Customer Reviews

Inside CentCom: The Unvarnished Truth About The Wars In Afghanistan And Iraq

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Coming out shortly after the release of Tommy Frank's new book, American Soldier, Inside CentCom is written by the only other man not in the military that knows what really went on during the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, former deputy commander of CentCom, Lt. General Micheal "Rifle" DeLong.

General DeLong sets out in his book to tell nothing but the truth about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq unlike so many other books coming out today that so clearly have agendas. DeLong describes in great detail special operations missions that helped bring down the Taliban in Afghanistan, including the Northern Alliance's assault on Mazar-e-Sharif. He describes the coalitions lightning advance towards Baghdad in Operation Iraqi Freedom and the joint warfare that made that campaign so successful.

He also has many new revelations in this book. I won't go into them as they are all mentioned in the editorial review and are described in greater detail in the book. Buy and read this book right after reading "American Soldier" to give yourself a much understanding of the battles in the War on Terror we have already won and what we still face.

"Rifle" Delongs command as written with Noah Lukeman provides readers with a powerful story of what went on behind the scenes of the wars. This non-fiction book read's like a best selling Tom Clancy novel. It places the reader right in the middle of the action that the news channels never broadcasted, much less knew about. Any objective reader without an agenda will find this book both intriguing and valuable.

Thank you for writing a book that speaks straight out to the American people. No matter their class, history, background or standing in life this book is meant for us.

At times it seems that the media is set out to create different kinds of mindsets for the different classes of people that America holds. Thank you for including everyone and for me personally, showing that in Iraq there are those who will work with the U.S. and the Coalition, and those who will fight and die for their own freedom and all that it encompasses.

It doesn't matter if you found General Tommy Franks' "An American Soldier" a delightful read or were intimidated by its length, the simple truth is, if you want to get a direct, straightforward, and eyewitness account of the Afgan and Iraq wars, General Michael DeLong's "Inside CentCom" is a perfect read. This book tells the story of the buildup and the execution of both wars in only 140 pages. This is no autobiography and General DeLong puts himself in the story only to talk about what he did as the second in command at CentCom.

On page 253 of Tommy Franks "An American Soldier" he says that Delong "was a brilliant, complete officer, tempered in combat as a young man flying Marine helicopters during heavy fighting in Vietnam; later he assisted in the chaotic evacuation of Saigon. Like most of my senior officers, he had commanded warfighting units. "Rifle" was a well-earned nickname." This sounds like high praise to me and the analysis and comment DeLong shares in telling the story of the Iraq and Afgan wars confirms Franks' judgment.

General DeLong points out several things that the press got wrong such as Woodward in his "Plan of Attack" assuming incorrectly about the war plans that were already "on the shelf". He also shares little known information such as the enlightening fact that Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and Ahmad Chalabi were in graduate school together. He also is very firm that Saddam had WMD. He also shares some insights into the capture and questioning of the senior Iraqi leadership.

My own thinking is that everyone should read this book before election day as a corrective measure to many misconceptions about the Afgan and Iraqi wars and their place in the overall War on Terror. General DeLong has performed great service to our nation for many decades and has provided us a great tool for understanding more about a very important issue of our time. I hope a great many of us take advantage of this gift.

The book has several appendices including a statement by Gen. Franks, some great maps, the Bush Administration's National Security document, and the National Strategy to Combat WMD. These add another 67 pages to the book. There is also a useful index.

This short, easily readable book concerns itself -as the title aptly implies- only with the view of those running the U.S. Central Command during the USS Cole, 9/11, the War in Afghanistan, and the War in Iraq. If you are looking for more breadth you will be disappointed, but taken for what it is the book is lucid, concise, and always straight to the point.

What is useful about this book is the chance to see how our U.S. commanders responsible for military actions in the Middle East, Horn of Africa, and Central Asia see the world and how they act. They are blunt, dedicated, capable, and surprisingly innovative. Although they may not wrap themselves up in nuances the way many people who are only concerned about intelligence, or diplomacy, or some other single discipline tend to, neither do they take a simplistic view of the world. They maintain the ability to see simple truths in a complex world, and use those truths to guide them in a highly stressful, highly demanding, and highly risky endeavour.

The book chronologically accounts Lt. Gen. De Long's extended three year tenure as deputy commander of CentCom during the most important events in the war on terror. You will see how CentCom concerned itself (and still does) with building and maintaing coalitions that are determined by the mission at hand (not the other way around) and with all the military strategy, planning, intelligence, diplomacy, logistics, and support needed to fight the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. This book is good military history of how we pulled off those operations, what we did right, and what we did wrong. It also shows the transformation our military is going through towards becoming a fully joint force, and the payoffs this is having in the current theaters of operation. It is also encouraging to see that the U.S. military is indeed reacting to the Al-Qaeda threat with innovative new ways of conducting military operations. There are a small handful of historical gems that did not get wide media coverage and can help explain the current military situation to the lay person.

Certainly a book that is worth reading, but limited in scope. You won't find any explanation of the root causes of Al-Qaeda, any real insight or analysis on Al-Qaeda's strategy and tactics, nor any grand strategy for defeating them. You will see how CentCom got things done and why they did it the way they did. The teaser of where Iraq's WMD are fizzles a bit in the actual telling though. They certainly may be in Syria, Lebanon or still hidden, but conventional wisdom seems to have concluded they don't exist and there's not enough evidence presented here to suggest that this is incorrect. There are also several appendices with official documentation regarding the current U.S. defense strategy which are interesting.

Michael DeLong, a retired U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Gen, has written a book that is brief but very informative. If you are looking for a book that reports on the United States war on terrorism and is not a lengthy tome, this is the book. I base my premise after having read AMERICAN SOLDIER by General Tommy Franks, THE HUNT FOR BIN LADEN BY Robin Moore, THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, and THE IRAQ WAR by John Keegan. I have also read several books by Bernard Lewis, probably the Western world's foremost scholar on the Middle East.

First off, after reading this material, I would say that the mainstream media in this country has done a great disservice to the American public by not reporting much of this information. One can hang any label on the reasons why but basically, one has to dig to find the real story.

Take weapons of mass destruction. Gen. DeLong describes how, in the 48 hour grace period given Iraqui leadership by President Bush, people and material fled Iraq for Syria and other locations. He confirms the fact that both the king of Jordan and the president of Egypt as well as every intelligence operation in the world believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Gen. Franks also reported this in his book. John Keegan notes in THE IRAQ WAR that David Kay, the leader of the Iraq Survey Group, after make their report to the Senate Armed Services Committee in January, 2004, told British media that he had evidence of the transfer by Iraq of WMD to Syrian territory. Christopher Hitchens, writing in VANITY FAIR magazine during the early stages of the war, reported that trains were leaving Iraq in the middle of the night and not being stopped at the Iraqui border by customs. The unofficial word was that the trains were transporting weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq. One was hard-pressed to get this information from the mainstream media. Gen. DeLong, in a presentation on C-Span2 BookTv, was asked why the Bush administration did not publicize this information. His answer was "I don't know."

Regime change in Iraq was not something new. In RISE OF THE VULCANS, James Mann details how Middle Eastern policy had been in the making for almost thirty years from Republican adminstrations through the Clinton administration into the George W. Bush administration. In 1998, The Iraq Liberation Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by Bill Clinton. If not for Monica Lewinsky and the subsequent impeachment trial of President Clinton, there is a school of thought that suggests that President Clinton was preparing to do what President Bush eventually did. You were hardpressed to read this analysis in the mainstream media.

The tug of war going on between France and Germany and the United States is basically a philosophical one. Robert Kagan's book, OF PARADISE AND POWER, describes the argument as being an argument between the Thomas Hobbes' school of thought as opposed to Immanuel Kant's way of thinking. Hobbes believed basically that there are rules in society and as long as everyone abides by the same rules, peace occurs. If a part of society does not abide by the rules, then force may be necessary to bring them back into the fold. Kant believed that everything could be resolved through negotiation, that issues with the worst dictators could ultimately be resolved through discussion. John Keegan calls this "Olympianism". Civil servants would replace soldiers and supreme court justices would replace generals. Neville Chamberlain tried this with Adolph Hitler. It did not work. The problem with terrorists is that they conform to their own rules, whatever they choose them to be. You basically have a clash of values and one side of the issue has to convince the other side of the issue that their behavior is not acceptable and that they must change that behavior. This is what is going on in Iraq today. Saddam Hussien, while he was not part of the 9/11 event, was a terrorist. He came to power through murder and assasination and continued to hold that power through those means. He was part of the terrorist activities taking place in the Middle East and was a threat to his neighbors. Since we now live in a global society, he was ultimately a threat to the United States and had to go.

Finally, I must say that in terms of what is taking place in Iraq today, again the mainstream media is letting the American public down. I have a member of my extended family who is a Lt. Col, U.S. Army Reserves, currently serving in Iraq. Outside of the hot spots in the Sunni Triangle, most of Iraq is relatively peaceful and getting on with their lives. He reports that the U.S. military is working well with the Iraqui people in terms of helping them to restore their country. I have read that northern Iraq, the home of the Kurds, is like being in southern California, the result of the benefit of being protected by the U.S. Air Force in the no-fly zone for over ten years. You certainly do not get a feel for that in the mainstream media. Southern Iraq and the city of Basra are doing quite well thanks to the efforts of our British allies.

Gen. Delong has written a concise account, detailing many of these facts. If you want to read something that takes a few hours, this is the book to read.

I have read the book, in fact it is autographed by him. I write this in response to Mrs. Sharmin who claims it is a one-sided view. Considering all three pages of your prior reviews display cheers for anti-Bush books and jeers for the swift boat book , which I remind you was signed by 250+ plus people who were there with him, I would be wise to surmise that YOU madame are in fact the one-sided one. Now as far as him being biased.... for one, I highly, highly doubt you even read the whole book. General Delong isn't just some pundit, he and Franks (another person I met and admire) RAN THE WAR. it's strategy was absolutely brilliant, if you read the book you would know that. How could he be biased, he was there and knows far more than ted Kennedey or John Kerry. "JFK" as he so absurdley likes to be called doesn't see the tons of intel data the pres. and others see, he's too busy whining to get elected. The WMD issue will come to light, many nay sayers are going to have egg on their faces. Don't forget, when bush gave Saddam 48 hours to leave or be removed on march 17th guess where numerous trucks drove... into Syria and later Iran. You said the Iraqis were not happy. Well, the people I know have been there and say it's not anywhere near as bad as the news makes it look. The fact is they did give troops flowers, kisses and hugs. It was just a month ago young school children were blown up while receiving candy from soldiers. You need to get your priorities straight and concentrate your faux rage on Islamic extremists, not our mainly humanitarian actions. The longer the regular Muslim community is virtually silent about it's extremists and some of the venemous "fiqh" that permeates from certain fatwahs, it is going to get worse and worse and worse. No political correctness, no ACLU will stop the backlash, if this keeps on. It will be an unfortunate occurance as I know some very good muslims, who DO stand up to these disgusting acts done by al-qaeda and the like. BTW, I have read the Koran and speak Arabic. "Get ready the steeds of war to fight the enemy of God" That being said, Senator Kerry's continual and abysmal undermining of the war (just as he did in Vietnam) will do nothing but strengthen the Terrorist resolve. The Iraq war has been going on for 12 years now, with missiles fired at our aircraft everyday since 98. I know because I was there. I don't derive my knowledge by reading a book, I derive it by experience or straight from the horse's mouth of those who have been there and yes "done that". You may like John Skerry, but personally I think he is pompous, oppurtunistic and a damned fool. Waxing poetic and monday morning QB'ing about something one has little intimate knowledge is not only foolish but dangerous.

This book is a quick and interesting read, in which the author points out some interesting facts that might not be apparent to the reader. Unfortunately, the book is a little short, and I couldn't help but feel that the author isn't sharing nearly enough of his experiences at CentCom as he should. On the negative side, there does seem to be a small amount of hubris in the book.

I was looking for a book that would help me to understand the thinking behind the scenes the war in Iraq. I wanted to know more about the Generals, the Colonols, how they reacted to finding things "on the ground" weren't what they expected. Little did I know how useful this book would be.

A friend in the military highly recommended this book to me. Turns out to be one of the best books to get me up to speed on why certain things were done along with the thinking/rational behind them.

You felt like you really had a good feel for who the main players were, during that time, in the military.

His rational for war is proven wrong but he still insists on WMD. He sees cheering Iraqis in Bagdad but we do not see it. He does not talk about the insurgents and how is the war going on. He takes the responsibility for the "Mission Accomplished" but he does not take the responsibilities for all that was wrong with the war. A very biased and one sided view.