Customer Reviews

A General Speaks Out: The Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

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Every now and then I'll read a book and wish that I could meet the author for dinner. A General Speaks Out was one of those books. General DeLong is a fascinating person. He comes across as a no nonsense type of guy but clearly has a sense of humor as well and this book is about his time in one of the hardest jobs on earth. Between dealing with Secretary Rumsfeld, General Franks-- a guy you would NOT want to get on the bad side of, and running a war it's a wonder he made it retirement without collapsing.

The most interesting part of the book was the wild contrast between the stuff the media was printing and they way things actually were. If the media scandals of recent years didn't make you question everything you read in the newspaper then this book should.

Finally, I was really moved by the dedication and calmness of our military. Thank you General DeLong for your service.

The writer of this book is a retired Naval Aviator, US Marine Corps Leutenant General who writes as he sees it. It is of his experiece as the number 2 officer in the US Central Command who kept the home fires burning during te 2003 invasion of Iraq. This revised and renamed editon serves a real purpose in that his view on events of major signifiance vary from other writers and remain unchallenged. It is an important writing because it shows that in any modern day military venture, there is much political, logistical and other work in the background during both the planning and the operational phases. Written in a simple style which adds to it value Well worth reading. The cost is right.

Excellent book by a man who was there, and helped set up everything. Easy to complain and knock things down when you HAVEN'T been there and know all that is going on. The General is honest and forthcoming with success's and failures.

I expected to read the author's opinions and analysis of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but was disappointed. He writes relatively little about the reasons for, and objectives of the wars and devotes several pages to transcripts of the US national security strategy and President Bush's speeches. His analysis is virtually nonexistent, as he fails to discuss the blunders made by Rumsfeld. Any news magazine contains much more information on the reasons for, objectives of, and prosecution of these wars. The title is misleading, as it implies he disagrees with the wars, which he does not.

Mike DeLong is the former second in command at US Central Command. He is also among the most die-hard supporters of Don Rumsfeld. When six retired generals called for Rumsfeld to resign in the sprint of 2006 over the situation in Iraq, Mike DeLong took the other side and became the public defender of Rumsfeld and the "stay the course" strategy in Iraq.

The book isn't very good. DeLong mostly just repeats Rumsfeld's ideas and tries to defend the Iraq war. He is all for transformation of the military along the lines Rumsfeld wanted. But he doesn't bother to think about the implications of how a small high-tech army can ever win an insurgency war like Iraq. In fact, for an ex-general, he doesn't give much thought to how to do things better in Iraq at all.

On the lead-up to the Iraq war, he might as well be Rumsfeld or Cheney. He repeats all the disproved alligations of links between Bin Laden and Iraq. In interviews he also has claimed that Al Queida had its own chemical weapons plant in Kurdistan.

As far as WMDs, he is convinced that everything said in the lead-up to the war was true. The only reason they didn't find the weapons is that they were taken to Syria. Along the same lines, the book gives the impression that the "solution" to Iraq that he sees is invasions of Syria and Iran. I would not doubt though that if such invasions occured that the WMDs would again not be found he would tell us that they are in Sudan or Lebannon. He basically doesn't retreat an inch from the worst of the disproved pre-war claims.

If the pro-Rumsfeld politics of the book are the bad part, the good part of the book is when he talks about the actual mechanics of leading the war effort in Iraq from the perspective of his job (second in command). But even in that part, this is his second book and after "inside Centcom", there isn't all that much new to say.