S. policy. Glaantz sometimes defends U.S. actions and critiques the anti-war Left; Glaantz also describes his struggle with his editors at Pacifica who want more sensational stories than Iraqi discontent with the lack of power, water, and proper sanitation. He refuses to believe many of the worst reports of the U.S. military's behavior, although he acknowledges that a number of them turn out to be true. One of the things that makes the book remarkably compelling, is that you can actually see the shift from denial to acceptance taking place in his narrative, a shift that parallels the Iraqis transition from hope, to disappointment, to outrage. Glaantz also makes unheard of efforts (at least for a journalist these days) to talk to multiple witnesses and check out their statements when this is possible. If he doesn't see things himself, he describes the aftermath in telling detail and interviews survivors. Ulimately the story Glaantz tells is a tragic one, a story in which a bad situation is dishonestly exploited by the powerful, opportunities to do good are squandered, and arrogance and poorly thought out policy make a situation increasingly spiral out of control.

Despite the complexity of some of the issues How America Lost Iraq raises, the book benefits from being a first hand account, and thanks to Glaantz's writing skills it has considerable narrative momentum. The book thus manages to be a fast read even as it is also remarkably thought-provoking. All in all this is an excellent book that focuses on an element of the Iraq war rarely covered in the media--the Iraqis themselves.

Aaron Glantz has penned a treasure with How America Lost Iraq. A little over two years have passed since the American invasion of Iraq began, and conditions on the ground in Iraq are largely the same as or even worse than they were just after the invasion. This book explores why.

In his search for the answers, Glantz actually behaves as a real journalist. Unlike most Western reporters who file their stories without having real contact with the people about whom they are reporting, Glantz courageously ventures throughout Iraq, visits cities many reporters probably do not even know exist, and puts his finger on the pulse of Iraqi public opinion.

In light of the fact that Glantz is a reporter for Pacifica Radio, his frankness and objectivity were surprising. Many liberals will identify with Glantz's cynicism of the American military's tactics and intentions, but to my (and his) surprise, he confesses that his cynicism may have been partially baseless. The American military DID try to avoid civilian deaths by bombing only military installations. Furthermore, most Iraqis immediately after Saddam's fall welcomed the American military as liberators.

Where Glantz hits his stride, however, is his detailing of how the Iraqi gratitude transformed into contempt, how the U.S. truly did manage to "lose Iraq" through a brutal and counter-productive occupation. Readers cannot help but despair as they read account after account of U.S. forces digging themselves deeper into a quagmire through brutal suppression, collective punishment, and an assortment of other egregious practices. The violent Iraqi responses to these activities lead to more crack-downs, which in turn spur more Iraqi violence, creating a never-ending spiral of escalating brutality. The most important question Glantz raises is, why do so many in America see the occupation as necessary to quell violence when he has seen up close that it has done nothing but to incite violence? Our policies, Glantz implies, are difficult to comprehend in light of what is actually taking place on the ground. And he is right.

How America Lost Iraq is not remarkable only because of the depth of the research or only because of the clarity of Glantz's analysis, both which should place this book high on anybody's to-read list. Rather, it is Glantz's gift of storytelling which adds the spike to otherwise generic punch. The smoothness of his prose and the tightness of his narrative bring immediacy to the events he describes, compelling the reader to accompany Glantz and his translators on their dangerous travels. In the end, those travels lead to one place: the realization that the current occupation of Iraq is tragic. It has caused untold suffering for Iraqis who were looking forward to peaceful self-determination after decades of Saddam; it has led an American army of potential liberators to commit war crimes due to high-level mismanagement; and it raises serious questions about the level of awareness of Americans who remain silent while billions more of their tax dollars continue to be poured into a doomed operation.

Aaron Glantz, along with everyone else in their right mind, is obviously critical of the US presence in Iraq, however, his account is unique in several important respects. First of all, due to his courageous approach in working outside of areas secured by US forces, he offers unique insights into how this disaster continues to evolve. Secondly, his perspective is refreshingly credible; the reader can easily follow how and why he arrives at his conclusions. In most critical analyses of the Iraq invasion and occupation, the authors seem to have already made up their minds, and proceed to justify their conclusions. Unlike such hysterical screeds, Glantz's book is not only highly credible, but exceptionally well written.

Aaron Glantz, a Pacifica radio correspondent, painstakingly traces where and how the United States repeatedly messed up in Iraq. His title radically differs from other books on the subject, using multiple sources to deliver one of the most multidimensional and sophisticated critiques of Iraq.

Specifically, he talks to the Iraqi people themselves to get their own perspectives on this event. Not surprisingly, they were initially skeptical of his intentions, but he built up enough trust to produce this book. It is disturbing that talking to the Iraqi people themselves is considered a radical action.

Saddam Hussein was this infamous tyrant who appeared uninterested in his own people's well being so they were happy to get rid of him--until they also lost what basic services which they had been previously receiving. Glantz then writes that suicide bombings can be profitable for people who have been and are receiving little money otherwise in an allegedly rebuilt Iraq (pp. 119-120).

Because I predominantly receive my own news about Iraq (and the Middle East) from American news media, I had not previously considered the economic incentives to participate in a suicide bombing. Some people are participating in these activities to feed themselves and/or their families, with many other options currently unavailable. I had honestly assumed that the people who participated in these events were doing this for socioreligious sincerity alone; however I guess it's easy for Washington officials to moralize and grandstand when they don't have to worry about their own children starving.

Glantz also critiques us on the left for getting too in love with protesting against this very war. According to him, we are loosing perspective of the larger goal, again because we are also predominantly coming from and with an American-centric perspective.

While we need to be concerned what is happening with American soldiers and tax dollars, we cannot forget that the Iraqi people might lack even the most rudimentary services which we take for granted. We talk about how hard organizing is, but many American activists (myself included) live in a country where we know that sanitation and electricity is working and we do not have to worry about roadside bombs as we travel around our cities. Perspective is everything in and to effective community organizing.

There is considerable irony that President Bush and the Republican-controlled United States Government are so eager to talk about self-rule and democracy, but will not let the Iraqi people actually control their own lives.

Glantz punctures both left and right in this balanced analysis of what has gone wrong in Iraq. A powerful story that should be required reading for politicians and political groupies of all leanings.

This short impressionistic account of Iraq and the war seems to close the case on a bungled job. As the United States went to war amidst a massive protest movement, the appearance of imperialistic motive seemed apparent to most. But as the author tells it, he arrived in Iraq to find many relieved to see the American miliatry shuck off the burdern of Saddam. Thence, from this window of opportunity we see the rapid progression to its opposite, and the swift disillusion of Iraquis with the leaden American initiative, obviously unable from the beginning to keep its crypto-imperialistic obsessions in tow. The result is the now dismal endgame of what might have actually given substance to the initial rhetoric of liberators.

I don't have much to add to V. I. Scherb's excellent description. Most people in Europe and America have seen Iraq through the selective eye of television; this book brings you face to face with real Iraqis.

What a waste. What a stupid, irresponsible, brutal waste.

I just finished reading How America Lost Iraq, by Aaron Glantz. What a simultaneously depressing and refreshing book!

Glantz is a reporter for Pacific Radio, which has been broadcasting anti-war news and opinions since WWII. Familiar with this news agency, I was at first surprised to find that he often disagreed with his editors during his stays in Iraq over the past few years. For instance, soon after the coalition forces invaded the country and toppled Hussein's government, he learned from the man on the street that, much as mainstream media was reporting, the popular sentiment was one of rejoicing. This was not what Pacifica wanted to hear.

However, upon returning a year later, he found this sentiment to be largely reversed. The infrastructure had been largely destroyed, tensions were high, and people lived in constant fear of death and imprisonment by the Americans. Particularly after the battle of Fallujah, when an American is captured or killed by insurgents, Iraqi citizens fear the all too common retaliation that soon comes. Rather than seeing Americans as the liberators they claimed to be, Glantz reports that most Iraqis now see them as occupiers.

It is refreshing to read a book like this. Rarely do the oppressed get a voice, and Aaron Glantz helps them to be heard in Iraq. He agrees that Saddaam Hussein was a tyrant that needed to be removed, yet believes that a war may not have been the best way to achieve this. Through poignant interviews with common people in Iraq, he shows that they are becoming increasingly fearful and resentful of the occupying forces, and calls for an immediate withdrawal from the country. Through comparisons with Korea and Vietnam, he warns of the ultimate costs of continuing a military occupation of a people who want only self-rule.

I would highly recommend How America Lost Iraq to anyone who is interested in learning what the Iraqi think about the American occupation. Aaron Glantz is a reporter who immerses himself in the stories and lives of the people he studies.

I was more than a little leery coming into this book knowing Mr. Glantz worked for Pacifica. I was afraid I might find a one-sided diatribe about how the U.S. invasion and the government is terrible and what a horrible crime the invasion was, but what I found was a balanced look at the situation and firsthand account from some Iraqis on how the invasion and occupation have affected them.

One of the telling moments of this book for me was when Mr. Glantz talks about having problems with his editors only wanting stories that paint a certain kind of picture of the Iraqi situation. With U.S. media this is so often the problem; a story will be bent depending upon the people reporting the stories own political leanings rather than the unvarnished truth. So often the Right and Left are pulling so hard that the story, which is actually somewhere in the Middle, gets lost, and the people who end up getting hurt are the victims (Iraqis) and the people who are relying on these reports to understand the situation and make informed decisions based on this information (U.S. citizens).

Mr. Glantz chronicles the failures of this administration and military leaders to understand the peoples they came to free. As I read his interviews with everyday Iraqis a picture emerges that should have been seen early on this occupation. Iraqis were happy the Americans toppled this mostly hated regime, but this enthusiasm would only go so far. It would only last so long. As the U.S. military continued to commit excesses and as life on the ground for ordinary Iraqis either deteriorated or remained the same, as under Saddam, that patience and enthusiasm wore thin until finally it broke.

As the U.S. broke every rule of fighting a counter-insurgency in Iraq, I have to ask myself what did they expect would be the result of this policy? What did they expect Iraqis with no jobs, no money and no prospects to do?

Here in the U.S. we too often forget about those we have chosen "liberate" and only focus on ourselves. Mr. Glantz gives us an Iraqi perspective that is sorely missed in our media today. He gives us a fair portrait of life in Iraq and for that he should be thanked. It is the stories from the Middle that are the most honest and important.

If one were to look at the Iraq War only in terms of the first 6 months in 2003, they'd think we won the war. That of course is what Bush and his neo-conservative buddies in both the Republican and Democrat Parties want you to think about. However, now that the Iraq War makes Vietnam look less bloody what with more insurgents on the horizon and more moderate and liberal and even good conservative Iraqi citizens losing their faith in the new regime which was actually a neocon puppet installed regime after the war and Saddham captured, the longer the war prevails with smaller chances of any true success in Iraq and oil prices skyrocketing, this book will no doubt strengthen in its validity.