Thomas E. Ricks, ept, articulate Washington Post Pentagon reporter; 17 years around US Military - informed (or present to) most of the major events leading up. And since.

Keen analysis of the counter-productive aims, near absence of communication! between the Civ. vs Mil. leadership - with examples of the cost. Many recent interviews with interesting/pivotal people - including the changed song of Wolfowitz re the "degree of difficulty" - what he was warbling before and present denial that he ever sang that happy tune.

Lots of material compacted into an hour, ex:
Bremer being told, just before he decided to send all Baathists home ~"if you do that, by nightfall you'll have driven 50K people underground." Similar observations, unheard/unheeded. (Bremer ignored, it seems - about every insightful hint that came his way; clearly presidential material.)

(Then he dissolved the military, fiddled while WahaabMart was looted, etc.)

When Cheney announced 'the certainty of WMDs' with Gen. Zinney (sp?) seated behind him, having read the same Intel - and hearing this line 'announced' for the first time.

Failure to realize Why you are nice to your detainees ie. Why they are the Prize! and not "the playing field". (I call this an insightful comment; he had many of those.)

He intros the book and concludes the interview with,
"This is the most profligate decision ever made by the US..
A war of choice - we didn't have to go there.
It didn't have to go this way - we didn't need to do it the way we did."

... and many other aspects already discussed in these parts.

Generals no longer trying to offer inside views - neither Congress nor Sec. Def. wish/wished to hear. His e-mail appears to be all complimentary
(CR: ... "You mean, thanking you for doing the job Congress ought to have been doing?")

Book seems to me the most concise recap of the recent spate of comprehensive autopsies; author with CR's questions/responses.. about the most concentrated summary someone from Mars could grok - in just an hour. (In case you have strange visitors.)

He did such a good job live, I'll likely save the book$

Next crisis? (occurring as we speak: 'spillover')
Maybe we could call that, Regional War??


All those Neoconmen, operating at marlowean levels of visceral wishfulness, displaying less imagination than the hackneyed scriptwriter for a train robbery in a '40s C-oater. And 300M people just standing around with fingers up butts, until Very recently.





Somebody count the days til January 2009.