The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq [Hardcover]

Patrick Cockburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2006

A profound and personal journey to the heart of a shattered nation.

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist 2006.

In March 2003, Patrick Cockburn secretly crossed the Tigris river from Syria into Iraq just before the US/British invasion, and has covered the war ever since. In The Occupation, he provides a vivid and disturbing picture of a country in turmoil, and the dangers and privations endured by its people.

The Occupation explores the mosaic of communities in Iraq, The US and Britain's failure to understand they country they were invading and how this led to fatal mistakes. Cockburn, who has been visiting Iraq since 1978, describes the disintegration of the country under the occupation. Travelling throughout Iraq, from the Kurdish north, to Baghdad, Falluja and Basra, he records the response of the country's population – Shia and Sunni, Arab and Kurd – to the invasion, the growth of the resistance and its transformation into a full-scale uprising. He explains why deepening religious and ethnic divisions drove the country towards civil war.

Above all, Cockburn traces how the occupation's failure led to the collapse of the country, and the high price paid by the Iraqis. He charts the impact of savage sectarian killings, rampant corruption and economic chaos on everyday life: from the near destruction of Baghdad's al-Mutanabi book market to the failure to supply electricity, water and, ironically, fuel to Iraq's population.

The Occupation is a compelling portrait of a ravaged country, and the appalling consequences of imperial arrogance.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Cockburn's eye for the telling detail lifts The Occupation above the usual journalist's account of the Iraq war.” (New York Times )

“Cockburn's account of the evolving conflict ... is informed by his keen personal observations and understanding of the complexities and horrors of daily life in Iraq.” (Library Journal )

“Of the raft of books about the calamitous mismanagement of the intervention in Iraq, The Occupation is probably the most readable and certainly the only one that—even if only in the driest possible way—manages to be amusing.” (Christopher Hitchens - Slate )

“Required reading ... a masterpiece of journalism.” (A N Wilson - Evening Standard )

“Cockburn will be read when the rest of us are long forgotten.” (The Times )

From the Back Cover

National Book Critics' Circle Award Finalist --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 229 pages
• Publisher: Verso; First Edition edition (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1844671003
• ISBN-13: 978-1844671007
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,740,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential for understanding the Iraq war. December 10, 2006

By Wayne Rossi

Format:Hardcover

Patrick Cockburn was deeply familiar with Iraq for twenty-five years before the US invasion and occupation, and his coverage of the first three years of the war is perhaps the most informed and passionate reporting to come out of Iraq. The Occupation combines a journalistic immediacy with a long view of the Iraq War and its place in US history, and Cockburn lays out the case that the current disaster was not just a matter of bad luck or bad planning, but should have been obvious before the war began.

There is a very human sensibility to the book, as Cockburn made every effort in his time in Iraq to get to know and talk to ordinary Iraqis as well as major figures. He is constantly able to provide an immediate and compelling illustration of the large-scale events going on, and his book manages to be both personal account and broad history.

The picture Cockburn paints is not one friendly to the US or British governments; he shows that the occupation was handled without even a modicum of expertise in the region among military or civilian leadership, especially the Coalition Provisional Authority. He shows how through a series of miscalculations, poor communication and outright blunders, the occupying army has managed to turn the bulk of Iraqis against it, and how all the large set-piece battles and elections only deepened the resistance and the growing civil war. He also shows that the unrealistic Pollyannaish view that the US wanted to paint of Iraq in 2003-2004 actually exacerbated the situation, primarily because it was actually believed by some commanders.

There is no "solution" for the US to win in Iraq in The Occupation, because Cockburn makes it clear that winning is simply impossible.... Although it never says as much, the book's straightforward account is a compelling case for withdrawal. It should be read by anyone who wants to understand what the forces of the Iraq War are, or what its human face looks like. Read more ›

27 of 30 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars dense and compact November 2, 2006

By arzewski

Format:Hardcover

Of the twenty or so books that are coming out every season now on the experiences in Iraq, this one stands out: it is dense, compact, to the point, no fluff, very little dialog. In 213 pages, felt I learned more about it than those 800 page bricks that are not in the New Books section of your neighborhood pub library. Warning to hollywood moviemakers: there are no heroes in this book, so don't look in it for a possible film adaptation.

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent survey of a disaster January 5, 2007

By William Podmore

Format:Hardcover

Patrick Cockburn, the Independent's Middle East correspondent, has written a vivid first-hand account of the US-British occupation of Iraq. He notes of the war's prelude, the 1990s sanctions on Iraq, "Imposing sanctions on all ordinary Iraqis was a cruel collective punishment, one of the great man-made disasters of the last century."

He shows that opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq radicalized most of the suicide bombers in Iraq. An Israeli study also concluded that almost all the foreign fighters in Iraq had been radicalized by the invasion. A Saudi investigation showed that few suicide bombers had any contact with al Qaeda before 2003.

Cockburn details the brutalities of the occupation, the imperial arrogance, the use of mercenaries, the deepening religious divisions, the vile sectarian killings, the lawlessness and insecurity, the rampant corruption and the economic chaos (oil, electricity, water and sewerage are all still worse than they were pre-war). All lead to growing national resistance.

The Bush administration claimed that toppling Saddam would stabilise the Middle East. Instead the invasion and occupation have destabilised all the region's countries. The war has destroyed Iraq, worsened the prospects of peace and justice for the Palestinian people and strengthened the al Qaeda terrorists.

The war was `a terrible mistake', as the Royal Institute for International Affairs recently noted. US General William Odom, a former head of the National Security Agency, called the war `the greatest strategic disaster in American history'. We need our troops back home, to defend our borders against the terrorists, people-smugglers and drug-runners generated by the Labour government's criminal wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent December 28, 2006

By Tim Gallagher

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Very well written, detailed and inciteful, highly recommended for anyone who wants more than the "embedded" corporate media perspective.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding journalism March 20, 2008

By Chris

Format:Paperback

This is a really first rate piece of journalism and beautifully written. Cockburn, like very few Western journalists, gets out into life as it truly is for ordinary Iraqis, not as it is portrayed from the Green Zone or sycophantic pro-American exiles that haven't lived in Iraq in decades. It is hard to find a better antidote than this book to the criminal lying of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gates, Rice, McCain, etc. that security is decent in most parts of Iraq, freedom is expanding, etc.

One measure of the U.S. occupation is what the Iraqi people think about it, though to mainstream liberal critics of the war such opinions are irrelevant compared to the seeking of a more competent imperial strategy for Iraq. Cockburn notes that in Spring 2007, a USA Today/BBC/ABC/ARD poll found that 78 percent of Iraqis opposed the presence of U.S. troops, up from 51 percent three years earlier, while 51 percent thought attacks on U.S. troops were legitimate, up from 17 percent three years earlier. Only 34 percent thought that the Iraqi government was independent of U.S. control. By 2007, only a small number of Iraqis could receive electricity more than a few hours a day or clean drinking water. The electricity problem had been particularly evident since the first days of the occupation, Cockburn notes, particularly during the torridly hot Iraqi summers. W/o refrigeration power food rotted and air conditioners and medical equipment could not work. Cockburn compares the American inability to resume essential services very unfavorably to the Soviet occupation of Berlin in 1945 and even Saddam's restoration of electricity supply after the U.S. bombed civilian infrastructure in 1991

.... The "conservatives" (statist reactionaries) running our government have shown no concern whatever for how the money of the U.S. taxpayer has been thrown around in Iraq. Little records have been kept. Cockburn notes that Stuart Bowen, U.S. inspector general for Iraq, stated that close to nine billion went unaccounted for under the Bremer administration. At least 2 billion was stolen during the Iyad Allawi, including money for arms purchases, which government ministers probably used for themselves and patronage. Corruption has also been rife in the carrying out of contracts by U.S. companies. Cockburn gives an example of an American company that was supposed to rebuild the civilian security system at Baghdad airport but seemed to simply take the money and do nothing. He notes the case of a British security man who reported that the local office of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), one of the parties in the governing Shiite coalition, was siphoning petrol from a local refinery for sale on the black market. SCIRI complained to the British and the security man was dismissed

Then there is the heavy handedness of U.S. troops of which Cockburn certainly does not give some of the worst examples available. He describes an old man nearly beaten to death, famers killed when they went to remove flares in their fields U.S. soldiers had put there, a man shot dead on the roof of his house when he went to fix his TV antenna, the brother of a pro-American tribal leader in Saddam's region of Tikrit shot dead when he opened his front door to US troops, etc. There have been cases, Cockburn notes, of U.S. soldiers roughing up Iraqis at checkpoints or even shooting them dead when the civilians did not understand the orders being screamed at them in English. One particular vivid case Cockburn gives is based on interviews with people in villages fifty or sixty miles north of Baghdad whose orchards, the source of livelihood for many of them, were destroyed in an act of collective punishment by U.S. troops. This punishment was ordered on the ground that the villagers did not tell troops about insurgent activity in the area, though the villagers told Cockburn that the troops did not find any weapons or insurgents.

Cockburn describes in vivid detail how Sunni and Shia cleanse each other from their neighborhoods. The Badr brigades took over the interior ministry in the freedom loving democratically elected government after mid-2005 and proceeded to engage in mass death squad activities against Sunnis. A thousand Sunnis may have been executed in one orgy of killing by the authorities in Najaf after the Al-Askari mosque bombing in February 2006. The ascension of Shiite power and the death squads have encouraged Sunni attachment to the barbaric Zarqawi type insurgents. Cockburn describes how the U.S. was forced away from its plans for "advisory" caucuses of appointed notables to give a façade to its rule and to hold democratic elections under pressure from Ayatollah Sistani. Iranian influence is very large in the country, and particularly in Southern Iraq, always touted, as a model of stability by the U.S. Cockburn notes that Shiite militias are the real rulers in the South and the local authorities often refused any contact with British forces. He notes that a prime example of the U.S. not trusting the Shiites is that the CIA, not the Iraqi government, provides the budget for the Iraqi intelligence service, which contains few Shiite members and whose files the CIA has blocked access to by the government. The author talks to two post-Saddam Iraqi ministers, Mahmud Othman and Ali Allawi, who warn that Iraqi is turning into an oil kleptocracy on the model of Nigeria and that the Iraqi people think their govt. is illegitimate, etc.

I remember most from this book the vividness of its anecdotes.. There is the account of the author's detainment by Mehdi army, the doctor who escaped from a kidnapping only to have the perpetrators released by U.S. officials, the middle class people seeking to leave the country, the fate of the poor squatters in a formerly rich neighborhood of Baghdad. I also admire the author's account of Al-Mutanabi street in Baghdad, once the center of Baghdad's book selling but now taken over by criminal gangs. Read more ›