A valuable insider’s look at the many-layered ramifications of the American-Iraqi tragedy of errors.
A battalion commander who challenged army leadership and was punished for it scathingly indicts America’s miscalculations in Iraq.
West Point graduate and career soldier Sassaman was deployed in 2003 as battalion commander of the Fourth Infantry Division’s 1-8 Infantry in Iraq. From day one, he ran afoul of his superior officer, Colonel Fred Rudesheim, whose “filtered, innocuous, and risk-averse orders,” the author believed, contributed to the preventable killing of his men. Although a stickler for order, Sassaman calls himself a type-A personality who encouraged in his command the judicious “crossing of boundaries” in cases of life and death. Boastful of the success demonstrated by his battalion, he admits he had become “something of a warrior king in Iraq,” paving the way to career suicide by continually challenging the orders of his superior. Then, on the night of January 3, 2004, two of his men detained two Iraqi males in northern Samarra shortly after curfew and forced them to jump in the Tigris River. “A high school prank,” declares the author, who was in command but not present at the time; he repeats the soldiers’ assurances that they saw both men walking away from the river and points out that no body was found. Nonetheless, an investigation was conducted and Sassaman held accountable for the alleged drowning of one of the Iraqis. He got a “letter of reprimand under Article 15 proceeding,” which meant that he could be promoted to colonel but no higher. He might have been able to live with that, but an April 5 article in the Washington Post, with extensive quotes from Rudesheim, brought the incident to public attention, and Sassaman retired the following summer. “I thought we could win the war,” he writes. “But there is no war right now. It’s law enforcement, and we’re losing ten, fifteen soldiers a week to law enforcement.”
A valuable insider’s look at the many-layered ramifications of the American-Iraqi tragedy of errors.Pub Date: May 27, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-37712-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008
A probing study of a scandal that spread even deeper than the standard histories claim—and one that has plenty of lessons...
If corruption is what you want, put someone with strong ties to the oil industry in the White House.
So we learn from business journalist McCartney (Across the Great Divide: Robert Stuart and the Discovery of the Oregon Trail, 2004, etc.) in this lucid account of the Teapot Dome scandal. At its root was Warren G. Harding, the Ohio senator who was a 40-1 shot to gain the Republican nomination for the presidency for 1920 until he secured the backing of Jake Hamon, Harry F. Sinclair, Edward Doheny and other oil titans. The trade-off was that Hamon was to become secretary of the interior and be given control of the Teapot Dome oil field in Wyoming, “an oil supply potentially worth several hundred million dollars—1920 dollars—a bonanza so rich that it was almost beyond comprehension.” Hamon’s wife shot and killed him before the deal could go through, but before he died Hamon sent a sealed note to Harding with orders to “get some of his friends taken care of.” The oilmen got their way with a longtime New Mexico senator named Albert Fall, hard-drinking and murderous, who had fallen on hard times and seemed in danger of losing his huge ranch holdings. No sooner was Fall installed than his money problems disappeared, the dollars flowing into his bank accounts and those of other prominent Republicans as the oil flowed out of Teapot Dome. By way of thanks, Sinclair gained access to two million barrels of public-domain oil per year, on which Harding signed off in a letter to Fall: “I am confident you have adopted the correct policy and will carry it through in a way altogether to be approved.” Of course, when all this backdoor dealing was exposed, approval was not forthcoming. Sinclair thundered that he was too rich to be jailed. He was wrong, but many others walked.
A probing study of a scandal that spread even deeper than the standard histories claim—and one that has plenty of lessons for today.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6316-1
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
A tenacious attempt to answer the question, “How do ordinary little human cogs make up a torture machine?”
Through the grim travails of one of Saddam Hussein’s top generals, journalist Steavenson (Stories I Stole, 2003) examines the dictator’s edifice of totalitarianism and moral corruption.
Taking her title from a verse of the Koran promising to mete out justice even to the “weight of a mustard seed,” the author weaves a fascinating account of how good men went terribly wrong. Steavenson worked as a journalist in Baghdad in 2003–04 and continued her interviews of exiled Iraqis in London and elsewhere, probing deeply into the stories of former Baath Party officials. Through a high-level Iraqi doctor who had served in the medical corps during the course of four Iraqi wars, the author was put in touch with the surviving family of Kamel Sachet, a commander of the special forces and general in charge of the army in Kuwait City during the Gulf War. The general was shot as a traitor by order of the Iraqi president in 1998. Born to an illiterate family in 1947, Sachet became a policeman and then joined the special forces, rising through the ranks to major. He distinguished himself during the Iran-Iraq war, gaining Hussein’s trust but also his occasional ire, which led to prison and torture. Sachet led the assault into Kuwait, but with the retreat and subsequent scourge by the United States, he became disillusioned with the violence and bloodshed and retired as a devout Muslim. Steavenson ably explores his and others’ obedience in fulfilling the dictator’s grisly demands, echoing works by Hannah Arendt, Primo Levi and Stanley Milgram.
A tenacious attempt to answer the question, “How do ordinary little human cogs make up a torture machine?”Pub Date: March 17, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-172178-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Collins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2009
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