Customer Reviews

Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Atkinson's account of the Gulf War has managed to outdo every participant who has written about it. He does this by exposing every significant detail of the conflict. The aspects that most fascinated me include the negotiations with Saudi Arabia and Israel, the coverage of the military campaign (in the air, land, and sea), and the allied military personalities. Atkinson covers all of these angles - and more - as well as any other journalist/author. His style and professionalism is on a level with Bob Woodward (both are both Pulitzer Prize winners).

On all counts Atkinson is fair and thorough. Probably the best example of this is his portrayal of Schwarzkopf. More critical of his methods than the man himself, Atkinson summarizes, "Even for men who had seen horrific bloodletting in Vietnam, no Asian jungle was more stressful than the endless weeks they spent in Norman Schwarzkopf's Riyadh basement."

Still, this is not a book about Schwarzkopf. Everyone and everything gets their due coverage - cruise missiles of all kinds, scuds, Colin Powell and Dick Cheney, British special forces, the Israeli Defense Minister, Iraq's Republican Guard, and others. Again, the scope is impressive.

Except for any secrets that may be declassified in the future, "Crusade" is still the most comprehensive account of Desert Storm and Desert Shield. If you think you know everything there is to know about the Gulf War, you are guaranteed to learn something new from "Crusade."

13 years and two Administrations ago, the entire world watched as the first President Bush marshaled a global coalition to confront Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and gave him an ultimatum: leave Kuwait by Jan. 15, 1991, or we'll force you out. Three months had passed since Iraq had invaded its tiny but rich neighbor, claiming the Kuwaitis were slant-drilling into Iraqi oil fields just across the border.

In reality, as Rick Atkinson points out in Crusade: The Untold Story of the Persian Gulf War, Saddam was strong-arming his way out of repaying loans made to Iraq by Kuwait and other moderate Arab countries during his disastrous war with Iran. He may have also been angered by OPEC's lowering of the price of crude oil, which reduced badly-needed hard currency for his moribund economy. In a classic case of what novelist Tom Clancy calls "armed robbery writ large," Saddam followed Hitler's example of trumping up claims on a neighboring country, massing a huge army on its borders, then invading.

While Atkinson (The Thin Gray Line, An Army At Dawn) focuses on the events of the war itself, he carefully explains the almost Byzantine turns of American foreign policy toward Iraq. In the mid-1980s, Washington, worried that Iran would defeat Iraq, provided Baghdad with limited intelligence assistance and looked the other way when other countries (such as France, Brazil, and the USSR) sold Saddam sophisticated weapons. Only after the 1987 USS Stark incident, when an Iraqi Mirage "accidentally" fired an Exocet missile at a U.S. frigate in the Gulf and killed and injured several sailors, did U.S. policymakers start looking at Saddam as a potential adversary. But until 1990, official policy in Washington was to try to coax Baghdad into joining the fold of civilized nations in the so-called post-Cold War "new order."

In fact, as Atkinson points out, Washington's desire to establish better trade and diplomatic relations may have given Saddam the "green light" to invade Kuwait. The White House, for instance, censured the Voice of America for airing reports about Iraq's repressive government, and Ambassador April Glaspie's comment in July 1990 that the U.S. had no intentions to intervene in "Arab-Arab" disputes further reinforced the Iraqi dictator's view that America was a post-Vietnam "paper tiger" and would not lift a finger to help the Sheik of Kuwait.

Crusade is intensely fascinating and detailed. It is incredibly well-written, enabling the reader to get both the Big Picture and see the war through the combatants' point of view. It's no exaggeration to say that it reads like a Clancy novel; we get not only personality sketches of H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the "CINC" of Central Command and overall commander of Desert Storm and his chief lieutenants (Charles Horner, "Buster" Glosson, Cal Waller, Fred Franks), but we also get vivid descriptions of the intense aerial and ground battles that became known as Operation Desert Storm.

Atkinson also deals with the unexpected aftermath of the Persian Gulf War -- the short period of national high-fiving after the liberation of Kuwait that gave way to disillusion. In a matter of months, President George Herbert Walker Bush went from being a popular wartime leader to being booted out of the Oval Office in the 1992 election. Saddam Hussein, meanwhile, crushed not one but two post-war revolts (encouraged but not supported by President Bush) and withstood nearly 12 years of sanctions and sporadic air and missile attacks as he defiantly thumbed his nose at three American Presidents. (Now that he's in U.S. custody, maybe he isn't feeling so cocky, but that's another story.)

I ordered this book shortly after the 9/11 attack, anticipating another land battle in the Middle East. I wanted to know what to expect if our forces were moved in in any great numbers. Crusade provided exactly that information by providing me with a clear documentation of the Gulf War. Despite the differences between the two wars, I still found the book helpful. Rick Atkinson's style is a lot like Sebastian Junger's (The Perfect Storm). It's almost like reading a very long newspaper article, except that Atkinson keeps it interesting.

My only complaint is that he relies too heavily on what appears to be a list of crutch words. These should fairly pop out at you, but they do not really take away from the quality of his writing. Unless of course, you are looking for creative merit.

Creativity is not a part of the book. It is a complete record of the facts, as well as Atkinson's opinion's as they relate.

I give this book full marks.

In my opinion, Atkinson surpasses Stephen Ambrose as military historian extraordinaire, and I'm an Ambrose fan! From the moment I read the first paragraph of the first page of this book, I thought, "Wow, Atkinson can write!" The work was gripping throughout, and read like a novel. No wonder Atkinson won a Pulitzer for his previous work: he has an amazing gift for conveying historical fact in captivating prose. Equally amazing is the amount of research that went into this tome: a glance at the endnotes is sufficient to know that this book must have consumed Atkinson's life for several years. Along with Ambrose's "Band of Brothers" and Antony Beevor's "Fall of Berlin 1945," I would say this is the best work of military history that I have read . . . in fact, I would rank it first with Beevor's "Berlin" book. And you don't need to be a soldier to understand the book; it's clearly devised, with explanations for the layperson, and the maps are incredible. My only wish while reading the book was for a supplement that showed, for example, what an F-111 looked like, so that I wouldn't confuse it with an F-117; but this is my only criticism, and a minor one at that. You can always look up such weaponry on the Internet. Now I can't wait to read Atkinson's "An Army at Dawn," which I have waiting on my bookshelf!

I am ashamed to admit that this excellent book sat on my bookshelf for a number of years while I read untold numbers of lesser books. I had heard it was a good book, which was the reason I purchased it, and it turns out that everything positive that lead me to buy the book was in fact true. The first thing that stood out for me was that this author is very good at his craft. I almost forgot I was reading a non fiction book at times because his writing style provided the excitement and richly detailed descriptions that you would normally associate with a fiction book. The author details the Gulf War in such a way that almost exclusively focuses on the actual war and not the lead up to the combat nor the political efforts that played out. He does touch on some political aspects, but only when they are needed to augment the readers understanding of what was happening in the war theater.

The one interesting side story in the book was the authors dislike for Norman Schwarzkopf. The critiques were always within the realm of how he did his job, but there was just something about them that let the reader in on the fact that not too many people that worked with the General much cared for his management style. Other then this slight bias the author stuck to the facts and really gave the reader a good amount of detail on the war effort. It was interesting to read of the many battles. I have read a number of books about different aspects of the war, but this was the first one that really covered all the major battles and I came away surprised at some of the scale that was described. We have all heard that the war was a complete and overwhelming victory, but that positive view hides some of the very violent and large battles that took place.

Overall I really enjoyed the book. The author did a wonderful job and I can honestly say that this is one of the better combat books that I have ever read. The details were never ending and the writing was crisp and well thought out. If you are interested in the war then this has to be the one book your read if you are interested in the combat. The only partial critique I would make is that the author spent the vast amount of his time talking about the American military and really did not cover much of what was happening with the other countries involved. Given the size and responsibilities of those other forces, this focus on the U.S. is understandable.

I flew combat sorties in OPERATION DESERT STORM and this book correctly details the microcosism of my involvement in the conflict. While Mr. Atkinson does not detail all of the contributions of my weapons platform, he does go into as much detail as anyone else has. What he does write in this book, he is right on target.

He also is able to show some of the human side of the story, and not just the technical aspects of it.

Overall, the book is very easy to read, and I did not wish to put it down until I finished it. Adding the technical merit and accuracy of the volume makes it the best overall text on OPERATION DESERT STORM I know of. Other texts take a more technical view of portions of the campaign, but none top Crusade.

For those who like the genre of Tom Clancy or Dale Brown, but are frustrated with the implausible, here is a book that is hard to put down, and yet is real life! From inside the cockpit of the Apache attack force that fired the first shots of the war, to the White house, where you sit with President Bush and his war council, here is an exciting inside look of the Gulf War from the perspective of those who planned and fought it. Many of us who were there were too busy with our own areas of work to be aware of the totality of the war effort. Rick Atkinson's fine work put it together for me. This book is a must for anyone who thinks Desert Storm was a cake walk. From prisoners of war, to the largest tank battles since WWII, you will feel the tension. I just wish he wrote more.

A very long, detailed account of the Gulf War is about the last book I expected to love--except that it was by Rick Atkinson. As in "The Long Gray Line", he has written a wonderful, readable book with amazing command of technology, the military, and politics. I learned a lot.

Veteran writer and journalist Rick Atkinson's "Crusade" was published in 1993, just long enough after the end of the First Gulf War for the dust to settle and for the author to sort through what really happened. Although less complete as a military account than Scales' "Certain Victory" or Gordon and Trainer's "The Generals' War", it is easily the most engrossing for the general reader. Atkinson nimbly steps between the battlefield, the Coalition command post in Saudi Arabia, and the Washington Beltway to create a compelling narrative of the personal and poltical dimensions of the conflict.

Atkinson's gift is to put perspective on a huge effort. Following the invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi, the United States led a UN-sponsored coalition in first protecting Saudi Arabia and then liberating Kuwait. Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM represented the most significant military effort by the United States since the end of the Vietnam War. For many participants, the Gulf War was a long-overdue exorcism of the ghosts of Vietnam, and Atkinson faithfully traces that thread in the narrative.

The outsized personality of General Norman Schwartzkopf dominates the story in the Middle East. In charge of an isolated command with few assigned troops, Schwartzkopf was responsible for the rapid build-up of a multi-national force, the careful tending of various allies, and the ultimately successful campaign to liberate Kuwait. That enormous amounts of political and military friction were an inescapable part of this effort is no surprise; its extent is captured here.

DESERT STORM was a proving ground for various new forms of technology and doctrine whose use is now considered routine. Atkinson successfully narrates the terrific struggles over the integration of a joint, combined combat effort at what was then the cutting edge of innovation. Inevitably, mistakes were made; Atkinson documents this as well.

This book is highly recommended as an excellent account of the First Gulf War for the general reader and for the student looking for broad coverage.

The author achieves to present a good story. He gives you a good insight on the strategical perspective of Gulf War in an uncommon way for the kind: straigthforward story telling. Essentials like logistics, deployment, build-up and theatre operations are well described. Naval, Air and Special Forces operations have their share in the book giving a complete picture of the Allied strategy in the Gulf War campaign. Personal experiences are included but are not the norm. The author has a good timing on jumping into the description of some specifical tactical action or a personal narrative. Atkinson shows himself as a good straightforward story teller. His narrative is easy to follow and he is capable of keeping the reader interested troughout the entire book.

This book concentrates on campaign facts. It is not an analysis of Middle East politics.

What remains untold is the Iraki's story. Like all wars we'll have to wait sometime before the looser's-point-of-view literature can be studied.