Iraq Wars Bibliography

General and Miscellaneous

US Policy: Overall

Doctrine on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

Iraq

Kurdistan and the Kurds

The Baath (Ba'th) Party and Regime, and Saddam Hussein

The Iran-Iraq War, and US Involvement in It

Works Covering Both US - Iraq Wars, 1991 and 2003-

The First US - Iraq War: Desert Shield and Desert Storm (1990-1991)

Iraq Between the Two American Wars

The Second US - Iraq War (2003- )

 

General and Miscellaneous

Ali A. Allawi, The Crisis of Islamic Civilization. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. xvi, 304 pp.

Mark Allen, Arabs. Continuum, 2006. v, 145 pp.

Abdel Bari Atwan, The Secret History of al Qaeda. University of California Press, 2006.

Gokhan Bacik, Hybrid Sovereignty in the Arab Middle East: The Cases of Kuwait, Jordan, and Iraq. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. A long-term study, going back to the Ottoman Empire.

John R. Ballard, From Storm to Freedom: America's Long War with Iraq. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010. xxvii, 321 pp. Ballard, who served in Iraq as a USMC civil affairs officer, is now a professor of strategic studies at National Defense University.

BBC Summary of World Broadcasts. This service monitors open broadcasts, and publishes them (translated if the originals were not in English). Iraq has been a special priority for the monitoring. Material since 1979 is available on LexisNexis Academic under "Major U.S. and World Publications".

Peter L. Bergen, The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict Between America and Al-Qaeda. New York: Free Press, 2011. xx, 473 pp. The US-Al Qaeda conflict, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supposed to be very good. The author is a national security analyst for CNN.

Julie Carnagie, ed., War in the Persian Gulf Reference Library. For young adults, probably published mainly for sale to school libraries.

Patrick Cockburn, Chaos & Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle for the Middle East [title on cover and publisher's web site]; Chaos and Caliphate: The Jihadi Struggle for the Middle East [title on title page]. New York O/R Books, 2016. 426 pp. Also published as The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East. London: Verso, 2016. 449 pp. Mostly this deals with Iraq (1990 onward), Syria, and the Islamic State, but sections of it also deal with the Arab Spring in Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain, and with Afghanistan.

Juan Cole, Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culure and History of Shi'ite Islam. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002. viii, 254 pp.

Stephanie Cronin, Armies and State Building in the Modern Middle East: Politics, Nationalism and Military Reform. London: I. B. Tauris, 2013. viii, 310 pp.

Defense Casualty Analysis System Conflict Casualties page. This web site, maintained by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, links to pages giving summary casualty statistics for American wars as far back as World War I, and more detailed statistics for more recent conflicts.

Gwynne Dyer, After Iraq: Anarchy and Renewal in the Middle East. Thomas Dunne Books, 2008. 267 pp.

Charles Esdaile, "Spain 1808--Iraq 2003: Some Thoughts on the Use and Abuse of History." Journal of Military History 74:1 (January 2010), pp. 173-188. Argues that people who draw parallels between Napoleon's invasion of Spain and George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq tend to misrepresent what happened in Spain.

John L. Esposito, ed., The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. xii, 749 pp.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, Apocalypse in Islam. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. xxi, 260 pp. French original L'Apocalypse dans l'Islam. Paris: Fayard, 2008. MIllenarian tendencies in both Sunni and Shi'i Islam, from early days up to the present. Most of the book is devoted to recent decades.

Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East. New York: Knopf, 2005. xxii, 1111 pp. The 2003 war in Iraq, plus a lot of other recent history. Very critical of the US.
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Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS): This is the US government's service for monitoring the content of the public media in other countries. Originally established in the 1940s to monitor foreign radio broadcasts, it later expanded to cover television, the print media, and the Internet. It publishes a large volume of texts, translated into English if the originals were not in English. Files going back to the 1940s can be found on microform in some of the better libraries. Online publication under the title World News Connection, available both directly to subscribers of World News Connection and to subscribers of LexisNexis under "Global News Wire", replaced the publication in hard copy of the FBIS Daily Reports during the 1990s.

Graham E. Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke, The Arab Shi'a: The Forgotten Muslims. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. pb New York: Palgrave, 2001. x, 290 pp.

F. Gregory Gause III, Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994. xii, 237 pp.

F. Gregory Gause III, The International Relations of the Persian Gulf. Canbridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, xi, 258 pp. Covers roughtly the period 1971 to 2008.

Élie Tenenbaum, Partisans et centurions: Une histoire de la guerre irrégulière au XXe siècle. Paris: Perrin, 2018. 522 pp.

Chinmaya R. Gharekhan, The Horseshoe Table: An Inside View of the UN Security Council. Longman, 2006. 328 pp. Ghareknan, an Indian diplomat, worked in or with the United Nations for many years. Includes significant discussion of the 1990-91 crisis; I dont' know whether it also deals with 2003.

Matthew Gray, Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics. Routledge, 2010. 224 pp.

Foulath Hadid, Iraq's Democratic Moment. London: Hurst, 2012. xiii, 388 pp. A history of efforts to create democracy in Iraq; the main focus is on the period from 1920 to 1958.

William Hale, Turkey, the US and Iraq. Interlink Publishing Group, 2007. 200 pp. Covers the relationships from the 1920s onward.

P. M. Holt, Ann K. S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis, eds., The Cambridge History of Islam. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970.

International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies

Faleh A. Jabar and Hosham Dawod, eds., Tribes and Power: Nationalism and Ethnicity in the Middle East. pb Saqi Books, 2003. 360 pp.

John Kelsay, Arguing the Just War in Islam. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. 263 pp.

John Kelsay, Islam And War: A Study In Comparative Ethics. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. ix, 149 pp. Apparently has a particular focus on Saddam Hussein's use of religious justifications for his policies.

John Kelsay And James Turner Johnson, eds., Just War And Jihad: Historical And Theoretical Perspectives On War And Peace In Western And Islamic Traditions. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. xvi, 254 pp.

Douglas L. Kriner, The Casualty Gap: The Causes and Consequences of American Wartime Inequalities. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Argues that the American dead in wars from Vietnam to Iraq have disproportionately come from lower-income segments of society.

Laurence Louër, Transnational Shia Politics: Religious and Political Networks in the Gulf. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. 256 pp.

David M. Malone, The International Struggle Over Iraq: Politics in the UN Security Council 1980-2005. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. xiv, 398 pp. Malone is a former Canadian ambassador to the UN.

Hugh Miles, Al Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel that is Challenging the West. New York: Grove Press, 2005. 438 pp.

Military Intelligence was a quarterly journal published by the US Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Later renamed Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin. Some issues have been placed online by the Hathi Trust.

Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam. New Haven, 1985. This is supposed to be very good.

Tamar Morad, Dennis Shasha, and Robert Shasha, eds., Iraq's Last Jews: Stories of Daily Life, Upheaval, and Escape from Modern Babylon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 256 pp. Oral history.

Morris M. Motale, The Origins of the Gulf Wars. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001. 224 pp.

Yitzhak Nakash, Reaching for Power: The Shi'a in the Modern Arab World. Princeton University Press, 2006. xiii, 226 pp. Particular attention to Iraq and Lebanon.

Vali Nasr, The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future. New York: Norton, 2006. 304 pp. Check library gets.

Mohammed el-Nawawy and Adel Iskandar, Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism. Boulder: Westview, 2003. xii, 240 pp. Paperback reprint, probably without significant modifications, of Al Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network Scooped the World and Changed the Middle East. Boulder: Westview, 2002. 240 pp.

Michael Otterman and Richard Hill, with Paul Wilson, foreword by Dahr Jamail, Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage. Pluto Press, 2010. 264 pp.

Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. New York: Random House, 2005. 335 pp.

Nicolas Pelham, A New Muslim Order: The Shia and the Middle East Sectarian Crisis. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008. xv, 272 pp. Mostly Iraq, but includes discussion of other countries.

Stephen Pelletière, America's Oil Wars. New York: Praeger, 2004. 208 pp. Pelletière was the CIA's senior political analyst on Iraq during the 1980s.

Stephen Pelletière, Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Gulf. Greenwood, 2001. 239 pp. pb Maisonneuve Press, 2004. 250 pp. The topic is much broader—a long-term history of US oil policy—than the title suggests.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002. xv, 698 pp.

Michael Rear, Intervention, Ethnic Conflict and State-Building in Iraq: A Paradigm for the Post-Colonial State. Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2012. 280 pp. My impression is that this is mucy more a general theoretical argument about the dubious merits of international interventions in ethnic conflicts, and much less a case study of Iraq, than the title would suggest.

Thomas E. Ricks, The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today. New York: Penguin, 2012. 558 pp.

Nir Rosen, Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America's Wars in the Muslim World. New York: Nation Books (Perseus), 2010. 587 pp. The greatest focus is on Iraq, but Rosen also deals with Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East. Supposed to be good.

Orrin Schwab, The Gulf Wars and the United States: Shaping the Twenty-First Century. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2009. 167 pp.

Debra Lois Shulman, "Regime Strategy and Foreign Policy in Autocracies: Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Gulf Wars." Ph.D. dissertation, Yale, 2008. 288 pp. AAT 3342676.

William A. Taylor, Military Service and American Democracy: From World War II to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2016. 302 pp.

Charles Tripp, The Power and the People: Paths of Resistance in the Middle East. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 416 pp. Looks at the interaction between those in power and those resisting them, over a broad range of Middle Eastern countries. See review by Benjamin Smuin.

Spencer C. Tucker, ed., The Encyclopedia of Middle East Wars: The United States in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, and Iraq Conflicts, 5 vols. ABC-Clio/Greenwood, 2010. 1887 pp. Includes some discussion of smaller US military actions, in Iran, Libya, etc.

Bertram Wyatt-Brown, "Honor, Hatred, and America's Middle East in Historical and Comparative Perspective," Clio's Psyche, 10:3 (2003), pp. 80-84.

Bertram Wyatt-Brown, "Honor in National Crises: Civil War, Vietnam, and Iraq," Journal of the Historical Society, December 2006, pp. 431-60.

Mohamed Zayani, ed., The Al Jazeera Phenomenon: Critical Perspectives on New Arab Media. Paradigm, 2005. 224 pp.

Mohamed Zayani and Sofiane Sahraoui, The Culture of Al Jazeera: Inside an Arab Media Giant. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. 206 pp.

 

US Policy: Overall

Gerald Astor, Presidents at War: From Truman to Bush, the Gathering of Military Powers To Our Commanders in Chief. Wiley, 2006.

Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. xvi, 270 pp. Paperback with a new afterword by the author: New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. New York: Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt), 2008. 206 pp.

Spencer D. Bakich, The Gulf War: George H. W. Bush and American Grand Strategy in the Post-Cold War Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2024.

Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A Baker III. New York: Doubleday, 2020. xxii, 694 pp. Baker was, among other things, Secretary of State during the first US-Iraq War, and co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, established by Congress in 2006 to evaluate the situation in Iraq and US policy.

Eyal Benvenisti, The International Law of Occupation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993. vi, 241 pp. Paperback with a new preface by the author: Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. xviii, 241 pp. Traces actual practice from WWI onward, not just law.

Adam J. Berinsky, In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 360 pp.

Paula Broadwell, with Vernon Loeb, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus. Penguin, 2012. 352 pp.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, Second Chance: Three Presidents and the Crisis of American Superpower. Basic Books, 2007. 234 pp. Bush I, Clinton, Bush II. Very critical of Bush II.

Michael F. Cairo, The Gulf: The Bush Presidencies and the Middle East. University Press of Kentucky, 2012. 232 pp.

Dan Caldwell, Vortex of Conflict: U.S. Policy Toward Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. 408 pp.

Steven Casey, When Soldiers Fall: How Americans Have Confronted Combat Losses from World War I to Afghanistan. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. x, 310 pp. The chapter on Iraq and Afghanistan, 1990-2011, deal more with the second US-Iraq War than with first, or with Afghanistan.

Dick Cheney, with Liz Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir. New York: Threshold, 2011. 565 pp.

Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004. Clarke was first Clinton's and then Bush's top advisor on counter-terrorism issues. He is very critical of the Iraq War.

David Cloud and Greg Jaffe, The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army. New York: Crown Publishers (Random House), 2009. 330 pp. John Abizaid, George Casey Jr., Peter Chiarelli, and David Petraeus. This is said to be very good.

Steve Coll, The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2024. 576 pp. Covers the period from 1979 to 2003.

Danny Cooper, Neoconservatism and American Foreign Policy: A Critical Analysis. Routledge, 2010. 224 pp.

Karen DeYoung, Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell. New York: Knopf, 2006. 610 pp.

John M. Diamond, The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008. 536 pp.

John W. Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq. New York: Norton/The New Press, 2010. xxxvii, 596 pp. This broad-ranging study, dealing mostly but not only with the thought patterns of American leaders, looks extremely interesting.

Helen Duffy, The 'War on Terror' and the Framework of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. li, 488 pp. According to the H-Diplo review by Daniel Margolies (3/8/07), Duffy really does match the right-wing stereotype of liberals who don't want a vigorous effort against Al Qaeda; thinks it was not legitimate to go into Afghanistan after 9/11.

Jeffrey A. Engel, When the World Seemed New: George H.W. Bush and the End of the Cold War. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. 596 pp.

Executive Power and Its Constitutional Limitations. Hearing, July 25, 2008, House Committee on the Judiciary. iv, 466 pp. Serial No. 110-200.

Foreign Policy Bulletin: The Documentary Record of United States Foreign Policy. Quarterly, Cambridge University Press. Online since 2005 at http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=FPB&bVolume=y

Foreign Relations of the United States. Massive collections of documents, indexed, supposed to be published by the State Department about thirty years after the events.
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Chas W. Freeman, "Lessons from America's Misadventures in the Middle East," Middle East Policy 22:4 (Winter 2015), pp. 65- .

Chas W. Freeman, America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East. Just World Books, 2016 (forthcoming). Freeman spent much of his career dealing with Asia, especially China, but he was US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia 1989-92.

John Lewis Gaddis, Surprise, Security, and the American Experience. Harvard University Press, 2004. 150 pp.

Lloyd Gardner, The Long Road to Baghdad: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy from the 1970s to the Present. New York: New Press, 2008. 310 pp. The book focuses on Iraq more than the title suggests.

Lloyd Gardner, "The Ministry of Fear: Selling the Gulf Wars," in Kenneth Osgood and Andrew K. Frank, eds., Selling War in a Media Age: The Presidency and Public Opinion in the American Century (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2010), pp. 224-249.

Christopher Gelpi, "The Cost of War: How Many Casualties Will Americans Tolerate?" Foreign Affairs, 85:1 (2006), pp. 139-144.

Christopher Gelpi, Peter D. Feaver, and Jason Reifler, Paying the human costs of war: American public opinion and casualties in military conflicts. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. xiv, 289 pp. Three chapters (pp. 125-235) are devoted to the Second Iraq War.

Bradley T. Gericke, David Petraeus: A Biography. Greenwood, 2010. 203 pp.

Long War Occasional Papers / Global War on Terrorism Occasional Papers (Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press)

Philip Gordon, Winning the Right War: The Path to Security for America and the World. New York: Times Books, 2007. Argues that the United States should apply a strategy against Islamic radicalism that looks more like containment than what the Bush administration has been doing.

Suman Gupta, Theory and Reality of Democracy: A Case Study in Iraq. Continuum International Publishing, 2006. 234 pp. New edition pb Continuum International Publishing, 2007. 244 pp. I get an impression this is probably not much about Iraq, more about US policy and rhetoric. But I have not actually seen the book, and I am not sure.

Peter L. Hahn, Missions Accomplished? The United States and Iraq Since World War I. Oxford University Press, 2011. 240 pp.

David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals. New York: Scribners, 2001. 543 pp.

Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing. New York: Basic Books (Perseus), 2007. vii, 312 pp.

Thomas H. Henriksen, America's Wars: Interventions, Regime Change, and Insurgencies After the Cold War. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022. viii, 324 pp.

Howard M. Hensel [Air War College], ed., The Law of Armed Conflict. Ashgate, 2007. 280 pp.

Eric Hobsbawm, On Empire: America, War, and Global Supremacy. The New Press, 2009. 128 pp. A scathing critique of what Hobsbawm sees as US efforts to dominate the world.

William G. Howell and Jon C. Pevehouse, While Dangers Gather: Congressional Checks on Presidential War Powers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. xxvi, 333 pp. My impression is that this is pretty theoretical; the table of contents does not show any chapter devoted to a particular incident or episode.

Jack Huberman, The Bush-Hater's Handbook: A Guide to the Most Appalling Presidency of the Past 100 Years. New York: Nation Books, 2003. xiv, 337 pp.

Steven Hurst, The United States and Iraq since 1979: Hegemony, Oil and War. Edinborough Press, 2009. 270 pp.

Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of the United States. Joint Publication 1. 14 November 2000.

Fred Kaplan, Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008. ix, 246 pp.

Jeffrey Karam, "Missing revolution: the American intelligence failure in Iraq, 1958," Intelligence and National Security 32:6 (2017), pp. 693-709.

Nicholas Kerton-Johnson, Justifying America's Wars: The Conduct and Practice of US Military Intervention since 1990. New York: Routledge, 2010. 208 pp. The two US-Iraq wars, Kosovo, and Afghanistan.

Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, Making War to Keep Peace. HC, 2007. 384 pp. Published posthumously.

Lavina Rajendram Lee, US Hegemony and International Legitimacy: Norms, Power and Followership in the Wars on Iraq. Routledge, 2010. Looks at US efforts to win international support for both Iraq wars, 1991 and 2003- . xii, 196 pp.

Adrian Lewis, The American Culture of War: A History of American Military Force from World War II to Operation Iraqi Freedom. New York: Routledge, 2006. 560 pp.

Douglas Little, "Mission Impossible: The CIA and the Cult of Covert Action in the Middle East." Diplomatic History 28:5 (Nov 2004), pp. 663-701.

Douglas Little, Us versus Them: The United States, Radical Islam, and the Rise of the Green Threat. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. 328 pp.

Richard Lock-Pullan, US Intervention Policy and Army Innovation: From Vietnam to Iraq. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Marcus Mabry, Twice as Good: Condoleezza Rice and Her Path to Power. Rodale, 2007. 360 pp.

Michael Mandelbaum, Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era. Oxford University Press, 2016. 504 pp.

James Mann, The Great Rift: Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and the Broken Friendship that Defined an Era. New York: Henry Holt, 2020. x, 416 pp.

James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet. New York: Viking, 2004. xix, 426 pp. Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, Armitage, Rice, Wolfowitz.

Jeffrey J. Matthews, Colin Powell: Imperfect Patriot. University of Notre Dame Press, 2019. 416 pp.

Melani McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle East, 1945-2000. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

Walter Russell Mead, Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America's Grand Strategy in a World at Risk. New York: Knopf, 2004. viii, 226 pp.

James W. Messerschmidt, Hegemonic Masculinities and Camouflaged Politics: Unmasking the Bush Dynasty and Its War Against Iraq. Paradigm, 2010: 216 pp.

Steven Metz, Iraq & the Evolution of American Strategy. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008. xxvi, 262 pp. I have not read this, but it is supposed to be quite good.

Christopher Meyer, DC Confidential: The Controversial Memoirs of Britain's Ambassador to the U.S. at the Time of 9/11 and the Run-Up to the Iraq War. Phoenix, 2006. 320 pp. The reader reviews on amazon.uk say it is very unrevealing.

Michael Morell, The Great War of Our Time: The CIA's Fight Against Terrorism from AL QA'IDA to ISIS. Twelve, 2015. 362 pp. Morell was executive assistant to DCI George Tenet, then daily intelligence briefer to President George W. Bush, the deputy to the DDI, then in 2009 became deputy director of the CIA.

John Mueller, The Stupidity of War: American Foreign Policy and the Case for Complacency. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. 342 pp.

General Richard B. Myers, USAF, Ret., with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security. New York: Threshold Editions (Simon & Schuster), 2009. xii, 339 pp. Myers was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2001 to 2005.

Emile Nakleh, A Necessary Engagement: Reinventing America's Relations with the Muslim World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. 162 pp. Dr. Nakleh, who I believe is by origin a Palestinian Christian, has been an analyst on political Islam for the CIA.

The Office of the Historian of the U.S. House of Representatives has an oral history program. Mostly those interviewed are former representatives, but there are some members of the staff and at least one journalist who covered the House. Transcripts are online at an Oral History Transcripts web site.

Marc J. O'Reilly, Unexceptional: America's Empire in the Persian Gulf, 1941-2007. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books (Rowman & Littlefield), 2008. xxi, 343 pp.

Christopher D. O'Sullivan, Colin Powell: American Power and Intervention from Vietnam to Iraq. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009. xvi, 219 pp. pb Colin Powell: A Political Biography. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011.

Herbert S. Parmet, George Bush: The Life of a Lone Star Yankee. New York: Scribner, 1997. 576 pp. Rev. ed. pb, with a new introduction by the author: Transaction Publishers, 2000. An authorized biography of the first President Bush.

Stephen C. Pelletière, Landpower and Dual Containment: Rethinking America's Policy in the Gulf. Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 1999. 36 pp.

Dennis Perrin, Savage Mules: The Democrats and Endless War. London and New York: Verso, 2008. 118 pp. Argues that the Democratic Party is not nearly so anti-war as it is often supposed to be.

Andrew Preston, "The Politics of Realism and Religion: Christian Responses to Bush's New World Order," Diplomatic History 34:1 (January 2010), pp. 95-118. Includes some interesting items on religious leaders' reactions to Operation Desert Storm.

Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Once upon a time, one volume of this series would contain the complete text of every public speech or other public statement made by a particular president during a particular year. But in recent decades, it has been necessary to have two volumes per year, occasionally even three.
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The National Archives and Records was putting the contents of this series into a searchable online database, but I don't know what has happened to that project.

The American Presidency Project, which seems as far as I can tell to be a collaborative effort of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and the University of California at Santa Barbara, has a searchable online archive that contains all the texts from Public Papers of the Presidents from 1929 to the middle of 2001. But this version, unlike the National Archives' version listed immediately above, does not let you know what page of the print version had the text you are reading. This archive also has some other material, such as transcripts of presidentials candidates' debates and political party platforms.

James Risen, State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 288 pp. Risen is the NYT reporter who broke the story about NSA's warrantless wiretapping in late 2005.

James Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. 304 pp.

Peter W. Rodman, Presidential Command: Power, Leadership, and the Making of Foreign Policy from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. New York: Knopf, 2009. 368 pp. Rodman was, very unobtrusively (it is surprisingly hard to find his name mentioned in books), Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and NSC Counselor 1987-1990, and then Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs for most of the administration of George W. Bush.

David J. Rothkopf, Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power. New York: Public Affairs, 2005. xix, 554 pp.

David Ryan and Patrick Kiely, eds., America and Iraq: Policy-Making, Intervention and Regional Politics. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2009. xviii, 268 pp. Mostly about recent policy, but one essay, by Kenneth Osgood, deals with the US policy toward the Iraqi Revolution of 1958.

David Ryan, US Collective Memory, Intervention and Vietnam: The Cultural Politics of US Foreign Policy since 1969. Routledge, (forthcoming, at least in theory, but publication has repeatedly been delayed).

Erik Saar and Viveca Novak, Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantanamo. New York: Penguin, 2005. 292 pp. Saar, a sergeant who had been trained in Arabic, was at Guantanamo December 2002 to June 2003.

David E. Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power. Harmony, 2009. 498 pp. A very critical picture of the foreign policy of George W. Bush, and its consequences, by the Washington correspondent of the New York Times.

Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Z. Huq, Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror. The New Press, 2007. 276 pp.

Brent Scowcroft was national security adviser to President George H. W. Bush, 1989-1993. He advised against US intervention to protect the Shi'a in southern Iraq in 1991. He expressed doubt about the impending war against Iraq in early 2003. In addition to the items listed here, a keyword search for Scowcroft will turn up some others elsewhere in this bibliography.

Ofira Seliktar, The Politics of Intelligence and American Wars with Iraq. Palgrave, 2008. x, 214 pp. My impression is that this is very theoretical, and deals more with academics and public intellectuals than with intelligence agencies.
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John T. Shaw, Richard G. Lugar, Statesman of the Senate: Crafting Foreign Policy from Capitol Hill. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012l 280 pp. Lugar served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the first US-Iraq War, and chairman from 2003 to 2007.

General Hugh Shelton, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior. New York, 2010. Shelton was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff up to late 2001. He resented, and resisted, efforts by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to push the military into what he regarded as unsound decisions.

James R. Silkenat and Mark R. Shulman, eds., The Imperial Presidency and the Consequences of 9/11: Lawyers React to the Global War on Terrorism. 2 vols. Westport: Praeger, 2007. 520 pp.

Philip Smith, Why War? The Cultural Logic of Iraq, the Gulf War, and Suez. University of Chicago Press, 2005. x, 254 pp.

Richard Sobel, The Impact of Public Opinion on U.S. Foreign Policy Since Vietnam: Constraining the Colossus. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. xii, 276 pp. Two chapters deal with the 1991 US-Iraq War.

Lewis D. Solomon, Paul D. Wolfowitz: Visionary Intellectual, Policymaker, and Strategist. Westport: Praeger, 2007. 216 pp.

Joseph Stieb, The Regime Change Consensus: Iraq in American Politics, 1990-2003. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. xi, 269 pp.

Joseph Stieb, "Moral Clarity: Terrorism, the Culture Wars, and Modern U.S. Conservatism," Diplomatic History 46:4 (September 2022), pp. 728-54.

Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America's Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. xi, 367 pp. A lot of focus on Cheney.

John B. Taylor, Global Financial Warriors: The Untold Story of International Finance in the Post-9/11 World. New York: Norton, 2007. xxv, 324 pp. Taylor was Under Secretary for International Affairs at the Treasury Department. Covers crackdown on Al Qaeda finance, financial reconstruction in Afghanistan and Iraq, negotiations with the Turks during the runup to the Iraq War. Said to be laden with factual details. (Convincing defense of shipping billions in cash to Baghdad in author's Op-ed, New York Times, 2/27/07.)

George Tenet, with Bill Harlow, At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA. New York: HarperCollins, 2007. xxii, 549 pp.

Deepak Tripathi, Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Potomac Books, 2010. 176 pp. Tripathi is a former correspondent for the BBC.

Harlan Ullman and James Wade, Jr., with L.A. Edney, Frederick Franks, Jr., Charles Horner, Jonathan Howe, and Keith Bradley, Shock & Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1996. xxi, 199 pp. I have only skimmed this briefly, but the impression I got was that the book should not be rejected as foolishly simple-minded.

Harlan Ullman, Anatomy of Failure: Why American Loses Every War it Starts. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2017 (forthcoming). 272 pp.

US Department of State, Virtual Reading Room Documents Search. The Department of State has an excellent system by which, if someone gets a document declassified through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the department puts a copy of the document online, so others do not need to go through the process of requesting it under FOIA; they can just look at it on the Internet.

Justin Vaisse, Neoconservatism: The Biography of a Movement. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2010. 376 pp.

Lynne M. Woehrle, Patrick G. Coy, and Gregory M. Maney, Contesting Patriotism: Culture, Power, and Strategy in the Peace Movement. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. An analysis of the ways fifteen peace organizations have opposed various US military actions abroad from 1990 to 2005.

Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, "Embracing Regime Change in Iraq: American Foreign Policy and the 1963 Coup d'état in Baghdad," Diplomatic History, Vol.39, No.1 (January 2015), pp. 98-125.

Steven Wright, The United States and Persian Gulf Security: The Foundations of the War on Terror. Portland, Oregon: Ithaca Press, 2007. 248 pp.

William D. Wunderle, Through the Lens of Cultural Awareness: A Primer for US Armed Forces Deploying to Arab and Middle Eastern Countries. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006. xi, 136 pp.

Steven A. Yetiv, The Absence of Grand Strategy: The United States in the Pesian Gulf, 1972-2005. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008. xi, 250 pp.

Steven A. Yetiv, National Security through a Cockeyed Lens: How Cognitive Bias Impacts U.S. Foreign Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. 155 pp.

There are many topics for which the published transcripts of congressional committee hearings can be useful sources. The published transcripts are often accompanied by considerable amounts of documentation, or the documents may even be published without the excuse of a hearing. Transcripts of important committee hearings, if not classified, are usually published by the Government Printing Office (GPO), in Washington.  In the Clemson University Library, these are located on Level 3 (one floor down from where you come in), and usually have call numbers starting with Y 4.

The GPO issues monthly and annual subject indexes to its publications, and you can also do a search of recent ones on the GPO web site.. But for the years from 1970 onward, the index published by the Congressional Information Service (CIS) is better. For each year since 1970 CIS has published two volumes. One, titled Abstracts, has all the hearings published that year, arranged by committee. The other, Index, is the subject index. Look up whatever you are after, such as "Kurds" or "Rumsfeld, Donald" in the Index, and you will see a list of items. If one looks as if it might be interesting, look it up in the Abstracts to get a more detailed description, and the call number that will let you find it on the shelf (at least in most cases) two floors up on Level 3. Bear in mind that a hearing held in one year may be published in a later year. (In the Clemson University Library, the CIS volumes have recently been moved down to Room 104, with a sign "Abstracts" by the door, in the back on the lowest floor of the library, for which you need to get a key at the circulation desk. The last time I checked, these volumes were in the middle aisle, right side, but I presume the room will soon be reorganized; when that happens, look for them under call number KF 49 .C62.)

See also The Second US - Iraq War: US Policy.

 

Doctrine on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency

Alexander Alderson, "'Learn from Experience' or 'Never Again': What Next for UK counterinsurgency?" Royal United Services Institute Journal 159:1 (February 2014).

Vijay Kumar Anand, Insurgency and Counter-insurgency: A Study of Modern Guerrilla Warfare. New Delhi: Deep & Deep Publications, 1981. 263 pp.

David M. Anderson and Daniel Branch, eds., "Allies at the End of Empire: Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945-76," International History Review, 39:1 (February 2017), pp. 1-166. Looks at those elements in local society who supported the imperial power, during the struggles over decolonization, in a variety of countries.

James R. Arnold, Jungle of Snakes: A Century of Counterinsurgency Warfare from the Philippines to Iraq. Bloomsbury Press, 2009. 304 pp.

Art of War Papers. Masters theses from the US Army's Command and General Staff College.

William C. Banks, Counterinsurgency Law: New Directions in Asymmetric Warfare. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. xxii, 287 pp.

David H. Bayley and Robert M. Perito, The Police in War: Fighting Insurgency, Terrorism, and Violent Crime. Lynne Rienner, 2010. 195 pp.

Ian W. F. Beckett, Modern Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies: Guerrillas and their Opponents since 1750. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2001. ix, 268 pp.

Ian Beckett, ed., Modern Counter-Insurgency. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007. xxiv, 488 pp.

Bob Bergin, "Defeating an Insurgency: The Thai Effort against the Communist Party of Thailand, 1965–ca. 1982," Studies in Intelligence 60:2 (June 2016), pp. 25-36. An interesting look at a case in which an insurgency was defeated more by political than by military means.

Eli Berman, Joseph Felter, and Jacob Shapiro, Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 400 pp. Empirical research on counterinsurgency in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines.

Keith B. Bickel, Mars Learning: The Marine Corps Development of Small Wars Doctrine, 1915-1940. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001. xiv, 274 pp.

Jeremy Black, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A Global History. Lanham, MD: Rowmand & Littlefield, 2016. 288 pp.

Douglas S. Blaufarb and George K. Tanham, Who Will Win? A Key to the Puzzle of Revolutionary War. New York: Crane Russak, 1989. viii, 151 pp.

Thomas A. Bruscino, Jr., Out Of Bounds: Transnational Sanctuary In Irregular Warfare. Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper 17. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006. ix, 109 pp. Deals with two case studies: the US in Vietnam, and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Maj. Darrell W. Carr, a href="http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a562891.pdf">"Civil Defense Forces in Counterinsurgency: An Analysis of the Civilian Irregular Defense Group in Vietnam" Masters thesis, US Army Command and General Staff College, 2012. ix, 135 pp.

Robert M. Cassidy, Counterinsurgency and the Global War on Terror: Military Culture and Irregular War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. viii, 211 pp.

Joseph R. Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, eds., The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Roles. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2007. xi, 605 pp.

Emrys Chew, "How Big Powers Fight Small Wars: Contending Traditions of Asymmetry in the British and American Ways of War," Armed Forces & Society 40:1 (January 2014), pp. 17-48.

Warren Chin, "Examining the Application of British Counterinsurgency Doctrine by the American Army in Iraq" Small Wars & Insurgencies 18:1 (March 2007), pp. 1-26.

Martin G. Clemis, "Crafting Non-Kinetic Warfare: The Academic-Military Nexus in U.S. Counterinsurgency Doctrine," Small Wars and Insurgencies 20 (March 2009), pp. 160-184.

Martin G. Clemis, "The 'Cultural Turn' in Counterinsurgency Operations: Doctrine, Application, and Criticism," Army History 74 (Winter 2010), pp. 21-29.

Eliot Cohen, "Constraints on America's Conduct of Small Wars," International Security 9:2 (Autumn 1984).

Raphael S. Cohen, "Beyond 'Hearts and Minds': Rethinking Counterinsurgency Strategy." Ph.D. dissertation, Georgetown University, Political Science, 2014. DA 3624969.

Simon Collard-Wexler et al., "Do Foreign Occupations Cause Suicide Attacks?" Journal of Conflict Resolution 58:4 (June 2014), pp. 135-44.

John M. Collins, America's Small Wars: Lessons for the Future. McLean, VA: Brassey's, 1991.

Paul J. Cook, "Normal Is a Cycle on a Washing Machine: The U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group," Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 2021, DA 28714263,

James S. Corum, Bad Strategies: How Major Powers Fail in Counterinsurgency. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Zenith Press, 2008. 304 pp. Case studes are Algeria, Cyprus, Vietnam, and the second US-Iraq War.

Dick Couch, A Tactical Ethic: Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010. 160 pp.

Dan G. Cox and Thomas Bruscino, eds., Population-Centric Counterinsurgency: A False Idol?. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2011. iii, 132 pp.

Conrad C. Crane, Cassandra in Oz: Counterinsurgency and Future War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2016. xv, 307 pp. An account of the debates over insurgency and counterinsurgency in the United States in recent years, written by an important participant. Crane was one of the authors of the Army/Marine Corps field manual counterinsurgency (see below) issued in 2006.

Conrad C. Crane, Avoiding Vietnam: The U.S. Army's Response to Defeat in Southeast Asia. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2002. vi, 25 pp. Crane looked at the way the U.S. Army had avoided engaging in or thinking about counterinsurgency in the decades after the Vietnam War, and said the Army needed to resume thinking about that issue.

Richard G. Davis, ed., The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare, 1775-2007: Selected Papers from the 2007 Conference of Army Historians. Washington, D.C.: US Army Center of Military History, 2008. v, 252 pp. Not nearly so focused on the US Army as the title suggests.
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Seymour J. Deitchman, The Best-Laid Schemes: A Tale of Social Science Research and Bureaucracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975. xiv, 483 pp. Deitchman went to work in late 1963 as special assistant for counterinsurgency to Director of Defense Research and Engineering Harold Brown. In that job, he was involved in efforts to use the research of social scientists, including anthropologists, in support of US goals in third world countries, including but not limited to Vietnam. These efforts became a subject of major public controversy in mid 1965. He also dealt with such issues at ARPA in a later stage of his career. A slightly revised edition, with comments added about the use of social science research to suppoort US efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq after 2001: Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2014. xv, 325 pp.

Larisa Deriglazova, Great Powers, Small Wars: Asymmetric Conflict since 1945. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. xxiv, 384 pp. Particular focus on British experiences since 1945, and the US experience in Iraq after 2003.

Paul Dixon, ed., The British Approach to Counterinsurgency: From Malaya and Northern Ireland to Iraq and Afghanistan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 464 pp.

Ivan Eland, The Failure of Counterinsurgency: Why Hearts and Minds are Not Always Won. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2013. 189 pp.

Edward J. Erickson, ed., A Global History of Relocation in Counterinsurgency Warfare. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019.

Stephen S. Evans, ed., U.S. Marines and Irregular Warfare, 1898-2007: Anthology and Selected Bibliography. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2008. ix, 343 pp.
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C. Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly, eds., Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. xii, 227 pp.

David Fitzgerald, Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq. Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies, 2013. x, 285 pp. Three chapters (pp. 109-180) deal with the second US-Iraq War.

Matthew J. Flynn, Contesting History: The Bush Counterinsurgency Legacy in Iraq. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010. xi, 164 pp. Compares the American experience in Iraq with various historical episodes going back to the 19th century. The only review I have seen was unenthusiastic.

David French, The British Way in Counterinsurgency, 1945-1957. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. x, 283 pp.

David Galula. When the United States Army was rediscovering counterinsurgency in the 21st century, the writings of David Galula, a French officer who had served in Algeria, became quite influential. In addition to the items listed here, see Crider below under Military Review.

Michael D. Gambone, Small Wars: Low Intensity Threats and American Response Since Vietnam. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2012. xv, 407 pp.

John M. Gates, The U.S. Army and Irregular Warfare.

John P. Geis, II, "The meek shall inherit the earth? Why the weak win in asymmetric conflict." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, The University of Wisconsin - Madison, 2007. xiv, 272 pp. AAT 3278765.

Captain Brian Gellman and Captain Kyle Teamey, "Counterinsurgency 101," Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin 31:2 (April-June 2005), pp. 22-30.
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Gian Gentile, Wrong Turn: America's Deadly Embrace of Counterinsurgency. New York: The New Press, 2013. xviii, 189 pp. Colonel Gentile, who commanded a cavalry squadron in western Baghdad in 2006, teaches history at West Point. One chapter (pp. 85-111) deals with the Iraq War.

Emily Gilbert, "The Gift of War: Cash, Counterinsurgency, and Collateral Damage," Security Dialogue 46:5 (Oct0ber 2015), pp. 403-21.

Joshua L. Gleis, Withdrawing Under Fire: Lessons from Islamist Insurgencies. Potomac Books, 2011. 256 pp. Case studies from the British withdrawal from Iraq in the 1920s to the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

Colin S. Gray, Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2006. vii, 64 pp.

Michael L. Gross, The Ethics of Insurgency: A Critical Guide to Just Guerrilla Warfare. Cambridge University Press, 2015. 320 pp.

Metin Gurcan, What Went Wrong in Afghanistan? Understanding Counter-insurgency Efforts in Tribalized Rural and Muslim Environments. Solihull, UK: Helion, 2016. xxviii, 137 pp.

Hannah Gurman, ed., Hearts and Minds: A People's History of Counterinsurgency. New Press, 2013. Two chapters each on Iraq and Afghanistan; one each on Malaya, the Philippines, Vietnam, and El Salvador.

Col. Thomas X. Hammes, USMC, The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press, 2004. xiv, 321 pp.

Thomas X. Hammes, "Insurgency: Modern Warfare Evolves into a Fourth Generation." Strategic Forum, no. 214 (January 2005). 8 pp.

Albert W. Harris, "Insurgency Defensive Posture under Extreme Duress," Global Change, Peace & Security 27:2 (2015), pp. 153-72. Deals with cases in which insurgents must decided whether to take the risk of shifting from guerrilla warfare to a more open confrontation with government forces in order to defend some piece of territory they regard as crucial.

Joel Hayward, ed., Air Power, Insurgency and the "War on Terror.". Cranwell, Lincs., UK: Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies, 2009. 312 pp. Looks at examples going back to the British use of air power in the Arabian peninsula in 1917.

Jacqueline L. Hazelton, Bullets Not Ballots: Success in Counterinsurgency Warfare. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021. xi, 206 pp. Argues that military force is more important than winning hearts and minds.

Frank G. Hoffman, Mars Adapting: Military Change during War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2021. 368 pp. The US Marines' adaptation to counterinsurgency in Iraq is one of the four case studies considered.

Paula Holme-Eber, Cultures in Conflict: Irregular Warfare, Culture Policy, and the Marine Corps. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univesity Press, 2014. xvii, 249 pp.

Caroline Holmqvist, Policing Wars: On Military Interventions in the Twenty-First Century. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, U.K.: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. vii, 176 pp.

Thomas M. Huber, ed., Compound Warfare: That Fatal Knot. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: US Army Command and General Staff College Press, 2002. Looks at cases in which regular and irregular forces work together.

Matthew Hughes, ed., British Ways of Counter-Insurgency: A Historical Perspective. Routledge, 2013. 252 pp.

Jeannie L. Johnson (foreword by Gen. Jim Mattis), The Marines, Counterinsurgency, and Strategic Culture: Lessons Learned and Lost in America's Wars. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018. xii, 310 pp. The pre-WWII interventions in the Caribbean, and Vietnam and Iraq, appear to be the cases given the most attention. Iraq is pp. 217-55.

Richard B. Johnson, The Biggest Stick: The Employment of Artillery Units in Counterinsurgency. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2011. x, 213 pp. Createspace, 2013. 224 pp.

Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, "Refighting the Last War: Afghanistan and the Vietnam Template," Military Review, November-December 2009, pp. 2-14.

Thomas Johnson and Barry Zellen, eds., Culture, conflict, and Counterinsurgency. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. 284 pp. The main focus is on Afghanistan, but at least one case from Iraq (Mosul 2006-7) is considered. A skim of a few pages (particularly what seemed to me very strange comments on the Maoist model of insurgency on p. 62) gave me a poor impression of the book.

The Joint Special Operations University, at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida, publishes a variety of works dealing with insurgency and counterinsurgency. List of publications, by year.

Seth G. Jones, Waging Insurgent Warfare: Lessons from the Vietcong to the Islamic State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. ix, 336 pp.

Fred Kaplan, The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War. New York: simon & Schuster, 2013. x, 418 pp.

David Kilcullen, The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. xxviii, 346 pp. Kilcullen, originally an officer of the Australian Army, has been a counterinsurgency advisor to General Petraeus. Two case studies, Afghanistan 2006-8 and Iraq 2007, make up about half the book.

David Kilcullen, Counterinsurgency. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. 251 pp.

David Kilcullen, Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. x, 342 pp.

David J. Kilcullen, "Three Pillars of Counterinsurgency" Remarks delivered at the US Government Counterinsurgency Conference, Washington D.C., 28 September 2006. 8 pp.

David Kilcullen, The Dragons and the Snakes: How the Rest Learned to Fight the West. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 325 pp. Looks at varied forms of asymmetric warfare, not just insurgency.

Peter A. Kiss, Winning Wars amongst the People: Case Studies in Asymmetric Conflict. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2014. xiv, 289 pp.

Christopher D, Kolenda, foreword by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, The Counterinsurgency Challenge: A Parable of Leadership and Decision Making in Modern Conflict. Stackpole, 2012. 208 pp.

Walter Carl Ladwig III, The Forgotten Front: Patron-Client Relationships in Counter Insurgency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. The three major cases considered are the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Philippines, Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem, and the Salvadorian Civil War.

Christopher A. Lawrence, America's Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. Philadelphia and Oxford: Casemate, 2015. 360 pp. In fact a study, involving mathematical analysis of statistics, of a much broader range of insurgencies than the title suggests. The parts I have skimmed, mostly dealing with Vietnam, are pretty bad. Lawrence is careless about factual details. He also places heavy emphasis on force ratios--the ratio of the number of counterinsurgents to the number of insurgents in each of the wars he considers--but does not pay enough attention to a fundamental problem: The numbers both of insurgents and of counterinsurgents will vary over the course of an insurgency. To get a force ratio for a war, one must pick some date, and treat the force ratio at that date as representing the force ratio for the war. What objective basis can one have for the choice of that date?

Austin Long, "First war syndrome: Military culture, professionalization, and counterinsurgency doctrine." Ph.D. dissertation, M.I.T., 2010.

Austin Long, The Soul of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Military Culture in the US and UK. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016. x, 275 pp.

Bart Luttikhuis and A. Dirk Moses, eds., Colonial Counterinsurgency and Mass Violence: The Dutch Empire in Indonesia. Routledge, 2014. 358 pp.

John J. McGrath, Boots on the Ground: Troop Density in Contingency Operations. Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper 16. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006. Iraq is pp. 113-146.

Joseph MacKay, The Counterinsurgent Imagination: A New Intellectual History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. 300 pp. Case studies from the late 18th century to the near-present.

John Mckinlay, The Insurgent Archipelago. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. 256 pp.

Daniel L. Magruder, Jr., "Counterinsurgency's Gordian Knot: Solving the Identification Problem." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, Political Science, 2015. DA 3724505.

Max G. Manwaring, The Complexity of Modern Asymmetric Warfare. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012. 224 pp.

Daniel Marston and Carter Malkasian, eds., Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare. Oxford and New York: Osprey, 2008. 304 pp. Case studies from the Philippine insurrection to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Steven Metz and Raymond Millen, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the 21st Century: Reconceptualizing Threat and Response. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, November 2004. viii, 43 pp.

Steven Metz, Learning from Iraq: Counterinsurgency in American Strategy. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2007. viii, 127 pp.

Steven Metz, Rethinking Insurgency. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2007. viii, 69 pp.

Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, sometimes just called Military Intelligence, is a quarterly journal published by the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Some issues have been placed online by the Hathi Trust. The articles tend to be very short. Some examples include:

Military Review. "The Professional Journal of the U.S. Army." Published by the Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Accessible either through Army web sites or through Hathi Trust. Recent issues contain quite a lot about the principles of insurgency and counterinsurgency. Some examples are listed here. (Some articles about the specific experience of insurgency and counterinsurgency in Iraq since 2003 are listed below in the section "Post 2003").

Thomas R. Mockaitis, Ths COIN Conundrum; The Future of U.S. Counterinsurgency and U.S. Land Power. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, Strategic Studies Institute, 2017.

Riley M. Moore, "Counterinsurgency Force Ratio: Strategic Utility or Nominal Necessity," Small Wars and Insurgencies 24:5 (December 2013), pp. 857-78.

Mark Moyar, A Question of Command: Counterinsurgency from the Civil War to Iraq. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. xviii, 347 pp. Argues that the crucial requirement for success in counterinsurgency is the quality of the officers assigned to the work.

Andrew Mumford, The Counter-Insurgency Myth: The British Experience of Irregular Warfare. Routledge, 2011. 216 pp.

Andrew Mumford and Bruno C. Reis, eds., The Theory and Practice of Irregular Warfare: Warrior-scholarship in Counter-insurgency. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014. ix, 161 pp. Papers about (not by) prominent theoriests of irregular warfare, including Charles Callwell, David Galula, Roger Trinquier, Moshe Dayan, Frank Kitson, David Kilcullen, and David Petraeus.

Williamson Murray and Peter R. Mansoor, eds., Hybrid Warfare: Fighting Complex Opponents from the Ancient World to the Present. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. xi, 321 pp. Looks at cases in which regular and irregular forces work together.

Samuel Musa et al., Policing and COIN Operations: Lessons Learned, Strategies, and Future Directions. Washington, D.C.: Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, Center for Technology and National Security Policy, 2011. viii, 124 pp.

John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam. Westport: Praeger, 2002. xxi, 249 pp. Paperback, with a new preface by Nagl, discussing his September 2003 to September 2004 tour as Operations Officer of the 1/34 Armored, conducting actual counterinsugency in al-Anbar province, Iraq, and the light it shed on the ideas in his book, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. xxix, 249 pp. See also Nagl's memoir Knife Fights, below.

Eric T. Olson, Some of the Best Weapons for Counterinsurgents Do Not Shoot. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2010. xiv, 139 pp.

Parameters is the quarterly journal of the US Army War College.

Patrick Paterson, Training Surrogate Forces in International Humanitarian Law: Lessons from Peru, Colombia, El Salvador, and Iraq. JSOU Report 16-9. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016. xi, 118 pp.

Terrence G. Peterson, Revolutionary Warfare: How the Algerian War Made Modern Counterinsurgency. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2024.

Douglas Porch, Counterinsurgency: Exposing the Myths of the New Way of War. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. 434 pp. Largely but not exclusively concerned with British and American counterinsurgency. The chapter "Vietnam with a happy ending: Iraq and 'the surge'", is pp. 289-317. (See review essay on Porch by David Ucko, and reply to Ucko by Porch, below under Small Wars & Insurgencies.)

RAND Corporation (Previously, Rand Corporation). This "think tank" does a lot of research and analysis work on contract for the Defense Department. Most RAND publications can be purchased in hard copy through the RAND Corporation online bookstore, but many also can be read online for free. Some other RAND Corporation publications on US counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq since 2003 are listed under The Second US - Iraq War.

Jeffrey Record, Beating Goliath: Why Insurgencies Win. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007. xii, 180 pp. Considerable discussion of the American way of war.

Paul B. Rich and Isabelle Duyvesteyn, Routledge Handbook of Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency. Routledge, 2012. 386 pp.

Thomas Rid and Thomas Keaney, eds., Understanding Counterinsurgency: Doctrine, Operations, and Challenges. Routledge, 2010. 280 pp.

John Robb, Brave New War: The Next Stage of Terrorism and the End of Globalization. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2007. xvi, 208 pp. Foreword by James Fallows. Looks at the threat of flexible and decentralized networks, such as Iraqi insurgents and Al Qaeda terrorists.

Richard W. Rubright, The Role and Limitations of Technology in U.S. counterinsurgency Warfare. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2015. x, 282 pp.

Sibylle Scheipers, "Counterinsurgency or Irregular Warfare? Historiography and the Study of 'Small Wars'", Small Wars and Insurgencies 25:5-6 (2014), PP. 879-99.

Nicholas J. Schlosser and James M. Caiella, eds., Counterinsurgency Leadership in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Beyond. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2011. v, 204 pp.

Nicholas J. Schlosser, U.S. Marines and Irregular Warfare: Training and Education, 2000-2010. Quantico, VA: History Division, US Marine Corps, 2015. vii, 122 pp.

Matthew J. Schmidt, "The Influence of Professional Culture on American Military Innovation in Counterinsurgency." Ph.D. dissertation, Government, Georgetown University, 2011. viii, 250 pp. UMI No. 3450861. Compares the develoment of American counterinsurgency doctrine during conflicts in the Philippines 1898-1902, and during the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Marcus Schulzk, Pursuing Moral Warfare: Ethics in American, British, and Israeli Counterinsurgency. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019. 256 pp.

Sebastian Schutte, "Geography, Outcome, and Casualties: A Unified Model of Insurgency," Journal of Conflict Resolution 59:6 (September 2015), pp. 1101-28.

Michael D. Shafer, Deadly Paradigms: The Failure of U.S. counterinsurgency Strategy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Emile Simpson, War from the Ground Up: Twenty-First Century Combat as Politics. Oxford and Uew York: Oxford University Press, 2013. There is more consideration of broad strategic issues than the title might lead one to expect. The main focus is on Afghanistan, where the author served three tours as a British officer, but British operations in Borneo, 1962-1966, are considerd as a comparative case.

Christopher J. Sims, The Human Terrain System: Operationally Relevant Social Science Research in Iraq and Afghanistan. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War college Press, 2015. xv, 504 pp.

Stephen Sloan, The Challenge of Nonterritorial and Virtual Conflicts: Rethinking Counterinsurgency and Counterterrorism. JSOU Report 11-2. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2011.

Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol. 25, Issue 1 (2014), special issue "High Noon for the COINdinistas: the debate on US counterinsurgency"

Emily Spencer, ed.,

The Difficult War: Perspectives on Insurgency and Special Operations Forces. Kingston: Canadian Defence Academy Press / Toronto: Dundurn Group, 2009. 277 pp.

Paul Staniland, Networks of Rebellion: Explaining Insurgent Cohesion and Collapse. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014. 312 pp. I have taken only the briefest glance at this, but I got the impression is has a sophisticated view of the variations among insurgencies. The case studies are Kashmir, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka.

Jon Strandquist, "Local defence forces and counterinsurgency in Afghanistan: learning from the CIA's Village Defense Program in South Vietnam," Small Wars & Insurgencies, 26:1 (2015), pp. 90-113.

Robert Taber, The War of the Flea: A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice. New York: L. Stuart, 1965. 192 pp. Reprinted as War of the Flea: The classic Study of Guerrilla Warfare. Washington, DC: Brassey's, 2002. xiv, 199 pp.

George K. Tanham, Communist Revolutionary Warfare: The Vietminh in Indochina. New York: Praeger, 1961. x, 166 pp. Revised as Communist Revolutionary Warfare: From the Vietminh to the Viet Cong. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. 152 pp.

Élie Tenenbaum, Partisans et centurions: Une histoire de la guerre irrégulière au XXe siècle. Paris: Perrin, 2018. 522 pp.

Rod Thornton, Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge, UK, and Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2007. ix, 241 pp. 2017.

Colonel Ken Tovo, "From the Ashes of the Phoenix: Lessons for Contemporary Counterinsurgency Operations." Special Warfare Vol. 20, no. 1 (January-February 2007), pp. 6-15.

Ingo Trauschweizer and Steven Miner, eds., Failed States and Fragile Societies: A New World Disorder? Athens: Ohio University Press, 2014. xvii, 171 pp.

Jeffrey Treistman, When Bad States Win: Rethinking Counterinsurgency Strategy. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2022. 232 pp. Argues that a state is more likely to succeed in suppressing an insurgency if it either avoids brutal repression or applies it lavishly.

Roger Trinquier, Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency. Introduction by Bernard Fall. Praeger, 1964. Reprinted with a new foreword by Eliot Cohen: Praeger, 2006. French original La guerre moderne. Paris: Table Ronde, 1961.

David Tucker, Revolution and Resistance: Moral Revolution, Military Might, and the End of Empire. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.

David H. Ucko, The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern War. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009. Foreword by John A. Nagl. Includes significant discussion of the 2007 "surge" in Iraq.

David H. Ucko and Robert Egnell, Counterinsurgency in Crisis: Britain and the Challenges of Modern Warfare. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. 248 pp.

David H. Ucko, "Systems failure: the US way of irregular warfare," Small Wars & Insurgencies 30:1 (2019), pp. 223-54.

David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks, "Violence in Context: Mapping the Strategies and Operational Art of Irregular Warfare," Contemporary Security Policy 39:2 (2018), 206-33.

US Army Field Manuals

Napoleon D. Valeriano and Charles T. R. Bohannan, Counter-guerrilla Operations: The Philippine Experience. Praeger, 1962. Reprinted with a new foreword by Kalev Sepp: Praeger, 2006.

Dr. Michael Vlahos, Terror's Mask: Insurgency within Islam. Laurel, MD: Joint Warfare Analysis Department Applied Physics Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University, 2002.

John D. Waghelstein, "Ruminations of a Pachyderm or What I Learned in the Counter-insurgency Business," Small Wars and Insurgencies 5:3 (Winter 1994), pp. 360-78. Said to be very good.

Alex Weisinger, "Victory Without Peace: Conquest, Insurgency and War Termination," Conflict Management and Peace Science 31:4 (September 2014), pp. 357-82.

"What Have We Learned? Lessons from Afghanistan & Iraq," Foreign Affairs 93:6 (November-December 2014), pp. 2-54.

Daniel Whittingham and Stuart Mitchell, Counterinsurgency: Theory and Reality. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2021. xxv, 164 pp.

Duane C. Young and K. A. Young, "Intelligence and Irregular Warfare," Global War Studies, 12:1 (2015), pp. 5-11.

Moeed Yusuf, ed., Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in South Asia through a Peacebuilding Lens. Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 2014. vii, 315 pp. Considers Indian Kashmir, Pakistan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

For older writings on insurgency and counterinsurgency, see the section Theories of Limited War and Counterinsurgency in my Vietnam War Bibliography.

See also "Best Practices in Counterinsurgency" Reports, Institute for the Study of War.

 

Iraq

Thabit A.J. Abdullah, A Short History of Iraq: From 636 to the Present. London & New York: Pearson, 2003. xxii, 234 pp.

Ariel I. Ahram, "Development, counterinsurgency, and the Destruction of the Iraqi Marshes," International Journal of Middle East Studies, 47:3 (August 2015), pp. 447-66.

Ali A. Allawi, Faisal I of Iraq. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. 672 pp. Faisal, an Arab leader supported by T. E. Lawrence during World War I, was King of Iraq from 1921 until his death in 1933.

Abbas Alnasrawi, The Economy of Iraq: Oil, Wars, Destruction of Development and Prospects, 1950-2010. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. xvi, 186 pp.

Amnesty International, Report and recommendations of an Amnesty International mission to the Government of the Republic of Iraq, 22-28 January 1983: including the Government's response and Amnesty International comments. London: Amnesty International Publications, 1983. 74 pp.

Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield, The Future of Iraq: Dictatorship, Democracy, or Division. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. x, 260 pp. Rev. ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. x, 260 pp. Despite the title, a large part of this book deals with the pre-2003 background of Iraq.

Jafar Pasha Al-Askari, A Soldier's Story: From Ottoman Rule to Independent Iraq: The Memoirs of Jafar Pasha Al-Askari. Arabian Publishing, 2003. 294 pp. Jafar Pasha Al-Askari was an Arab who rose to general in the Ottoman Army before joining the Arab revolt in 1917. He served twice as prime minister of Iraq in the 1920s, under the British mandate, and was minister of defense when he was killed in the coup of 1936.

Henry D. Astarjian, The Struggle for Kirkuk: The Rise of Hussein, Oil, and the Death of Tolerance in Iraq. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. xvi, 179 pp. The Iraqi Communist Party and the struggle for control of the oil fields in the Kirkuk area, 1940s and 1950s. By a participant.

Amatzia Baram, Culture, History, and Ideology in the Formation of Ba'thist Iraq, 1968-89. New York: St. Martin's, 1991. xviii, 196 pp.

A. J. Barker, The First Iraq War, 1914-1918: Britain's Mesopotamian Campaign. Enigma Books, 2009. 418 pp.

Roby C. Barrett, Ph.D, The Collapse of Iraq and Syria: The End of the Colonial Construct in the Greater Levant. JSOU Report 16-1. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016. x, 117 pp. Runs from the Ottoman Empire to 2011.

Orit Bashkin, The New Babylonians: A History of Jews in Modern Iraq. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012.

Orit Bashkin, The Other Iraq: Pluralism and culture in Hashemite Iraq. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. 376 pp. Covers from the early 1920s to 1958.

Hanna Batatu, The old social classes and the revolutionary movements of Iraq: A study of Iraq's old landed and commercial classes and of its Communists, Ba'thists, and Free Officers. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. xxiv, 1283 pp. London: Saqi Books, 2004. xxiv, 1283 pp.

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was an upper-class Englishwoman who was hired by the British government during World War I because she knew Arabic and had extensive knowledge of the Arabs. She played a significant role during the following years, when the British were creating Iraq.

Alda Benjamen, Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Negotiating Political and Cultural Space. Cambridge University Press, 2022. 272 pp. The main focus is on the period of Ba'th rule.

Lord Birdwood (Christopher Bromhead Birdwood, Baron), Nuri as-Said: A Study in Arab Leadership. London: Cassell, 1959. xi, 306 pp. Nuri as-Said (Nuri al-Sa'id) was an important figure in Iraq from the 1920s up to his death in the military coup of July 1958.

Edwin Black, The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust. Dialog Press, 2010. 464 pp. A massacre of Jews in Baghdad, June 1-2, 1941.

C.H. Bleaney and G.J. Roper, Iraq: A Bibliographical Guide. Brill, 2004. 522 pp.

John Broich, Blood, Oil and the Axis: The Allied Resistance Against a Fascist State in Iraq and the Levant, 1941. Abrams Press, 2019 (forthcoming). 368 pp.

Bartle Bull, Land Between the Rivers: A 5,000-Year History of Iraq. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2024. Goes up to 1958.

Tamara Chalabi, Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family. New York: HarperCollins, 2011. 414 pp. The daughter of Ahmad Chalabi devotes much attention to earlier generations of her family. Her great-grandfather was minister of education under King Faisal not long after World War I; her grandfather was the first head of Iraq's stock exchange.

Nathan J. Citino, "Middle East Cold Wars: Oil and Arab Nationalism in US-Iraqi Relations, 1958-1961. " In Kathryn Statler and Andrew Johns, eds., The Eisenhower Administration, the Third World, and the Globalization of the Cold War, 1953-1961 (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

Uriel Dann, Iraq under Qassem: A Political History, 1958-1963. New York: Praeger, 1969. xvi, 405 pp.

Adeed Dawisha, Iraq: A Political History from Independence to Occupation. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. 408 pp. Runs from 1921 to the near-present.

James DeFronzo, The Iraq War: Origins and Consequences. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press (Perseus), 2010. xi, 323 pp. Four chapters on Iraq up to 1990, one on the 1990-91 crises, and five on the US-Iraq War that began in 2003, and its implications and results.

Toby Dodge, Inventing Iraq: The Failure of Nation Building and a History Denied. Columbia University Press, 2003. xix, 260 pp. I think the focus is on the 1920s and maybe 1930s, but I have not seen the book.

Beth K. Dougherty and Edmund A. Ghareeb, Historical Dictionary of Iraq, 2nd ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow (Rowman & Littlefield), 2013. xlv, 811 pp.

Richard Downes, In Search of Iraq: Baghdad to Babylon. Dublin: New Island, 2006. xviii, 268 pp. pb Boston: Gemma, 2009. xviii, 282 pp. Downes first went to Iraq as a reporter for the BBC in 1998.

Eleanor Franklin Egan, The War in the Cradle of the World, Mesopotamia. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1918. viii, 311 pp. British operations during World War I in what would soon become Iraq. Recently reprinted as:

Matthew Elliot, 'Independent Iraq': The Monarchy and British Influence, 1941-58. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1996. 248 pp.

Michael Eppel, Iraq from Monarchy to Tyranny: From the Hashemites to the Rise of Saddam. Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, 2004. x, 310 pp.

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village. Anchor, 1995. 368 pp. Fernea spent two years, in the 1950s, in a village in southern Iraq.

Robert A. Fernea, Shaykh and Effendi: Changing Patterns of Authority Among the El Shabana of Southern Iraq. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1970.

Susan Francis, with Andrew Crofts, Nowhere to Hide: A Mother's Ordeal in the Killing Fields of Iraq and Kurdistan. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993. vii, 240 pp. Memoir by an English woman who married an Iraqi in the 1950s. My impression (I have not actually seen the book) is that she lived in Baghdad until after the 1991 war, then fled north to Kurdistan and eventually to England.

Mel Friedman, Iraq. Children's Press, 2009. 48 pp. For juvenile readers.

Gerald de Gaury, Three Kings in Baghdad: The Tragedy of Iraq's Monarchy. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. 232 pp. The Iraqi monarchy from 1921 to 1958.

Edmund A. Ghareeb, with Beth K. Dougherty, Historical Dictionary of Iraq. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2004. lxxvi, 459 pp.

Fanar Haddad, Sectarianism in Iraq: Antogonistic Visions of Unity. London: Hurst, 2011. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. I have also seen very \ convincing listings of this as New York: Columbia University Press, 2011, ix, 296 pp., though I don't see how both Oxford and Columbia could have published it in New York in the same year.

Foulath Hadid, Iraq's Democratic Moment. London: Hurst, 2012. xiii, 338 pp. Distributed in the US by Oxford University Press. Efforts to build democracy in Iraq from 1920 to 1958.

Naji Al-Hadithi, ed., Iraq 1990: An Official Handbook. Baghdad: Ministry of Information and Culture/Dar al-Ma'mun, 1989. 293 pp.

Samira Haj, The Making of Iraq, 1900-1963: Capital, Power, and Ideology. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1997. viii, 215 pp.

Aylmer Haldane, The Insurrection in Mesopotamia, 1920. Lt. Gen. Haldane was in charge of putting down the insurrection.

Samuel Helfont, Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Christine Moss Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1984. x, 215 pp.

Tareq Y. Ismael, The Rise and Fall of the Communist Party of Iraq. Cambridge University Press, 2008. xi, 338 pp.

Faleh Abdul-Jabar (Faleh Jabar), ed., Ayatollahs, Sufis and Ideologues: State, Religion and Social Movements in Iraq. London: Saqi Books, 2002. 290 pp.

Faleh A. Jabar, The Shi'ite Movement in Iraq. pb London: Saqi Books, 2004. 389 pp.

Jabra Ibrahim Jabra, Princesses' Street: Baghdad Memories. Trans. by Issa J. Boullata. University of Arkansas Press, 2005. 185 pp. Memoir by an important Palestinian writer of his life in pre-Saddam Baghdad.

Sajad Jiyad, God's Man in Iraq: The Life and Leadership of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. Century Foundation Press, 2023. 154 pp.

Abbas Kadhim, Reclaiming Iraq: The 1920 Revolution and the Founding of the Modern State. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2012. 223 pp.

Majid Khadduri, Independent Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics since 1932. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1951. viii, 291 pp.

Majid Khadduri, Republican Iraq: A Study in Iraqi Politics Since the Revolution of 1958. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. xii, 318 pp.

Mehdi Khalaji, The Last Marja: Sistani and the End of Traditional Religious Authority in Shiism. Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2006. vi, 37 pp. Can be downloaded from the Institute's web page.

Sana al-Khayyat, Honour and Shame: Women in Modern Iraq. Saqi Books, 2001. 232 pp.

Dina Rizk Khoury, Iraq in Wartime: Soldiering, Martyrdom, and Remembrance. Cambridge University Press, 2013. Looks as the Way Wars from 1980 to 2003 shaped Iraqi lives and the ways Iraq was governed.

Muhammad Khudayyir, Basrayatha: The Story of a City. London: Verso, 2008. 184 pp. Translated by William M. Hutchins. A meditation on Basra by an Iraqi writer born there.

Sherko Kirmanj, Identity and Nation in Iraq. Lynne Rienner, 2013. 321 pp. Traces relations between Sunni Arabs, Shiites, and Kurds from the formation of Iraq up to recent years.

David Little and Donald K. Swearer, eds., Religion and Nationalism in Iraq: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 2007. 213 pp.

Stephen H. Longrigg, Iraq, 1900 to 1950: A Political, Social, and Economic History. London and New York: Oxford University Press, 1953. x, 436 pp.

S. McKnight, "Hopeless Gestures: Iraqi Exile Forces since the 1968 Revolution," in Matthew Bennett and Paul Latawski, eds., Exile Armies (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004).

Kamil Mahdi, Oil and Oil Policy in Iraq: Past and Present. Pluto Press, 2007. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 108 pp.

Kamil Mahdi, State and Agriculture in Iraq: Modern Development, Stagnation, and the Impact of Oil. Ithaca Press, 2001. 378 pp.

Ernest Main, Iraq from Mandate to Independence. London; Allen & Unwin, 1935. Reprinted by Routledge in 2008 and again in 2019.

Mohammad Gholi Majd, Iraq in World War I: From Ottoman Rule to British Conquest. University Press of America, 2006. 454 pp.

Colonel Pesach Malovany, IDF (Ret.), Wars of Modern Babylon: A History of the Iraqi Army from 1921 to 2003. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2017. xxi, 931 pp.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi and Sammy Salama, Iraq's Armed Forces: An Analytical History. Abingdon and New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2008. 256 pp. Goes from the 1920s to the US occupation.

Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq. Boulder, CO: Westview/London: Longman, 1985. xvii, 382 pp. 2d. ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2004. xxii, 392 pp. 3d ed. Boulder, Colorado: Westview (Perseus), 2012. xii, 483 pp. 4th ed. Boulder, CA: Westvkew, 2017. xviii, 461 pp.

Henry E. Mattox, A Chronology of United States – Iraqi Relations, 1920 – 2006. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007.

Gavin Maxwell, A Reed Shaken by the Wind: Travels among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq. Penguin, 1983. Eland Books, 2004. 236 pp.

Helen Chapin Metz, ed., Iraq: A Country Study, 4th ed. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress / Government Printing Office, 1990. xxx, 302 pp.

MidEast Web Bibliography: Iraq.

Yitzhak Nakash, The Shi'is of Iraq. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. xiv, 312 pp. Re-issued with a new introduction, 2003. Said to be an important book.
DS70.8 .S55 N35 1994

Tim Niblock, ed., Iraq, the Contemporary State. New York: St. Martin's, 1982. 283 pp.

Hans J. Nissen and Peter Heine, From Mesopotamia to Iraq: A Concise History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. viii, 180 pp.

John Nixon, Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein. New York: Blue Rider Press [Penguin Random House], 2016. 239 pp. Nixon, a senior CIA analyst, interrogated Saddam Hussein after his capture. His accounts of briefing President Bush about Iraq-related issues, a few years later, are also interesting. Locations where the CIA's censors deleted material from the text are clearly marked.

Kevin Noble, and Chris Foote Wood, Baghdad Trucker: Adventures of a Truck Driver. Northern Writers, 2006. 370 pp. Noble, an Englishman, seems to have been driving trucks in the area Iraq-Syria-Turkey in the 1970s and 1980s.

Imranali Panjwani, The Shi'a of Samarra: The Heritage and Politics of a Community in Iraq. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012.

Alison Pargeter, Tribes and the State in Libya and Iraq: From the Nationalist Era to the New Order. Oxford University Press, 2024. 344 pp.

Nicolas Pelham, A New Muslim Order: The Shia and the Middle East Sectarian Crisis. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2008. xv, 272 pp. Mostly Iraq, but includes discussion of other countries.

William R. Polk, Understanding Iraq: The Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan's Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the British Mandate to the American Occupation. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 240 pp.

Simon Ponsford, Iraq. Smart Apple Media, 2008. 32 pp. For juvenile readers.

Suha Rassam, Christianity in Iraq: Its Origins and Development to the Present Day. Leominster, Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing, 2005. xxix, 203 pp.

Jeffrey Richelson, ed., Eyes on Saddam U.S. Overhead Imagery of Iraq. Electronic Briefing Book No. 88. National Security Archive, April 30, 2003.

Khaled Salih, State-making, Nation-building and the Military: Iraq 1941-1958. Göteborg University, 1996. 177 pp.

Charlie Samuel, Iraq. National Geographic, 2007. 64 pp. For juvenile readers.

Priya Satia, "The Defense of Inhumanity: Air Control and the British Idea of Arabia." American Historical Review, 111:1 (Feb 2006), pp. 16-51.

Rachel Schmidt, Global Arms Exports to Iraq, 1960-1990. N-3248-USDP. Santa Monica: Rand, 1991. 88 pp.

Reeva Spector Simon, Iraq between the Two World Wars: The Creation and Implementation of a Nationalist Ideology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. xv, 233 pp. Rev. ed. Iraq Between the Two World Wars: The Militarist Origins of Tyranny. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. xv, 235 pp. Traces patterns of attitude and belief among Iraqi military officers, with the main focus on the period up to 1941, but to some extent running from the Sharifians within the Ottoman Empire before 1918, all the way to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Reeva Spector Simon and Eleanor H. Tejirian, eds., The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

Peter Sluglett, Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country, 1914-1932. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. xvi, 328 pp. (I believe this was also published in Britain by I.B. Tauris.)

Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Iraq since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship, London and New York: KPI, 1987. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1990. xvii, 346 pp. 3d ed. London: I.B. Tauris, 2001. xxi, 390 pp.

Gareth Stansfield, Iraq: People, History, Politics. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2007. xv, 262 pp. Slightly more than half of this history of Iraq deals with events since 1979.

David Styan, France and Iraq: Oil, Arms and French Policy Making in the Middle East. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. 272 pp. The background goes back to the end of World War I, but the main part of the book deals with Franco-Iraqi relations from De Gaulle to 1990.

Tawfiq al-Suwaydi, translated by Nancy Roberts, My Memoirs: Half a Century of the History of Iraq and the Arab Cause. Lynne Rienner, 2013. 545 pp. Al-Suwaydi served as Iraq's prime minister three times (1929, 1946, 1950), as foreign minister on numerous occasions, and as ambassador to Iran, the League of Nations, and the United Nations.

Gordon Taylor, Fever & Thirst: A Missionary Doctor Amid the Christian Tribes of Kurdistan. Academy Chicago Publishers, 2005. 354 pp. The story of Asahel Grant, a doctor who went (with his family) in 1835 to the Kurdish area of the Ottoman empire, as a missionary to minister to Nestorian (Assyrian) Christians there. I am not certain whether the areas where he served later became part of Iraq.

Scott Taylor, Among the 'Others': Encounters with the Forgotten Turkmen of Iraq. Ottawa, Canada: Esprit de Corps Books, 2004. 208 pp.

Wilfred Thesiger, The Marsh Arabs. Penguin, 2008. Introduction by Jon Lee Anderson. Thesiger spent a lot of time in the marshes of southern Iraq between 1951 and 1958.

Joseph Tragert, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Iraq. Indianapolis, Indiana: Alpha (Pearson Education?), 2003. xviii, 318 pp.

Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. xvii, 311 pp. Third edition Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xxiii, 357 pp.

William F. Tucker, Mahdis and Millenarians: Shi'ite Extremists in Early Muslim Iraq. Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Reidar Visser, Basra, the Failed Gulf State: Separatism and Nationalism in Southern Iraq. Germany: Lit Verlag, 2006. 256 pp.

Reidar Visser, British Policy and Inter-Sectarian Relations in Iraq, 1914-1926: A Preliminary Study Based on Documents of the British Government. Oslo: Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, 1997. 99 pp.

Heather Lehr Wagner, Iraq. Chelsea House, 2009. 120 pp. For juvenile readers.

Ali al-Wardi (Ali Wardi) (1913-1995), an Iraqi, earned a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of Texas in 1950, and founded the Sociology Department of the University of Baghdad. He is said to have been a great scholar of Iraqi history and society. Some of his writings have been translated into English.

Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, The Paranoid Style in American Diplomacy: Oil and Arab Nationalism in Iraq. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2021. 332 pp. The struggle between international oil companies and the Iraqi government over control of Iraq's petroleum, 1958-1973, and the role of American policy, especially American anti-Communism, in that struggle.

Haifa Zangana, City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007. 169 pp. Daughter of a Kurdish father and an Arab mother, she spent some time in Syria in the late 1960s, providing medical services to Palestinians. She became a member of the Central Leadership (CL) faction of the Iraqi Communist Party; she was arrested in 1972 and imprisoned for six months. Bitterly hostile to both the Baath and the US occupation of Iraq.

 

Kurdistan and the Kurds

Mohammed M. A. Ahmed and Michael M. Gunter, eds., The Evolution of Kurdish Nationalism. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2007. xviii, 315 pp.

Mohammed M. A. Ahmed and Michael M. Gunter, eds., The Kurdish Question and International Law: An Analysis of the Legal Rights of the Kurdish People. Oakton, VA: Ahmed Foundation for Kurdish Studies, 2000. 111 pp.

Mohammed M. A. Ahmed and Michael M. Gunter, eds., The Kurdish Question and the 2003 Iraqi War. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2005. xvi, 285 pp.

Mohammed M. A. Ahmed and Michael M. Gunter, eds., The Kurdish Spring: Geopolitical Changes and the Kurds. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2013, xxv, 344 pp.

Harriet Alsopp, The Kurds of Syria. London: I. B. Tauris, 2015.

Mahir A. Aziz, The Kurds of Iraq: Nationalism and Identity in Iraqi Kurdistan. London: I. B. Tauris, 2014. 256 pp. 2nd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Ofra Bengio, Kurds of Iraq: Building a State Within a State. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2012. xi, 346 pp.

Husen Arif Beston, "The Kurdish Civil War (1994-1998) and its Consequences for the Governing System in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq," Asian Affairs 53:3 (2022), pp. 671-89.

Christiane Bird, A Thousand Sighs, a Thousand Revolts: Journeys in Kurdistan. New York: Ballantine, 2004. xxii, 405 pp. pb New York: Random House, 2005. 448 pp. Regional, not specifically Iraqi Kurdistan.

Christopher M. Blanchard, Kurds in Iraq Propose Controversial Referendum on Independence. Congressional Research Service, September 21, 2017. Very short, but includes a map showing disputed areas and lines of actual control.

Hamit Bozarslan, Cengiz Gunes, and Veli Yadirgi, eds., The Cambridge History of the Kurds. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. xxviii, 936 pp.

Marianna Charountaki, The Kurds and U.S. Foreign Policy: International Relations in the Middle East since 1945. London: Routledge, 2011.

Jessica Trisko Darden, Alexis Henshaw, and Ora Szekely, Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019. 102 pp. The struggles of the Kurds (in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq) are one of the three cases considered in this book.

Vera Eccarius-Kelly and Michael M. Gunter, eds., Kurdish Autonomy and U.S. Foreign Policy: Continuity and Change. New York: Lang, 2020.

Peter W. Galbraith, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 260 pp. Main focus is on the Kurds. Galbraith (son of John K. Galbraith) first encountered them as an SFRC staffer; assisted them in 1991; has recently been advising them.

Bryan R. Gibson, Sold Out? U.S. Foreign Policy, Iraq, the Kurds, and the Cold War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Ashley Gilbertson, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War. Introduction by Dexter Filkins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 260 pp. Gilbertson, an Australian photojournalist, was in Kurdistan when the war broke out in 2003. He went south with Kurdish troops to Mosul. The photos in this book also cover the next several years, including the Battle of Fallujah.

Michael Goldfarb, Ahmad's War, Ahmad's Peace: Surviving under Saddam, Dying in the New Iraq. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005. 354 pp. Goldfarb, a British journalist, profiles a Kurd who served as his guide in 2003, who had been a soldier in the Iraqi Army in the 1980s, and was murdered post-2003 for being too secular.
DS 79.66 .S575 G65 2005

Michael M. Gunter, The Kurds of Iraq: Tragedy and Hope. New York: St. Martin's, 1992. x, 175 pp.

Michael M. Gunter, The Kurds Acending: The Evolving Solution to the Kurdish Problem in Iraq and Turkey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. xiv, 178 pp.

Michael M. Gunter, The Kurds: A Modern History. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2016. xvii, 236 pp.

Michael M. Gunter, The Kurdish Predicament in Iraq: A Political Analysis. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. x, 181 pp.

Michael M. Gunter, Historical Dictionary of the Kurds. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2004. xxxviii, 275 pp. Second edition: Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2011. xxx, 410 pp. Third edition: Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, xxxiii, 474 pp.

Michael M. Gunter, Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War. London: Hurst, 2014. x, 169 pp.

Michael M. Gunter, ed., Routledge Handbook on the Kurds. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019. xi, 483 pp.

A.M. Hamilton, Road Through Kurdistan: Travels in Northern Iraq. Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2004. 360 pp. Hamilton arrived in Iraq in 1928 for a major road construction project.

Larry Hanauer, Jeffrey Martini, and Omar Al-Shahery, Managing Arab-Kurd tensions in Northern Iraq after the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2011. ix, 25 pp.

Rupert Hay [W.R. Hay], Two Years in Kurdistan: Experiences of a Political Officer, 1918-1920. London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1921. xii, 383 pp. Reprinted several time, most recently as: Paul J. Rich, ed., Iraq and Rupert Hay's Two Years in Kurdistan. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008. xxviii, 260 pp.

Christopher Houston, Kurdistan: Crafting of National Selves. Indiana University Press, 2008. 248 pp. Kurds in Turkey, Iran, and Iraq. My impression is that Houston's main focus is on the Kurds in Turkey.

Human Rights Watch, Iraq's Crime of Genocide: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. xxx, 373 pp.

International Crisis Group, Middle East Briefings/Reports

Iraq Legal Development Project, American Bar Association. Judicial Reform Index for Iraq: Kurdistan Supplement. October 2006. iv, 31 pp.

Wadie Jwaideh, The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development. Shyracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006. xx, 419 pp.

Isabel Kaiser, The Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement: Gender, Body Politics and Militant Femininities. Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Michael J. Kelly, Ghosts of Halabja: Saddam Hussein and the Kurdish Genocide. Greenwood, 2009. 181 pp.

Diane E. King, Kurdistan on the Global Stage: Kinship, Land, and community in Iraq. Rutgers University Press, 2013. 286 pp. An anthropological study.

Ian Klaus, Elvis is Titanic: Classroom Tales from the Other Iraq. New York: Knopf, 2007. 240 pp. Klaus taught US History and English at Salahaddin University in Arbil (Irbil), Iraqi Kurdistan, in 2005.

Kurdistan in the Time of Saddam Hussein. Staff report, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, November 1991. viii, 23 pp.
Y 4.F 76/2:S.prt.102-56 [mistakenly listed in the Clemson Library catalog as Y 4.F 76/2:S.prt.105-56]

Francois-Xavier Lovat, Kurdistan Democratic Party. London: G.I.D. Editions, (1999?). 128 pp.

David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds, rev. ed. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000. xii, 515 pp.

Kevin McKiernan, Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland. New York: St. Martin's, 2006. 390 pp. By a free-lance war correspondent.

Denise Natali, Kurds and the State: Evolving National Identity in Iraq, Turkey, and Iran. Syracuse University Press, 2005.

Denise Natali, The Kurdish Quasi-State: Development and Dependency in Post-Gulf War Iraq. Syracuse University Press, 2010. xxxiii, 158 pp.

Robert Olson, The Goat and the Butcher: Nationalism and State Formation in Kurdistan-Iraq Since the Iraqi War. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2005. xiii, 278 pp.

Stephen C. Pelletière, Kurds: An Unstable Element in the Gulf. Boulder: Westview, 1984. 250 pp.

David L. Phillips, The Kurdish Spring: A New Map of the Middle East. Transaction Publishers, 2014. 268 pp.

David Romano, The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Gordon W. Rudd, Humanitarian Intervention: Assisting the Iraqi Kurds in Operation Provide Comfort, 1991. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2004. xvi, 280 pp.
D 101. 2: K 96/ 2

Mohammed Shareef, The United States, Iraq and the Kurds: Shock, Awe and Aftermath. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014. xv, 234 pp.

Gareth R.V. Stansfield, Iraqi Kurdistan: Political Development and Emergent Democracy. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003. xvi, 261 pp.

Mike [Michael James] Tucker, Hell Is Over: Voices of the Kurds After Saddam. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press (Globe Pequot Press), 2004. xxii, 183 pp.

Yaniv Voller, Second-Generation Liberation Wars: Rethinkng Colonialism in Iraqi Kurdistan and Souther Sudan. Cambridge University Press, 2022. 304 pp.

Nicole F. Watts, Republic of Dreams: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Struggles, and the Future of Iraqi Kurdistan. New York: NYU Press, 2025. 352 pp.

Stefan Wolff, "Governing (in) Kirkuk: Resolving the Status of a Disputed Territory in Post-American Iraq," International Affairs 86:6 (2010), 1361-79.

Kerim Yildiz, The Kurds in Iraq: The Past, Present and Future. Rev. ed. Pluto Press, 2007. 294 pp.

 

The Baath (Ba'th) Party and Regime, and Saddam Hussein

Said Aburish, Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge. New York: Bloomsbury, 2000; pb Trafalgar Square, 2001.

James R. Arnold, Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Minneapolis, MN: Twenty-First Century Books (Lerner), 2009. 160 pp. For young readers.

Paul Avey, Tempting Fate: Why Nonnuclear States Confront Nuclear Opponents. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019. Saddam Hussein's confrontations with the United States are one of the four cases considered.

Netanel Avneri, "The Iraqi Coups of July 1968 and the American Connection," Middle Eastern Studies 51:4 (2015), pp. 649-63.

Tariq Aziz, The Revolution of the New Way. Baghdad: Arab Ba'th Socialist Party, 1977. 95 pp.

Shiva Balaghi, Saddam Hussein: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006. xv, 177 pp.

Amatzia Baram, Saddam Husayn and Islam, 1968-2003: Ba`thi Iraq from Secularism to Faith. Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. 495 pp.

Ala Bashir, The Insider: Trapped in Saddam's Brutal Regime. New York: Little, Brown, 2005. 327 pp. Bashir was Saddam Hussein's personal physician from 1983 to 2003.

Ofra Bengio, Saddam's Word: Political Discourse in Iraq. Oxford and New York: Oxford U.P., 1998. pb 2002. xiii, 266 pp.

Lisa Blaydes, State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. xix, 354 pp.

Béatrice Bouvet and Patrick Denaud, Tarek Aziz: Le diplomate de Saddam Hussein. Paris: l'Harmattan, 2000. 209 pp. Interviews with Tariq Aziz, Iraqi foreign minister and later vice-premier.

Hal Brands, "Making the Conspiracy Theorist a Prophet: Covert Action and the Contours of United States-Iraq Relations," International History Review 33:3 (September 2011), pp. 381-408. Argues that US support for Kurds in the 1970s, and US dealings with Iran in the 1980s, contributed to Saddam Hussein's distrust of the United States.

Hal Brands and David Palkki, "'Conspiring Bastards': Saddam Hussein's Strategic View of the United States." Diplomatic History, 36:3 (June 2012), pp. 625-59.

John Bulloch and Harvey Morris, Saddam's War: The Origins of the Kuwait Conflict and the International Response. London and Boston: Faber & Faber, 1991. xviii, 194 pp. Covers Saddam Hussein's political career, and the crisis of 1990-91. Apparently the authors were able to interview Saddam Hussein.

Malcolm Byrne, ed., Saddam Hussein: More Secret History. Electronic Briefing Book No. 107. National Security Archive, December 18, 2003. Two British Documents (1969) and nine American documents (1975-1988) on Saddam Hussein and relations with him.

CARDRI (Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq) (Fran Hazelton, U. Zaher, et al.), Saddam's Iraq: Revolution or Reaction?, 2d ed. London: Zed Books, 1989. xix, 266 pp.

Steve Coll, The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2024 (forthcoming). 576 pp.

Con Coughlin, Saddam: The Secret Life. London: Macmillan, 2002. xxxiv, 350 pp.

Con Coughlin, Saddam: King of Terror. New York: Ecco, 2002. xxxiv, 350 pp. Probably just a different title for the above item.

Con Coughlin, Saddam: King of Terror. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press, 2003. 735 pp.

Con Coughlin, Saddam: His Rise and Fall. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 448 pp.

Eric Davis, Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq. Berkeley: U. of California Press, 2005. xiii, 385 pp. How the Ba'th regime tried to shape perceptions of Iraq's history and cultural heritage.

Patrick Denaud, Irak, la guerre permanente: Entretiens avec Tarek Aziz. Paris: Félin, 2002. 237 pp. Interviews with Tariq Aziz, Iraqi foreign minister and later vice-premier.

Aaron M. Faust, "The The Ba'thification of Iraq: Saddam Hussein and the Ba'th Party's System of Control". Ph.D. dissertation, Boston University, 2012.

Carl Forsberg, "Iraq, the United States, and the Long Shadow of the Cold War," Cold War History, April 2019, pp. 1-20. For a rather negative review of this article by Brandon Wolfe-Hunnicutt, see https://issforum.org/reviews/PDF/AR908.pdf.

Samuel Helfont Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam, and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. xii, 290 pp.

Samuel Helfont, "Authoritarianism Beyond Borders: The Iraqi Ba'th Party as a Transnational Actor," The Middle East Journal, 72:2 (2018), pp. 229-45.

Samuel Helfont, "Saddam and the Islamists: The Ba'thist Regime's Instrumentalization of Religion in Foreign Affairs," The Middle East Journal, 68:3 (2014), pp. 352-66.

Saddam Hussein, Social and Foreign Affairs in Iraq. London: Croom Helm, 1979. 123 pp. A collection of speeches by Saddam Hussein, 1971 to 1977, translated by Khalid Kishtainy.

The Iraqi Documents: A Glimpse into the Regime of Saddam Hussein. Hearing, April 16, 2006, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, House Committee on International Relations. iii, 39 pp. Serial No. 109-184.

Efraim Karsh and Inari Rautsi, Saddam Hussein: A Political Biography. New York: Free Press/Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan Canada, 1991. v, 309 pp. Grove Press, 2002. 320 pp.

Samir al-Khalil (pseud.), Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. xvii, 310 pp. Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam's Iraq. New York: Pantheon, 1990. xxxi, 310 pp. This book has more recently been published under the author's real name, Kanan Makiya (see below).

Juman Kubba, The First Evidence: A Memoir of Life in Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2003. xi, 187 pp.

Sandra Mackey, The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein. New York: Norton, 2002. pb New York: Norton, 2003. 427 pp.

Kanan Makiya, Republic of Fear. Updated ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. xxxvi, 323 pp. Originally published in 1989 under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil (see above).

Kanan Makiya, Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World. New York: Norton, 1993. 367 pp. Denounces the failure of intellectuals to speak out against Saddam Husain.

Weldon C. Matthews, "The Kennedy Administration and Arms Transfers to Ba thist Iraq," Diplomatic History 43:3 (June 2019), pp. 469-492.

Middle East Watch, Human Rights in Iraq. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. xiv, 164 pp.

Turin Munthe, ed., The Saddam Hussein Reader: Selections from Leading Writers on Iraq. Basic Books, 2002. 400 pp.

Jeffrey Richelson, ed., Saddam's Iron Grip: Intelligence Reports on Saddam Hussein's Reign. Electronic Briefing Book No. 167. National Security Archive, October 18, 2005. Fifteen US government documents, mostly declassified intelligence reports.

Paul William Roberts, The Demonic Comedy: Some Detours in the Baghdad of Saddam Hussein. Canada: Stoddart, 1997. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998. ix, 294 pp. Roberts, a British journalist and writer, managed to get into Iraq in 1990 by attaching himself to the Egyptian delegation going there for an Arab summit. He returned during the 1991 war, paying smugglers to get him from Jordan into Iraq. He went for a third time, by invitation of the Iraqi government, in 1995.

Achim Rohde, State-Society Relations in Ba'thist Iraq: Facing Dictatorship. London and New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2010. xii, 255 pp.

Georges Sada with Jim Nelson Black, Saddam's Secrets: How an Iraqi General Defied and Survived Saddam Hussein. Brentwood, TN: Integrity Publishers, 2006. xvi, 315 pp.

The Saddam Files, a collection of materials captured in Iraq by US forces, has been placed online in the Wilson Center Digital Archive, Washington, DC.

Saddam Hussein Collection. The Conflict Records Research Center, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, has a large collection of Iraqi records captured during the American occupation of Iraq. Descriptions of the collection and a few sample documents have been placed online.

Jean Sasson, Daughter of Iraq: Mayada: One Woman's Survival Under Saddam Hussein. New York: Dutton, 2003. pb New York: New American Library (Penguin), 2004. xxi, 321 pp.

Joseph Sassoon, Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 336 pp.

Wendell Steavenson, The Weight of a Mustard Seed: The Intimate Story of an Iraqi General and His Family During Thirty Years of Tyranny. New York: Collins, 2009. 288 pp. General Kamel Sachet.

Jo Tatchell, Nabeel's Song: A Family Story of Survival in Iraq. Doubleday, 2007. 368 pp. Nabeel Yasin, a leading Iraq poet, went into exile in 1980 after the Baath declared him an enemy of the state.

Katelyn Karly Tietzen, "The Iraqi Quest for Autonomy through Military and Diplomatic Interventions, 1968-2003," Ph.D. dissertation, Kansas State University, 2019. DA 27548857.

Keven M. Woods and Mark E. Stout, "New Sources for the Study of Iraqi Intelligence during the Saddam Era," Intelligence and National Security, 25:4 (August 2010), pp. 547-87.

Keven M. Woods with James Lacey, Iraqi Perspectives Project: Primary Source Materials for Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents, Vols. 1–5, IDA Paper P-4287 (Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses November 2007). All five volumes are available online, somewhat sanitized, through Internet Archive and also on a Federation of American Scientists web site.

Kevin M. Woods, David D. Palkki, and Mark E. Stout, eds., The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tryrant's Regime, 1978-2001. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xx, 372 pp.

Latif Yahia and Karl Wendl, I Was Saddam's Son. Arcade Publishing, 1997. 256 pp. Yahia served from 1997 to 1991 as a double for Saddam Hussein's son Uday Hussein.

Latif Yahia and Karl Wendl, The Devil's Double. Arrow Books, 2010. 336 pp. I don't know whether this was just a new title for the previous item, or whether it was significantly revised.

 

The Iran-Iraq War, and US Involvement in It

T. Abdulrazaq, "Saddam's Qadissiya: The Evolution of Iraqi Operational Warfare During the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Exeter, 2021, DA 29104571.

Ghazi A. Algosaibi [Qusaybi], The Gulf Crisis: An Attempt to Understand. London and New York: Kegan Paul, 1993. 156 pp. The authow was an official of the saudi government.

Syed A. Ashraf, Mediation in Iran-Iraq War. Delhi: Bhavna Prakashan, 1992. 94 pp.

Nigel Ashton and Bryan R. Gibson, The Iran-Iraq War: New International Perspectives. London and New York: Routledge, 2013. xiii, 245 pp.

Tareq Aziz [Tariq Aziz], The Iraq-Iran Conflict: Questions and Discussions. Translated by Naji Al-Hadithi. London: Third World Center/Baghdad: Translation and Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1981. 89 pp.

Tariq Aziz, On Arab-Iranian relations: to avoid confusing the issues, keeping the facts secret, and letting the conspiracy pass unnoticed. Baghdad: Ministry of Culture and Information, 1980. 60 pp.

Narges Bajoghli and Amir Moosavi, eds., Debating the Iran-Iraq War in Contemporary Iran. Routledge, 2018.

Paul Balta, Iran-Irak: une guerre de 5000 ans. Paris: Anthropos, 1987. 315 pp.

Abol Hassan Bani-Sadr [Abu al-Hasan Bani Sadr], My Turn to Speak: Iran, the Revolution & Secret Deals with the U.S.. Washington: Brassey's, 1991. xiv, 224 pp. From a series of interviews by Jean-Charles Deniau.

Joyce Battle, ed., Shaking Hands with Saddam Hussein: The U.S. Tilts toward Iraq, 1980-1984. Electronic Briefing Book No. 82. National Security Archive, February 25, 2003. Sixty documents dated 1980 to 1984, and one dated 1995.

Ronald E. Bergquist, The Role of Airpower in the Iran-Iraq War. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1988. x, 94 pp.

James G. Blight, Janet M. Lang, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman, Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988. Plymouth, United Kingdom: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012. xiv, 394 pp.

Imtiaz H. Bokhari, Management of Third World Crises in Adverse Partnerships: Theory and Practice. Karachi and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. xx, 333 pp. Looks at the world response to three crises: the 1971 India-Pakistan conflict, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War.

John Bulloch and Harvey Morris, The Gulf War: Its Origins, History, and Consequences. London: Methuen, 1989. xxi, 309 pp.

The Central Intelligence Agency has placed a number of declassified intelligence reports online, more or less sanitized. Some examples:

Shahram Chubin and Charles Tripp, Iran and Iraq at War. London: I.B. Tauris, 1988. v, 318 pp. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1988. New York: Routledge, 2018.

Tom Cooper and Farzad Bishop, Iran-Iraq War in the Air, 1980-1988. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2000. 304 pp.

Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iran-Iraq War and Western Security, 1984-87: Strategic Implications and Policy Options. London and New York: Jane's, 1987. xxviii, 185 pp.

Anthony H. Cordesman, The Gulf and the West: Strategic Relations and Military Realities. Boulder, CO: Westview Press/London: Mansell, 1988. xxv, 526 pp.

Anthony H. Cordesman and Abraham R. Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. II, The Iran-Iraq War. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1990. xxii, 647 pp.

David Crist, Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran. New York: Penguin, 2012. 638 pp.

Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., with David Chanoff, Line of Fire: From Washington to the Gulf, the Politics and Battles of the New Military. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993. 367 pp. Includes Iran-Iraq War.

Andrea De Guttry and Natalino Ronzitti, eds., The Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) and the Law of Naval Warfare. Cambridge, England: Grotius Publications, 1993. xxiv, 573 pp.

Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, ed., The Iraq-Iran War: Issues of Conflict and Prospects for Settlement: Proceedings of a Seminar. Princeton, NJ: Center of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University, 1981. i, 119 pp.

Jerome Donovan, The Iran-Iraq War: Antecedents and Conflict Escalation. London and New York: Routledge, 2011. xiv, 153 pp.

Nadia El-Sayed El-Shazly, The Gulf Tanker War: Iran and Iraq's Maritime Swordplay. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. xxi, 403 pp.

Nicola Firzli, ed., The Iraq-Iran Conflict. Paris: Editions du Monde Arabe, 1981. 335 pp. Fench original Le conflit Irako-Iranien. Paris: Editions du Monde Arabe, 1981.

Foreign Office Files for the Middle East, 1971-1981, Section III, 1979-1981: The Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. Adam Matthew (Sage), 2017. Documents scanned from the United Kingdom's National Archives. An Archives Direct collection; libraries can purchase online access.

Rick Francona, Ally to Adversary: An Eyewitness Account of Iraq's Fall from Grace. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1999. xx, 186 pp. Francona was involved in US assistance to Iraq 1987-88, then was personal interpreter to Norman Scharzkopf during Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Henner Fürtig, Iran's Rivalry with Saudi Arabia between the Gulf Wars. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press, 2002. xviii, 288 pp. Relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia from 1980 to 1991.

Daniel F. Geller and J. David Singer, Nations at War: A Scientific Study of International Conflict. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. xi, 242 pp. A mathematical model with two case studies: World War I and the Iran/Iraq War.

Bryan R. Gibson, Covert Relationship: American Foreign Policy, Intelligence, and the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988. Praeger, 2010. 291 pp. Do not be misled by the description on Amazon.com, which I would have thought would have come from the publisher, which attributes to the book a remarkably silly statement that Gibson assures me was not actually in the book.

A Glance at Two Years of War. (Tehran?): Political Office, Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, (1983?). 174 pp. (Farsi original Guzari bar du sal-i jang.)

John Glenn and John Warner, Persian Gulf: Report to the Majority Leader, United States Senate, from Senator John Glenn and Senator John Warner on their trip to the Persian Gulf May 27-June 4, 1987. v, 36 pp.
Y 4.AR 5/3:S.prt.100-38

Stephen R. Grummon, The Iran-Iraq War: Islam Embattled. Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University / New York: Praeger, 1982. viii, 103 pp.

Dilip Hiro, The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict. London: Grafton Books, 1989. xxiii, 312 pp. New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 1991. xxiv, 323 pp.

House Committee on Armed Services

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

House Committee on Government Operations

Cameron R. Hume, The United Nations, Iran, and Iraq: How Peacemaking Changed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. 285 pp.

Saddam Hussein, Saddam Hussein on the Conflict with Iran: A Press Conference Held on 10 Nov. 1980. London: Embassy of the Republic of Iraq, Press Office, (1980?). 58 pp.

Saddam Hussein, Thus We Should Fight Persians. Baghdad: Dar al-Ma'mun for Translation and Pub., 1983. 107 pp. Translated by Naji Al-Hadithi, from Hakadha yanbaghi an nugatila al-Furs.

Saddam Hussein, President Hussein Interviewed by Kuwaiti Press on Gulf War, February 20, 1988. Baghdad: Dar al-Ma'mun for Translation and Pub., 1988. 93 pp.

"Iran-Iraq War" A collection of documents in English translation, mostly transcripts of meetings between Saddam Hussein and senior Iraqi military officers, dealing with the Iran-Iraq War. The documents have been placed online by the National Defense University's Conflict Records Research Center and the Digital Archive of the Cold War International History Project.

Iraq's Use of Chemical Weapons against Iran: UN Documents. Tehran: Foundation of Preservation of Works and Dissemination of Values of Holy Defense, 2007. 192, 40 pp.

E. R. Hooton, Tom Cooper, and Farzin Nadimi, The Iran-Iraq War. Solihull, West Midlands, England: Helion, 2016-2018. Extensively illustrated.

Bruce W. Jentleson, With Friends Like These: Reagan, Bush, and Saddam, 1982-1990. New York: Norton, 1994. 300 pp.

Christopher C. Joyner, ed., The Persian Gulf War: Lessons for Strategy, Law, and Diplomacy. New York: Greenwood Press, 1990. x, 256 pp.

Salah Kabadaya [Qabadaya], Desert Storm: Arab Point of View. Medina, Saudi Arabia: al-Madinah Printing Co., (1991?). 237 pp.

Efraim Karsh, The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988. Oxford: Osprey, 2002. 95 pp.

Efraim Karsh, The Iran-Iraq War. New York: Rosen, 2009. 96 pp.

Majid Khadduri, The Gulf War: The Origins and Implications of the Iraq-Iran Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. viii, 236 pp.

Ralph King, The Iran-Iraq War: The Political Implications. London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1987. 76 pp.

Charles Kurzman, "Death Tolls of the Iran-Iraq War." Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 2022. Argues that the death tolls were lower than the estimates of some scholars, "may even have been lower than the government figures of 250,000 Iraqi fatalities and 155,000 Iranian fatalities."

David Lesch, ed., The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political Reassessment. Boulder: Westview Press, 2007.

Jeffrey L. Levinson, Missile Inbound: The Attack on the Stark in the Persian Gulf. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997. 147 pp.

Gary E. McCuen, ed., Iran Iraq War. Hudson, Wisconsin: G.E. McCuen, 1987. 136 pp.

Mohammed H. Malek, ed., International Mediation and the Gulf War. Glasgow, Scotland: Royston, 1991. 202 pp.

Peter Mantius, Shell Game: A True Story of Banking, Spies, Lies, Politics--and the Arming of Saddam Hussein. New York: St. Martin's, 1995. xvi, 288 pp. How Iraqi weapons purchases during the 1980s were financed by the Atlanta branch of the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro (BNL).

Hanss W. Maull and Otto Pick, eds., The Gulf War: Regional and International Dimensions. New York: St. Martin's, 1989. ix, 203 pp.

David Menashri, Iran: A Decade of War and Revolution. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1990. xvi, 410 pp.

Richard A. Mobley, "Fighting Iran: Intelligence Support During Operation Earnest Will, 1987–88" Studies in Intelligence 60:3 (September 2016), pp. 1-12. The source notes identify numerous declassified intelligence reports clearly enough that a reader should be able locate the texts of the reports.

Golam Mostafa, The Gulf War: The Issues Revisited. Dhaka: Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies, 1987. 71 pp.

Williamson Murray and Kevin M. Woods, The Iran-Iraq War: A Military and Strategic History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. xiv, 397 pp.

Thomas Naff, ed., Gulf Security and the Iran-Iraq War. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press / Philadelphia, PA: Middle East Research Institute, 1985. xvi, 193 pp.

Martin S. Navias and E.R. Hooton, Tanker Wars: The Assault on Merchant Shipping During the Iran-Iraq Conflict, 1980-1988. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 1996. ix, 244 pp.

Edgar O'Ballance, The Gulf War. London and Washington: Brassey's Defense Publishers, 1988. xx, 232 pp.

Toby Michael Orford, The Iran-Iraq Conflict: Recent Developments in the International Law of Naval Engagements. Cape Town: Institute of Marine Law, University of Cape Town, 1988. 165 pp.

Our Tyrannized Cities: Statistical Survey of Aggressions of Baathist Regime of Iraq Against Iranian Cities and Residential Areas. Tehran: War Information Headquarters, Supreme Defense Council, 1983. 117 pp.

Michael E. Palmer, On Course to Desert Storm: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1992. Contributions to Naval History, No. 5. xxii, 201 pp. Mainly covers the period from 1946 to 1988; the first few pages go back to the 19th century.

Stephen C. Pelletiere, The Iran-Iraq War: Chaos in a Vacuum. New York: Praeger, 1992. xiv, 167 pp.

Stephen C. Pelletiere, Douglas V. Johnson II, and Leif R. Rosenberger, Iraqi Power and U.S. Security in the Middle East. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1990. xi, 95 pp.

Stephen C. Pelletiere and Douglas V. Johnson II, Lessons Learned: The Iran-Iraq War. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 1991. xii, 119 pp.

Bradley Peniston, No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. xvi, 275 pp. The guided missile frigate Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58) was badly damagd by an Iranian mine on April 14, 1988.

Mark Phythian, Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam's War Machine. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997. xxvii, 325 pp.

Farhang Rajaee, ed., The Iran-Iraq War: The Politics of Aggression. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993. vii, 245 pp.

Farhang Rajaee, ed., Iranian Perspectives on the Iran-Iraq War. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. 168 pp.

Wafik Raouf, Irak-Iran: des véritées inavouées. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1985. 100 pp.

Pierre Razoux, The Iran-Iraq War. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press (Harvard), 2015. xviii, 640 pp. Translated from the French by Nicholas Elliott. French original La guerre Iran-Irak, 1980-1988: première guerre du Golfe. Paris: Perrin, 2013. 604 pp.

Carol R. Saivetz, The Soviet Union and the Gulf in the 1980s. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1989. xi, 139 pp.

Nizar Fadhil al-Samarra'i, The Iraq-Iran Conflict: A Reading between the Lines. Baghdad: Dar al-Ma'mun for Translation and Pub., 1982. 68 pp.

Annie Tracy Samuel, The Unfinished History of the Iran-Iraq War: Faith, Firepower, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards. Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Senate Committee on Appropriations

Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

R.C. Sharma, ed., Perspectives on Iran-Iraq Conflict. New Delhi: Rajesh Publications, 1984. vi, 211 pp.

Behrouz Souresrafil, The Iran-Iraq War. Plainview, NY: Guinan Lithographic Co., 1989. 171 pp.

Sreedhar, Iraq-Iran War. New Delhi: ABC Publishing House, 1985. 234 pp.

Sreedhar and Kapil Kaul, Tanker War: Aspect of Iraq-Iran War, 1980-88. New Delhi: ABC Publishing House, 1989. 143 pp.

Bernard Stroiazzo-Mougin, avec François Cote, La manipulation Kerbala. Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1993. 225 pp. I believe this is about French weapons sales to Iraq.

Craig L. Symonds, Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History. New York: Oxford UP, 2005. xvii, 378 pp. Chapter 5, "Operation Praying Mantis: The Persian Gulf, April 18, 1988" (pp. 263-320), is in fact a much broader look at USN involvement in the Iran-Iraq War than the title suggests.

Shirin Tahir-Kheli and Shaheen Ayubi, eds., The Iran-Iraq War: New Weapons, Old Conflicts. New York: Praeger, 1983. xiii, 210 pp.

Caitlin Talmadge, "The Puzzle of Personalist Performance: Iraqi Battlefield Effectiveness in the Iran-Iraq War," Security Studies 22:2 (April 2013), 180-221.

Abdel-Majid Trab Zemzemi, La guerre Irak-Iran: islam et nationalismes. Paris: Albatros, 1985. 283 pp.

Anthony Tucker-Jones, Iran-Iraq War: The Lion of Babylon, 1980-1988. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword, 2018. 136 pp.

George K. Walker, The Tanker War, 1980-88: Law and Policy. Newport, Rhode Island: Naval War College, 2000. xiv, 640 pp.

A Timothy Warnock, Short of War: Major USAF Contingency Operations. Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program/Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 2000. xxix, 274 pp.

Caspar Weinberger, Fighting for Peace: Seven Critical Years in the Pentagon. Grand Central Publishing, 1990. 500 pp. Weinberger was Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1987.

Harold Wise, Inside the Danger Zone: The U.S. Military in the Persian Gulf, 1987-1988. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007. xiii, 272 pp.

Kevin M. Woods, Williamson Murray, and Thomas Holaday, with Mounir Elkhamri, Saddam's War: An Iraqi Military Perspective of the Iran-Iraq War. McNair Paper 70. Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 2009. xv, 147 pp. Based on interviews with Iraqi Lieutenant General Ra'ad Hamdani (Ra'd Majid Hamadani).

Kevin M. Woods et al., Saddam's Generals: Perspectives of the Iran-Iraq War. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2011. vii, 214 pp.

W. Thom Workman, The Social Origins of the Iran-Iraq War. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1994. x, 179 pp.

Lee Allen Zatarain, Tanker War: America's First War With Iran, 1987-1988. Casemate, 2009. 448 pp. pb America's First Clash With Iran: The Tanker War, 1987-88. Casemate, 2010. 432 pp

The Vincennes Incident. On July 3, 1988, the Aegis guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes mistook a civilian airliner for an Iranian military aircraft, and shot it down over the Persian Gulf.

The "Iran-Contra" Affair. In 1985 and 1986, despite an overall policy of leaning to the Iraqi side in the Iran-Iraq War, developed a covert operation that involved providing weapons indirectly to Iran. But this affair was complex enough, and had little enough to do with Iraq, that I have not tried to cover it in this bibliography.

 

Works Covering Both US - Iraq Wars, 1991 and 2003-

Lester H. Brune, The United States & Two Gulf Wars: Prelude & Aftermath. Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 2007. 394 pp.

John Davis, ed., Presidential Policies and the Road to the Second Iraq War: From Forty One to Forty Three. Ashgate, 2006. 326 pp.

Andrew Davison, Conquering hearts and minds the official American ideology for war in the Persian/Arabian Gulf, 1990-2003. Sisli, Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2005. xxiv, 297 pp.

Kenton J. Falerios, "Give Me Something I Can't Do": The History of the 82nd Military Police Company from WWI to the Iraq War. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2007. ix, 179 pp. Desert Shield/Desert Storm is pp. 111-122; Operation Iraqi Freedom is pp. 133-150. Falerios participated in both.

Jean Fleury, Les guerres du Golfe: espoir ou chaos. Paris: Picollec, 2009. 252 pp. Covers both US-Iraq wars.

Pierre Marie Gallois, Le sang du pétrole: guerres d'Irak, 1990-2003. Lausanne, Suisse: Age d'homme, 2003. 341 pp.

Richard N. Haass, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009. 336 pp. Haass was on the National Security Council staff 1989-1993, and was director of policy planning at the State Department 2001-2003.

Gary R. Hess, Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and Iraq. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. xiv, 262 pp. This is a revised edition of Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001. xiv, 262 pp.

Alex Roberto Hybel and Justin Matthew Kaufman, The Bush Administrations and Saddam Hussein: Deciding on Conflict. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. xvi, 192 pp.

Michael Knights, Cradle of Conflict: Iraq and the Birth of the Modern U.S. Military. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. xxiii, 462 pp. Both US-Iraq Wars, and detailed coverage of the operations in between.

Penny L. Lauck-Dunlop, "Marketing War: A Case Study Comparison of Wars Between the United States and Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Auburn University, 2008. UMI 3317328. xi, 151 pp.

Henry Laurens, L'Orient arabe à l'heure américaine: de la guerre du Golfe à la guerre d'Irak. Paris: Armand Colin, 2004. 302 pp.

Boughdadi Mohammed [Mohamed], La guerre et l'après-guerre: iraquo-occidentales, de 1991 à 2003: la doctrine du mensonge où la fin justifie les moyens. Morocco, 2003. 242 pp.

Lt. Col. John A. Nagl (Ret.), Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice. New York: Penguin, 2014. 269 pp. Nagl served as and Army officer in both US-Iraq wars, and also became an influential thinker on counterinsurgency (see his book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife above).

Orrin Schwab, The Gulf Wars and the United States: Shaping the Twenty-first Century. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2009. x, 167 pp.

Keith L. Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America's Military Revolution. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. xi, 249 pp.

Laura Sjoberg, Gender, Justice, and the Wars in Iraq: A Feminist Reformulation of Just War Theory. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006. xi, 265 pp.

Stephen Tanner, Wars of the Bushes: A Father and Son as Military Leaders. Philadelphia: Casemate , 2004. ix, 297 pp.

Alexander Thompson, Channels of Power: The UN Security Council and U.S. Statecraft in Iraq. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009. x, 261 pp. Covers both of the US-Iraq wars.

 

The First US - Iraq War: Desert Shield and Desert Storm (1990-1991)

Overall Desert Storm and Miscellaneous

Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM: Bibliography. Historical Resources Branch, US Army Center of Military History

Thomas B. Allen, F. Clifton Berry, and Norman Polmar, War in the Gulf. Atlanta: Turner Publishing/Kansas City, MO: Andrews & McMeel, 1991. 240 pp.

Rep. Les Aspin and Rep. William Dickinson, Defense for a New Era: Lessons of the Persian Gulf War. Washington, DC: Brassey's, 1992. xxvii, 93 pp. Originally published Washington, DC: GPO, 1992. xv, 89 pp.

James A. Baker, III, with Thomas M. DeFrank, The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War & Peace, 1989-1992. New York: Putnam, 1995. xvi, 687 pp. Baker was US Secretary of State.

Ian Bickerton, Michael Pearson, et al., 43 Days: The Gulf War. East Melbourne, Australia: Text Pub. Co. in association with ABC Books, 1991. 249 pp.

Alberto Bin, Richard Hill, and Archer Jones, Desert Storm: A Forgotten War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. xviii, 282 pp.

Major James Blackwell USA (ret.), Thunder in the Desert: The Strategy and Tactics of the Persian Gulf War. New York: Bantam, 1991. xxxiii, 252 pp.

Herbert H. Blumberg, The Persian Gulf War: Views from the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1993. 638 pp.

Lester H. Brune, America and the Iraqi Crisis, 1990-1992: Origins and Aftermath. Claremont, CA: Regina Books, 1993. 208 pp.

George Bush and Brent Scowcroft, A World Transformed. New York: Knopf, 1998. xiv, 590 pp.

David Campbell, Politics Without Principle: Sovereignty, Ethics, and the Narratives of the Gulf War. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993. vii, 120 pp.

Susan Canady et. al., TRADOC Support to Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm: A Preliminary Study. Fort Monroe, VA: Office of the Command Historian, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command, 1992. xi, 101 pp.

Rodney P. Carlisle, Persian Gulf War. New York: Facts on File, 2003. xvi, 160 pp. For young readers. rev. ed. New York: Facts on File, 2010. xvi, 160 pp.

Ted Galen Carpenter, ed., America Entangled: The Persian Gulf Crisis and Its Consequences. Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1991. 117 pp.

Norman Cigar, "Did Iraq Expect a Nuclear Desert Storm? Deterrence, Paradigms, and Operational Culture in a Weapons of Mass Destruction Environment," War in History 21:3 (July 2014), pp. 274-301.

Peter Cipkowski, Understanding the Crisis in the Persian Gulf. New York: Wiley, 1992. 179 pp.

Ramsey Clark, The Fire This Time: U.S. War Crimes in the Gulf. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1992. xxvii, 325 pp.

Ramsey Clark et. al., War Crimes: A Report on United States War Crimes Against Iraq. Washington, D.C.: Maisonneuve Press, 1992. xi, 281 pp.

Conduct of the Persian Gulf War. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 1992. xxxi, 824 pp.
D 1.2:P 43/2

Scott W. Conrad, Moving the Force: Desert Storm and Beyond. McNair Paper 32. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, 1994. iv, 81 pp.

Rhonda Cornum, as told to Peter Copeland, She Went to War: The Rhonda Cornum Story. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1992. 203 pp. Major Rhonda Cornum, a flight surgeon with an Army helicopter unit, was captured by Iraqi forces when a helicopter was shot down.

Cecil V. Crabb, Jr., Glenn J. Antizzo, and Leila E. Sarieddine, Congress and the Foreign Policy Process: Modes of Legislative Behavior. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000. There are two chapters on the crisis of 1990-91.

Adel Darwish and Gregory Alexander, Unholy Babylon: The Secret History of Saddam's War. New York: St. Martin's, 1991. xvi, 335 pp.

Peter David, Triumph in the Desert: The Challenge, the Fighting, the Legacy. New York: Random House, 1991. 209 pp. Foreword by General Colin L. Powell.

Peter A. Davis and John Arquilla, Deterring or Coercing Opponents in Crisis: Lessons from the War with Saddam Hussein. R-4111-JS. Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1991. xix, 100 pp.

Defense Issues. Public statements by top officials, texts published by the Defense Department. Full texts online at Hathi Trust.

Vice Admiral William A. Dougherty, "Storm from Space," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, 118:8 (August 1992), pp. 48-52. The role of space-based systems in Desert Storm.

James F. Dunnigan and Austin Bay, From Shield to Storm: High-tech Weapons, Military Strategy, and Coalition Warfare in the Persian Gulf. New York: Morrow, 1992. 512 pp.

Trevor N. Dupuy, Curt Johnson, David L. Bongard, and Arnold C. DuPuy, How to Defeat Saddam Hussein: Scenarios and Strategies for the Gulf War. New York: Warner, 1991. 202 pp.

L. Benjamin Ederington and Michael J. Mazarr, eds., Turning Point: The Gulf War and U.S. Military Strategy. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994. xiv, 290 pp.

Hassan A. El-Najjar, The Gulf War, Overreaction & Excessiveness. Dalton, GA: Amazone Press, 2001. x, 360 pp.

Jean B. Elshtain, et al., But Was It Just? Reflections on the Morality of the Persian Gulf War. New York: Random House, 1992. Six philosophers.

Jeffrey Engel, ed., Into the Desert: Reflections on the Gulf War. Oxford University Press, 2012. 240 pp.

Alastair Finlan, The Gulf War 1991. New York: Routledge / Oxford: Osprey, 2003. 95 pp.

Alastair Finlan, The Gulf War of 1991. New York: Rosen, 2009. 96 pp.

Lawrence Freedman and Efraim Karsh, The Gulf Conflict, 1990-1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. xxxv, 504 pp. Paperback 1995.

Norman Friedman, Desert Victory: The War for Kuwait. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991. viii, 435 pp.

Otto Friedrich, ed., Desert Storm: The War in the Persian Gulf. "By the editors of Time Magazine." Boston: Little, Brown, 1991. 232 pp.

From the Editors of Military History Magazine, Desert Storm. Foreword by Harry G. Summers, Jr. Leesburg, VA: Empire Press/Charlottesville, VA: Howell Press, 1991. 176 pp.

"Frontline" Oral Histories. The PBS documentary series "Frontline" has made available a collection of oral histories of key people involved in this war, compiled during the research for one or more programs. Each of the links below goes to the first page of a multi-page oral history; just keep hitting the "more" button at the bottom of each page to move on to the next.

General John R. Galvin, Fighting the Cold War: A Soldier's Memoir. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Chapter 33, "The First Gulf War," is pp. 404-413. Galvin, as Commander in Chief, United States European Command, was responsible for providing a great deal of support for the US forces in the Middle East.

Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E Trainor, The Generals' War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf. Boston: Back Bay Books (Little, Brown), 1995. xv, 551 pp. DS 79.72 .G67 1995

Stephen R. Graubard, Mr. Bush's War: Adventures in the Politics of Illusion. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992. xvi, 208 pp.

Steven Greffenius, The Logic of Conflict: Making War and Peace in the Middle East. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1993. xvi, 202 pp. This deals mostly with Arab-Isreali conflicts, but there is one chapter on the 1990-91 crisis involving Iraq.

William Head and Earl H. Tilford, Jr., eds., The Eagle in the Desert: Looking Back on U.S. Involvement in the Persian Gulf War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996. xix, 350 pp.

Samuel Helfont, "Catalyst of History: Francis Fukuyama, the Iraq War, and the Legacies of 1989 in the Middle East," in Piotr H. Kosicki and Kyrill Kunakhovich, eds., The Long 1989: Decades of Global Revolution. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2019. x, 284 pp. I have not seen this essay, but I have the impression it argues that the Bush administration was unduly optimistic that democratic forces would win control of Iraq without the need for American forces first to march on Baghdad and overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Roger Hilsman, George Bush vs. Saddam Hussein: Military Success! Political Failure? Novato, CA: Presidio, 1992. xiv, 273 pp.

Dilip Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War. New York: Routledge, 1992. 591 pp.

E. R. Hooton, and Tom Cooper, Desert Storm. Solihull, West Midlands, England: Helion, 2019-2021.

Thomas Houlahan, Gulf War: The Complete History. New London, NH: Schrenker Military Pub., 1999. 471 pp.

House Committee on Armed Services

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

House Committee on Government Operations

Kevin Don Hutchison, Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm: Chronology and Fact Book. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1995. xvii, 269 pp.

Alex Roberto Hybel, Power Over Rationality: The Bush Administration and the Gulf Crisis. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993. xv, 143 pp.

Information Paper: Iraq's Scud Ballistic Missiles. Released by the Department of Defense July 25, 2000. Extremely useful.

Charles Jaco, The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Gulf War. Indianapolis, IN: Alpha Books, 2002. 338 pp.

Frank Leith Jones, Sam Nunn: Statesman of the Nuclear Age. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2020. xiii, 442 pp. Nunn was chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Zachary Karabell, "Backfire: U.S. Policy Toward Iraq, 1988 - 2 August 1990," Middle East Journal 49 (Winter 1995), 28-47.

Zacharay Karabell and Philip D. Zelikow, "Iraq, 1988-1990: Unexpectedly Heading toward War," in Ernest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., Dealing with Dictators: Dilemmas of U.S. Diplomacy and Intelligence Analysis, 1945-1990 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), pp. 167-202.

Shant Kederian, 1001 Nights in Iraq: The Shocking Story of an American Forced to Fight for Saddam against the Country He Loves. New York: Atria, 2007. 292 pp. Kederian, an Iraqi-American, made what was supposed to be a brief visit back to Iraq in 1980, and was unable to leave because of the Iran-Iraq War. He was drafted into the Iraqi Navy in 1985, and fought in the Basra area. Then in 1990 he was drafted into the Iraqi Army.

Majid Khadduri and Edmund Ghareeb, War in the Gulf 1990-91: The Iraq-Kuwait Conflict and its Implications. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. x, 299 pp. (pb 2001). 320 pp.

Khaled ibn Sultan, with Patrick Seale, Desert Warrior: A Personal View of the Gulf War by the Joint Forces Commander. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. xx, 492 pp. DS 79.74 .B56 1995

David Koistinen, "American History/American Studies in the Middle East Context: Reflections on Six Years at the American University of Beirut." Passport: The Newsletter of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, 40:3 (January 2010), pp. 20-24. Koistinen found that analysis of the transcript of the conversation between US Ambassador April Glaspie and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, July 25, 1990, released to the press by Iraq, was useful in helping students to understand US policy. He provides extended excerpts both from this transcript and from a doctored version of the transcript, circulating on the internet, altered to give an impression that Ambassador Glaspie had given Saddam Hussein a green light to invade Kuwait.

Matthew T. Kottiath, Crises in the Persian Gulf. Burnsville, NC: Celo Valley Books, 1991. xviii, 220 pp.

Jean-Jacques Langendorf, Le bouclier et la tempête: aspects militaires de la guerre du Golfe: une évaluation critique. Genève: Georg, 1995. 257 pp.

Eric V. Larson and Bogdan Savych, American Public Support for U.S. Military Operations from Mogadishu to Baghdad. MG-231-A. Santa Monica, California: Rand, 2005. xxix, 248 pp. An Arroyo Center monograph. Technical Appendixes have been published separately. TR-167-A. x, 58 pp.

Eric Laurent, Tempête du désert: les secrets de la Maison Blanche. Paris: O. Orban, 1991. 349 pp.

Claude Le Borgne, Un discret massacre: l'Orient, la guerre et après. Paris: F. Bourin, 1992. 234 pp.

Robert Le Priol, Guerre du Golfe, le dossier complet. Paris: Pensée universelle, 1994. 336 pp.

Andrew Leyden, Gulf War Debriefing Book: An After Action Report. Grants Pass, Oregon: Hellgate Press, 1997. xiii, 304 pp.

Thomas W. Lippman, Inside the Mirage: America's Fragile Partnership with Saudi Arabia. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2004. ix, 390 pp. Includes brief discussion of Desert Shield/Desert Storm.

Jerry M. Long, Saddam's War of Words: Politics, Religion, and the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait. Austin: U of Texas Press, 2004. xiii, 272 pp.

Richard S. Lowry, The Gulf War Chronicles: A Military History of the First War with Iraq. iUniverse Star, 2008. 280 pp.

K. Scott McMahon, Pursuit of the Shield: The U.S. Quest for Limited Ballistic Missile Defense. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1997. xviii, 383 pp.

Farhad Malekian, Condemning the Use of Force in the Gulf Crisis. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1992. 115 pp.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi, "The Nineteenth Province: The Invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War from the Iraqi Perspective," Ph.D. dissertation, Oxford University, 2004.

Michael J. Mazarr, Don M. Snider, and James A. Blackwell, Jr., Desert Storm: The Gulf War and What We Learned. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1993. xi, 207 pp. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2019. 222 pp.

Jon Meacham, Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush. New York: Random House, 2015. xxiv, 836 pp. A very friendly biography, relying heavily on the president's diary.

N. C. Menon, Mother of Battles: Saddam's Folly. Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1991. vi, 173 pp.

Dennis Menos, Arms Over Diplomacy: Reflections on the Persian Gulf War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1992. xi, 174 pp. Very critical of the decision to go to war.

Judith Miller and Laurie Mylroie, Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf. New York: Times Books, 1990. xv, 268 pp.

Mohammad-Mahmoud Mohamedou, Iraq and the Second Gulf War: State Building and Regime Security. San Francisco: Austin & Winfield, 1998. xiii, 282 pp.

John Norton Moore, Crisis in the Gulf: Enforcing the Rule of Law. New York: Oceana Publications, 1992. xliii, 677 pp.

M.E. Morris, H. Norman Schwarzkopf: Road to Triumph. New York: St. Martin's, 1991. xi, 287 pp.

John Mueller, Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. xviii, 379 pp. A vital reference for anyone interested in public opinion of the war; it has 158 pages of tables of data from public opinion polls.

National Intelligence Council, Iraq's Ground Forces: An Assessment. NIC M 91-10003. May 1991. iii, 3 pp. plus maps. Compared Iraqi strenght before Desert Storm with that as of March 1, 1991, and commented on the extent of rebuilding during April.

Clayton R. Newell, Historical Dictionary of the Persian Gulf War, 1990-1991. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1998. lix, 363 pp. The focus is very American.

Christopher Norris, Uncritical Theory: Postmodernism, Intellectuals, and the Gulf War. London: Lawrence & Wishart/Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. 218 pp.

David V. Nowlin and Ronald J. Stupak, War as an Instrument of Policy: Past, Present, and Future. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998. xxiii, 219 pp. Two cases are considered: The South African invasion of Angola in 1987, and the Gulf crisis of 1990-91.

Nicolas Rangel, Jr., "Part of something larger than ourselves: George H.W. Bush and the rhetoric of the first U.S. war in the Persian Gulf". Ph.D. dissertation, Communication, Texas A&M University, 2007. xi, 222 pp. AAT 3281141.

Nasser Ibrahim Rashid and Esber Ibrahim Shaheen, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf War. Joplin, MO: International Institute of Technology, 1992. xi, 564 pp.

Vicki J. Rast, Interagency Fratricide: Policy Failures in the Persian Gulf and Bosnia. Air University Press, 2004. 466 pp. Looks pretty abstract. Text online at http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/Books/Rast/newrast.pdf.

Jeffrey Record, Hollow Victory: A Contrary View of the Gulf War. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1993. vi, 186 pp.

Stanley A. Renshon, ed., The Political Psychology of the Gulf War: Leaders, Publics, and the Process of Conflict. xiii, 376 pp.

Earle Rice, Overview of the Persian Gulf War. Mitchell Lane, 2009. 48 pp. For juvenile readers, grades 4-8.

Jeffrey Richelson, Operation Desert Storm: Ten Years After. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 39. January 17, 2001. Sixteen documents dated 1974 to 1997.

William Rosenau, Special Operations Forces and Elusive Enemy Ground Targets. MR-1408-AF. Santa Monica: Rand, 2001. xi, 60 pp. Chapter 3 (pp. 29-44) is "Coalition Scud-Hunting in Iraq, 1991"

Peter Rowe, ed., The Gulf War 1990-91 in International and English Law. New York: Routledge/London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1993. xiv, 463 pp.

Pierre Salinger and Eric Laurent, Secret Dossier: The Hidden Agenda Behind the Gulf War. New York: Penguin, 1991. viii, 241 pp.

Richard Alan Schwartz, Encyclopedia of the Persian Gulf War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1998. vii, 216 pp.

Elaine Sciolino, The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis. New York: Wiley, 1991. 320 pp.

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Janice Gross Stein, "Deterrence and Compellence in the Gulf, 1990-91: A Failed or Impossible Task?" International Security 17:2 (Fall 1992), pp. 147-79.

Sterling D. Sessions and Carl R. Jones, Interoperability: A Desert Storm Case Study. McNair Paper 18. Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1993. v, 42 pp.

Special Operations.com Bibliography of the 1991 war.

Martin Stanton, Road to Baghdad: Behind Enemy Lines: The Adventures of an American Soldier in the Gulf War. New York: Presidio (Random House), 2003. pb New York: Presidio (Ballantine [Random House]), 2004. 363 pp. Stanton, a U.S. Army major, adviser to the Saudis, was visiting Kuwait at the time Iraq invaded, and was a prisoner of the Iraqis for four months. He returned to his job as an adviser to the Abdul Aziz Brigade January 5, 1991. pp. 302-18 cover Battle of Khafji. pp. 331-346 cover the ground war.

Harry G. Summers, On Strategy II: A Critical Analysis of the Gulf War. New York: Dell, 1992. xiv, 302 pp.

Harry G. Summers, Persian Gulf War Almanac. New York: Facts on File, 1995. xii, 301 pp.

John H. Sununu, The Quiet Man: The Indispensable Presidency of George H. W. Bush. New York: HarperCollins, 2015. Sununu was President Bush's chief of staff. The chapter "Desert Storm" is pp. 271-318.

Heidi Tarver, "Words of War: The Persian Gulf Crisis and American Public Discourse," Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, University of California - Berkeley, 1997. UMI # 9803373.

W. Andrew Terrill, Escalation and Intrawar Deterence during Limited Wars in the Middle East. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2009. xiii, 112 pp. Two cases: the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, and the 1991 US-Iraq War.

Dan Tschirgi and Bassam Tibi, Perspectives on the Gulf Crisis. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press, 1991. viii, 108 pp.

Anthony Tucker-Jones, The Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm, 1990-1991. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword, 2014. 128 pp.

United States Central Command, Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm: Executive Summary. 11 July 1991. 30 pp. Sanitized text placed online by the National Security Archive.

U.S. News & World Report, Triumph without Victory: The History of the Persian Gulf War. New York: Times Books (Random House), 1992. xv, 477 pp. pb with a new preface: New York: Times Books, 1993. xxxi, 477 pp.

War Crimes. Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Law, Immigration, and Refugees, House Committee on the Judiciary, March 13, 1991. iii, 194 pp.
Y 4.J 89/1:102-3

Brian Wicker, ed., Studying War--No More? From Just War to Just Peace. Kampen: Kok Pharos Pub. House, 1993. 216 pp. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994. 216 pp.

Kevin M. Woods, The Mother of All Battles: Saddam Hussein's Strategic Plan for the Persian Gulf War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008. xxiv, 352 pp. "Official U.S. Joint Forces Command Report"

Kevin M. Woods and Mark E. Stout, "Saddam's Perceptions and Misperceptions: The Case of 'Desert Storm.'" Journal of Strategic Studies 33:1 (February 2010), pp. 5-41.

Bob Woodward, The Commanders. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991. 398 pp. Recently reissued as The Commanders: The Pentagon and the First Gulf War, 1989-1991.

Martin Yant, Desert Mirage: The True Story of the Gulf War. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus, 1991. 222 pp. Peter Arnett, including the baby milk factory, pp. 48-51. The question of whether Iraq was ready to continue past Kuwait into Saudia is pp. 90-92.

Steve A. Yetiv, The Persian Gulf Crisis. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1997. xxi, 197 pp.

Steve A. Yetiv, Explaining Foreign Policy: U.S. Decision-Making and the Persian Gulf War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. 288 pp. Mostly the decision to go to war in 1991, but some comparison with the decision to go to war in 2003. Publisher's blurb gives the impression it has more political science theory than I like. 2nd ed. Explaining Foreign Policy: U.S. Decision-Making in the Gulf Wars. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. xii, 315 pp. The section on the first war has been revised, and the section on the second war has been somewhat expanded.

 

The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait

Ali Mohamed al-Damkhi, Invasion: Saddam Hussain's Reign of Terror in Kuwait. London: Kuwait Research and Advertising Co., 1992. x, 134 pp.

Joseph Darda. "Kicking the Vietnam Syndrome Narrative: Human Rights, the Nayirah Testimony, and the Gulf War," American Quarterly 69:1 (March 2017), 71-92.

Yacoub Yousuf Al-Ghunaim [Ghunaym], Kuwait Faces Avidity. Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 2000. 136 pp.

Abdullah Yousuf al-Ghunaim, ed., Landmines and the Destruction of the Environment of Kuwait: One of the Crimes of the Iraqi Aggression. Almansouria, Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 1999. 398 pp.

LTC Fred L. Hart Jr., "The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait: An Eyewitness Account." Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College. LTC Hart was an advisor to the Kuwaiti Land Forces. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

Hamdi A. Hassan, The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait: Religion, Identity, and Otherness in the Analysis of War and Conflict. London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 1999. viii, 278 pp.

Roberta and John Hogan, with Linda D. Meyer, Trapped in Kuwait: Countdown to Armageddon. Lynnwood, Washington: Chas. Franklin Press, 1991. 158 pp.

David Lesch, ed., The Middle East and the United States: A Historical and Political Reassessment. Boulder: Westview Press, 2007.

Ted Rowse, "Kuwaitgate," Washington Monthly, Sept. 1992, p. 16+ (available through Gale Academic Onefile).

Jean P. Sasson, The Rape of Kuwait: The True Story of Iraqi Atrocities Against a Civilian Population. New York: Knightsbridge, 1991. 154 pp.

Richard P. Stevens, ed., The Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait: American Reflections. Washington, D.C.: International Education and Communications Group, (1993?). viii, 194 pp. I have not seen this, but I believe it is a collection of accounts by Americans who were in Kuwait when the Iraqis invaded.

 

Ground War Desert Storm

Delbert N. Abbott, Courage and Cowardice: The Liberation of Kuwait and the Rape of Basra. iUniverse.com, 2005. 170 pp. Abbott was a sergeant commanding a section of two Bradleys in the 4/8 Cavalry (3d Armored Division, VII Corps) during Desert Storm. I believe the subtitle refers to the way the U.S. refrained from interfering with Saddam Hussein's supression of the Shiite rebellion in Basra shortly after the end of Desert Storm.

Air Assault in the Gulf: An interview with MG J. H. Binford Peay, III, Commanding General, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). Washington, DC: Center of Military History. 59 pp. Oral history interview conducted in June 1991.

Stephen A. Bourque, Jayhawk! The VII Corps in the Persian Gulf War. Washington: Department of the Army, 2002. xvi, 514 pp.

Stephen A. Bourque and John W. Burdan, The Road to Safwan: The 1st Squadron, 4th Cavalry in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2007. 312 pp. I believe the 1-4 Cavalry was in the 1st Infantry Division, VII Corps.

Dominic J. Caraccilo, The Ready Brigade of the 82nd Airborne in Desert Storm: A Combat Memoir by the Headquarters Company Commander. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993. x, 213 pp. Caraccilo, with the 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, landed in Saudi Arabia August 10, 1990.

Tom Clancy, with General Fred Franks, Jr. (Ret.), Into the Storm. New York: Putnam, 1997. pb New York: Berkley, 1998. xii, 562 pp. Franks commanded VII Corps.

Jeffrey J. Coonjohn, Operation Desert Storm: A Soldier's Journal: Stories from the Front: A First Hand Account of the Gulf War. Fresno, CA: Military Press, 1991. xv, 195 pp.

James J. Cooke, 100 Miles from Baghdad: With the French in Desert Storm. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993. xi, 223 pp.

Boyd L. Dastrup, The Come-as-you-are War: Fort Sill and Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Fort Sill, OK: U.S. Army Field Artillery Center, 1996. 78 pp.

Thomas D. Dinackus, Operation Desert Storm: Allied Ground Forces Order of Battle. Alexandria, VA: T.D. Dinackus, 1995. 2nd ed. Alexandria, VA: T.D. Dinackus, 1996.

Thomas D. Dinackus, Order of Battle: Allied Ground Forces of Operation Desert Storm. Central Point, OR: Hellgate Press, 2000.

Barbara J. Evans, For the Love of My Country: Desert Storm. Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2002. 165 pp.

Field Artillery. Fort Sill, Oklahoma; U.S. Army Field Artillery School. This journal has been published under this name since mid 1987. (It had appeared under various other titles intermittently since 1911.) All issues are available online through the Field Artillery archives page, which is nicely set up; you can choose to access either an entire issue in a very large .pdf file, or an individual article. Also it has a pretty decent search engine. A small sample:

Geoffrey Frankel, with John H. Nielsen, Desert Storm Diary: An American Soldier's Personal Record of the Gulf War in Words and Pictures. Rosemont, NJ: Morris-Lee Publishing Group, 1997. Frankel served as an E-5 in HHB Divarty, First Armored Division.

"Frontline" Oral Histories. The PBS documentary series "Frontline" has made available a collection of oral histories of key people involved in this war, compiled during the research for one or more programs. Each of the links below goes to the first page of a multi-page oral history; just keep hitting the "more" button at the bottom of each page to move on to the next.

James F. Gebhardt, Eyes Behind the Lines: US Army Long-Range Reconnaissance and Surveillance Units, rev. ed. Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper #10. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005. vi, 177 pp. The Vietnam War is pp. 45-110. Desert Shield/Desert Storm is pp. 126-134. This historical study does not overtly discuss the 2003 US-Iraq War, but it was written with an eye to illuminating disputes over the use of reconnaissance units in that war.

Joseph B. George, Desert Storm: Dreadnought. 1st Books, 2003. 53 pp. George served in an M1A1 Abrams tank unit.

Kirk L. Gill, 3rd Brigade 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault): Rakkasans. Paducah, KY: Turner, 1992. 30 pp.

Andrew Gillespie, Desert Fire: The Diary of a Gulf War Gunner. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England: Leo Cooper (Pen & Sword), 2001. xxiv, 248 pp. Gillespie commanded O Battery (called the Rocket Troop, though it was equipped with M109 A2/3 155mm self-propelled howitzers), 2nd Field Regiment Royal Artillery, 4th Armoured Brigade, British First Armoured Division.

Mike Guardia, The Fires of Babylon: Eagle Troop and the Battle of 73 Easting. Casemate, 2015. 248 pp.

Infantry. Fort Benning, Georgia: U.S. Army Infantry School. Tables of contents for issues since 1982, with actual links to the texts of articles in issues since 1988, were once available to the public on the Infantry web site. But now this material is open only to users having a userid and password in the Army's system. There were surprisingly few articles published relating to the 1991 war.
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Frederick Kagan, Leaders in War: West Point Remembers the 1991 Gulf War. Taylor & Francis, 2006.

L. Scott Lingamfelter, Desert Redleg: Artillery Warfare in the First Gulf War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2020. 330 pp. Lingamfelter was executive officer of division artillery for the First Infantry Division.

Douglas Macgregor, Warrior's Rage: The Great Tank Battle of 73 Easting. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009. xix, 244 pp. MacGregor, who was in the battle of 26 February 1991 as an officer in the 2-2 Armored Cavalry, writes both about his experiences in that battle, and about what he regards as bad generalship, which made the U.S. victory of 1991 less complete than it should have been.

Douglas Macgregor, Margin of Victory: Five Battles that Changed the Face of Modern War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2016. 290 pp. The 1991 ground war againt Iraq is the last of the five battles considered.

John C. McManus, The 7th Infantry Regiment: Combat in an Age of Terror: The Korean War Through the Present. Tom Doherty Associates, 2008. 416 pp. One chapter (pp. 167-243) covers the first US-Iraq War.

Captain H. R. McMaster, "Battle of 73 Easting". 34 pp.

David J. Morris, Storm on the Horizon: Khafji: The Battle that Changed the Course of the Gulf War. New York: Free Press, 2004. xviii, 317 pp.
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Jay C. Mumford, Rangers in Iraq: Task Force Ranger, 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry in the Persian Gulf War, 10 November 1990 to 12 May 1991. Washington, DC: Department of the Army, 1991. 79 pp. The text is online at Hathi Trust.
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Jesse Orlansky and Col. Jack Thorpe, eds., 73 Easting: Lessons Learned from Desert Storm via Advanced Distributed Simulation Technology. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1992. Proceedings of a conference August 27-29, 1991. viii, 152, 156, 68 pp.

David S. Pierson, Tuskers: An Armor Battalion in the Gulf War. Darlington, Maryland: Darlington Productions, 1997. 231 pp. 4/64 Armor.

M.A. Rice and A.J. Sammes, Command and control: support systems in the Gulf War: an account of the command and control information systems support to the British Army contribution to the Gulf War. London and New York: Brassey's, 1994. 139 pp.

Henry Rowen, "Inchon in the Desert: My Rejected Plan," National Interest, Summer 1995, pp. 34-39. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs Rowen appears to have been the originator of the plan, proposed in late 1990 to the annoyance of Schwarzkopf and Powell, that the United States put a substantial ground force far out in the western desert of Iraq.

Saddam Hussein Collection. The Conflict Records Research Center, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, has a large collection of Iraqi records captured during the American occupation of Iraq.

Brigadier General Robert H. Scales, Jr. [et. al.], Certain Victory: The US Army in the Gulf War. xiii, 435 pp. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of Staff, United States Army / GPO, 1993. Reprinted Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Command and General Staff College Press, 1994.

Frank N. Schubert and Theresa L. Kraus, eds., The Whirlwind War: The United States Army in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1995. xvi, 312 pp.

Carsten Stroud, Iron Bravo: Hearts, Minds, and Sergeants in the U.S. Army. New York: Bantam, 1995. 326 pp. A profile of First Sergeant Dee Crane, a Vietnam veteran who served in the 1st Infantry Division in Desert Storm.

Richard M. Swain, "Lucky War": Third Army in Desert Storm. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Press. xxxii, 369 pp. Available online, in chunks, through a CSI web page.

Charles L. Toomey, XVIII Airborne Corps in Desert Storm: From Planning to Victory. Central Point, OR: Hellgate Press, 2004. xx, 626 pp.

24th Mechanized Infantry Division. This division was part of the XVIII Airborne Corps.

United States Army Reserve in Operation Desert Storm: Ground Transportation Operations. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Reserve, 1994. v, 85 pp.
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Alex Vernon, with Neal Creighton, Jr., Greg Downey, Rob Holmes, and Dave Trybula, The Eyes of Orion: Five Tank Lieutenants in the Persian Gulf War. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1999. xxiv, 330 pp. The authors were in the 1-64 Armor, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized), XVIII Airborne Corps.

Bacil Donovan Warren, With It or In It: Desert Shield and Desert Storm from the Loader's Hatch. CreateSpace, 2016. 62 pp. Warren served in the 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment.

James Scott Wheeler, The Big Red One: America's Legendary 1st Infantry Division: Centennial Edition, 1917-2017. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. xx, 682 pp.

 

U.S. Marines in Desert Shield/Desert Storm

John Adams, Flight of the Shxtbyrdz: Frontline View. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2004. iv, 366 pp. Adams served in the 1st Marine Division.

General Walter E. Boomer, "Inside the Storm," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 137:2 (February 2011), pp. 56-59. Interesting for the way the plan for an amphibious landing was cancelled.

Sean T. Coughlin, Storming the Desert: A Marine Lieutenant's Day-by-Day Chronicle of the Persian Gulf War. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1996. viii, 168 pp.

Jeff Dacus, Desert Storm Marines: A Marine Tank Company at War in the Gulf. Essex, CT: Lyons Press (Rowman & Littlefield), 2023. 296 pp. A Marine Corps Reserve unit, B Company, 4th Tank Battalion.

Douglas Foster, Braving the Fear: The True Story of Rowdy US Marines in the Gulf War. PublishAmerica, 2006. 271 pp.

Joe Freitus, as told by Chris Freitus, Dial 911 Marines: Adventures of a Tank Company in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. McCarran, Nevada: New American Publishing, 2002. 320 pp.

Maj. Gen. Harry W. Jenkins, USMC (Ret.), Challenges: Leadership in Two Wars, Washington DC, and Industry. New York: Fortis, 2020. 371 pp. Desert Shield is pp. 219-41; Desert Storm is pp. 242-62. Jenkins commanded the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

Otto J. Lehrack, America's Battalion : Marines in the First Gulf War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005. xiii, 236 pp. 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marines.

Marine Corps History magazine, formerly Fortitudine, published quarterly. The new version has more pages per issue, and more per article, than the old. Current and past issues are available though Marine Corps History and Fortutudine web pages at Marine Corps University.

Jim Mattis and Bing West, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. New York: Random House, 2019. xiv, 300 pp. Mattis commanded the 1/7 Marines in Desert Shield and Desert Storm (pp. 23-38).

G.J. Michaels, Tip of the Spear: U.S. Marine Light Armor in the Gulf War. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1998. xii, 253 pp. Michaels was a sergeant in Alpha Company of the 1st Light Armored Vehicle Battalion (LAV).

Molly Moore, A Woman at War: Storming Kuwait with the U.S. Marines. New York: Scribner's, 1993. xv, 336 pp.

Anthony Swofford, Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles. New York: Scribner, 2003. 272 pp. A Marine sniper.

Gerald H. Turley, The Journey of a Warrior: The Twenty-Ninth Commandant of the US Marine Corps (1987-1991): General Alfred Mason Gray. Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse, 2012. 512 pp. The chapter on Desert Storm is pp. 433-458.

Joel Turnipseed, Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir. Penguin, 2003. 208 pp. Turnipseed was a Marine reservist mobilized for the war.

U.S. Marines in the Persian Gulf, 1990-1991. The Marine Corps' official history of the campaign.

Paul W. Westermeyer, with Alexander N. Hinman, Desert Voices: An Oral History Anthology of Marines in the Gulf War, 1990-1991. Quantico, VA: History Division, United States Marine Corps, 2016. viii, 181 pp.

Paul W. Westermeyer, U.S. Marines in the Gulf War, 1990-1991: Liberating Kuwait. Quantico, VA: History Division, United States Marine Corps, 2014. x, 321 pp.
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Paul W. Westermeyer, U.S. Marines in Battle: Al-Khafji, 28 January - 1 February 1991. Washington, D.C.: History Division, United States Marine Corps. 36 pp.

Buzz Williams, Spare Parts: A Marine Reservist's Journey from Campus to Combat in 38 Days. New York: Gotham Books (Penguin), 2004. xx, 303 pp.

See also Boomer, above, under "Frontline" Oral Histories.

 

Navy Desert Storm

Bibliography: "United States Naval Forces in Desert Shield and Desert Storm: A Select Bibliography". This bibliography is much broader than the title suggests; most of the books listed are not specifically naval in their focus.

Captain David D. Belt, USN (ret.), "Damn! . . . The Torpedoes," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, 148:7 (July 2022), pp. 20-25. USS Princeton (CG-59) and USS Tripoli (LPH-10) were seriously damaged by Iraqi mines on February 18, 1991.

Chris Craig, Call for Fire: Sea Combat in the Falklands and the Gulf War. London: John Murray, 1995. Written by the Royal Navy's Senior Naval Officer Middle East during the Gulf War.

Lieutenant commander Larry Di Rita, "Exocets, Air Traffic, & the Air Tasking Order," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, 118:8 (August 1992), pp. 59-63. The role of Aegis (also called New Threat Upgrade or NTU) cruisers in Desert Storm. Di Rita was Weapons and Combat Systems officer on USS Leyte Gulf (CG-55).

Captain Stuart Landersman, "The Last Battleship Sailor," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, 145:1 (January 2019), 44-47. Captain Albet Kaiss commanded Uss Missouri (BB-63) in Desert Storm. The battleship fired Tomahawk missiles beginning on January 17, and 16-inch guns beginning on February 5.

Edward Marolda, History: "The United States Navy and The Persian Gulf"

Edward J. Marolda, "Weathering the Storm," Naval History 35:1 (February 2021), pp. 12-19.

Edward J. Marolda and Robert J. Schneller Jr., Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf War. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1998. xxi, 517 pp. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001.
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Admiral Henry H. Mauz Jr., "Desert Shield at 30: 'It Was a Very Tense Situation,'" Naval History 34:4 (August 2020), pp. 34-35. Mauz arrived in the Gulf on August 15 and was given command of the naval component of Desert Shield.

Arnold Meisner, Desert Storm Sea Victory. Stillwater, MN: Motorbooks International, 1991. 128 pp.

Duncan E. Miller and Sharon Hobson, The Persian Excursion: The Canadian Navy in the Gulf War. Toronto: The Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, 1995.

Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm sealift performance and future sealift requirements. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Merchant Marine of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, April 23 and May 21, 1991. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1992. v, 596 pp.
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Persian Gulf Sealift Requirements. Hearings before the Subcommittee on Merchant Marine of the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, House of Representatives, September 18 and 26, 1990. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1990. iv, 506 pp.
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Norman Polmar, "Going Downtows the Safe Way,"

Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, 118:8 (August 1992), pp. 105-6. The U.S. Navy's use of Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Robert J. Schneller, Jr., Persian Gulf Turkey Shoot: The Destruction of Iraqi Naval Forces during Operation Desert Storm. Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1993.

The United States Navy in "Desert Shield"/"Desert Storm". A preliminary history, compiled by the U.S. Navy in 1991, in the immediate aftermath of the war.

 

Air Power Desert Storm

Air Force Magazine. The monthly journal of the Air Force Association. Texts of some but not all past articles have been placed online at the Air Force Magazine Archive. There is a separate web page "Perspectives on Gulf War I" that lists a lot of articles on Desert Shield/Desert Storm. A sample of articles:

Air Power Review (journal of the Royal Air Force) Vol 19, no. 2 (Summer 2016), First Gulf War 25th Anniversary – Special Edition [also includes some material on the aftermath up through Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, 2003]

Airpower Journal. The professional journal of the U.S. Air Force, pulished quarterly. Available online from Hathi Trust.

Charles Allen, Thunder & Lightning: The RAF in the Gulf: Personal Experiences of War. Sphere, 1995. 240 pp.

Lt. Col. William F. Andrews, Airpower against an Army: Challenge and Response in CENTAF's Duel with the Republican Guard. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1998. ix, 132 pp.
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Sherman Baldwin, Ironclaw: A Navy Carrier Pilot's Gulf War Experience. New York: William Morrow, 1996. xii, 265 pp.

James R. Brungess, Setting the Context: Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses and Joint War Fighting in an Uncertain World. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1994. xvii, 225 pp. The Vietnam War and Desert Storm are two of the cases considered.
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Alan Cockrell, Tail of the Storm: Flying Missions in the First Gulf War. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003. 248 pp. By a C-141 pilot.

Eliot A. Cohen et al., Gulf War Air Power Survey. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993. Online through Hathi Trust.

Jim Corrigan, Desert Storm Air War: The Aerial Campaign Against Saddam's Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War. Stackpole Books, 2017. 288 pp.

Richard G. Davis, Decisive Force: Strategic Bombing in the Gulf War. Washington: GPO/Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996. 87 pp.
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Richard G. Davis, On Target: Organizing and Executing the Strategic Air Campaign Against Iraq. Washington: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002. xii, 385 pp.

Matt Dietz, Eagles Overhead: The History of US Air Force Forward Air Controllers, from the Meuse-Argonne to Mosul. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2023. 368 pp. Part of Chapter 6 (pp. 155-76) deals with the Desert Storm.

Michael Donnelly, with Denise Donnelly, Falcon's Cry: A Desert Storm Memoir. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. x, 251 pp. Major Donnelly, USAF, served as a fighter pilot in the war. A few years later, he was diagnosed with ALS, which he believes was caused by exposure to Iraqi chemical weapons during the war.

Robert F. Dorr, Desert Storm Air War. Osceola, WI: Motorbooks International, 1991. 128 pp.

Braxton R. "Brick" Eisel and Jim "Boomer" Schreiner, Magnum! The Wild Weasels in Desert Storm. Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 2009. 274 pp. Havertown, PA: Casemate. Schreiner served in an F-4G Wild Weasel unit in the war; I don't know whether Eisel did also.

Lt Col David S. Fadok, "John Boyd and John Warden: Airpower's Quest for Strategic Paralysis," in School of Advanced Airpower Studies (Colonel Philip S. Meilinger, ed.), The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1997), pp. 357-398. Discusses some of the doctrinal background of the approach the Air Force used in 1991, not the 1991 war itself.

"Frontline" Oral Histories. The PBS documentary series "Frontline" has made available a collection of oral histories of key people involved in this war, compiled during the research for one or more programs. Each of the links below goes to the first page of a multi-page oral history; just keep hitting the "more" button at the bottom of each page to move on to the next.

Rafael J. Garcia, Paladin zero six : a Desert Storm memoir by a 101st Airborne attack helicopter company commander. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland, 1994. viii, 168 pp.

Gian P. Gentile, How Effective is Strategic Bombing? Lessons Learned from World War II to Kosovo. New York: New York University Press, 2000. Most of the book is devoted to American strategic bombing in World War II, with particular reference to the Strategic Bombing Survey, but one chapter compares the World War II Strategic Bombing Survey with the Gulf War Air Power Survey.

General Buster Glosson, War With Iraq: Critical Lessons. Charlotte, NC: GFF (Glosson Family Foundation), 2003. xii, 306 pp.

John Godden, ed., Shield and Storm: Personal Recollections of the Air War in the Gulf. London and Washington: Brassey's, 1994. viii, 145 pp. I believe this is a collection of accounts by British personnel.

Mike Guardia, Skybreak: The 58th Fighter Squadron in Desert Storm. Maple Grove, MN: Magnum Books, 2021. 232 pp. F-15C fighter jets.

R. Cargill Hall, ed., Case Studies in Strategic Bombardment. Washington: GPO/Air Force History and Museums Program, 1998. 679 pp.
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Dan Hampton, Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat. New York: William Morrow (HarperCollins), 2012. xi, 337 pp. Hampton flew F-16 Wild Weasels from 1986 to 2006; he was in both the first and second US-Iraq Wars.

Peter Hunt, Angles of Attack: An A-6 Intruder Pilot's War. New York: Ballantine, 2002. xi, 368 pp. Hunt was a pilot in VA-145, the Swordsmen, call sign "Rustler," flying off USS Ranger (CV-61).

Perry D. Jamieson, Lucrative Targets: The U.S. Air Force in the Kuwaiti Theater of Operations. Washington: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2001. xiii, 247 pp.

Thomas A. Keaney, "Surveying Gulf War Airpower," Joint Force Quarterly #2 (Autumn 1993).

Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Revolution in warfare? : air power in the Persian Gulf. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1995. xvi, 314 pp.

Jon Lake, B-52 Stratofortress Units in Operation Desert Storm. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2004. 96 pp.

Brian D. Laslie, The Air Force Way of War: U.S. Tactics and Training after Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2015. Two chapters deal with Desert Storm.

Merrill A. McPeak, Seleted Works, 1990-1994. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1995. xxvi, 399 pp. General McPeak was USAF Chief of Staff.

Edward C. Mann III, Thunder and lightning : Desert Storm and the airpower debates. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1995. xx, 220 pp.

David R. Mets, The Air Campaign: John Warden and the Classical Airpower Theorists. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1998. xi, 86 pp. Revised Edition: Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1999. xi, 86 pp. Colonel Warden played a crucial role in planning the innovative 1991 air campaign (see also a couple of works by Colonel Warden, below).
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Williamson Murray, Air War in the Pesian Gulf. Baltimore, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub. Co. of America, 1995. 338 pp.

John Andreas Olsen, John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2007. xvi, 349 pp.

John Andreas Olsen, Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm. London and Portland: Frank Cass, 2003. xviii, 318 pp.

Ronald N. Priddy, A history of the Civil Reserve Air Fleet in Operations Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Desert Sortie. Cambridge, MA: Volpe National Transportation Center, 1994. Written for the DOD Policy Board on Federal Aviation.

Diane Putney, Airpower Advantage: Planning the Gulf War Air Campaign, 1989-1991. Washington: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2004. xii, 481 pp.
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RAND Corporation (Previously, Rand Corporation). This "think tank" does a lot of research and analysis work on contract for the Defense Department. Most RAND publications can be purchased in hard copy through the RAND Corporation online bookstore, but many also can be read online for free.

Col. Richard T. Reynolds, Heart of the Storm: The Genesis of the Air Campaign against Iraq. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1995. xxiv, 147 pp. This was intended to be volume 1 of 2, but so far as I am aware, the second was never published. There is a disclaimer in the front by Lt. Gen. Jay W. Kelley, stating in unusually strong terms that the book really does not represent the opinion of the Air Force, and that many people believe Col. Reynolds is biased in favor of Col. John Warden and Warden's team.

Keith Rosenkranz, Vipers in the Storm: Diary of a Gulf War Fighter Pilot. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2002. ix, 325 pp. I believe there was a previous edition in 1999, maybe also McGraw-Hill, maybe Turner Publishing. Rosenkranz flew F-16s, based at Al Minhad, Saudi Arabia.

Valéry Rousset, La guerre à ciel ouvert: Irak, 1991. Paris: ADDIM, 1996. 316 pp.

Sarah B. Sewall, Chasing Success: Air Force Efforts to Reduce Civilian Harm. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 2016. xi, 225 pp. The Vietnam War is pp. 40-45. Desert Storm pp. 104-112, with a focus on the bombing of the Amiriyah bunker.

Virginia N. Sherry, et al., Needless Deaths in the Gulf War: Civilian Casualties During the Air Campaign and Violations of the Laws of War. A Middle East Watch report. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1991. xvi, 402 pp. Includes discussion of Iraqi, not just American, violations of the laws of war.

William L. Smallwood, Strike Eagle: Flying the F-15E in the Gulf War. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1994 xii, 218 pp.

William L. Smallwood, Warthog: Flying the A-10 in the Gulf War. Washington: Brassey's, 1993. xviii, 241 pp. Based on interviews

Lt. Col. LeRoy D. Stearns, The 3d Marine Aircraft Wing in Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps / GPO, 1999. ix, 223 pp.
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Jay A. Stout, Hornets over Kuwait. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997. x, 244 pp.

Warren E. Thompson, Bandits Over Baghdad: Personal Stories of Flying the F-117 Over Iraq. North Branch, MN: Specialty Press, 2000. vi, 200 pp.

Warren Thompson, F-117 stealth fighter units of Operation Desert Storm. Oxford and New York: Osprey, 2007. 96 p.

U.S. General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: Evaluation of the Air Campaign. Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Committee on Commerce, House of Representatives. Washington, D.C.: U.S. General Accounting Office, 1997. 235 pp. This is the report that contains (pp. 116-118) the often-quoted finding that a target successfully destroyed in the air campaign had, on average, received 11.2 tons of guided munitions plus 44.1 tons of unguided munitions, contradicting the "one target, one bomb" image of the war. This finding, was not really as impressive as it looked. The report, for example, would define one airfield as one target. If it took a number of bombs to destroy an airfield, this would not imply that the individual bombs had not destroyed on the particular objects on the airfield at which they had been aimed.

Theo van Geffen, "Joint Task Force Proven Force and the Gulf War."

Capt. Michael P. Vriesenga, ed., From the Line in the Sand: Accounts of USAF Company Grade Officers in Support of Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 1994. xviii, 271 pp.
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John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1988. Shortly after writing this, Warden played a crucial role in formulating the plan for the 1991 air war. Rev. ed. Lincoln, Nebraska: iUniverse, 2000.

John A. Warden III, "The Enemy as a System." Airpower Journal, Spring 1995, pp. 40-55.

Kenneth P. Werrell, The Evolution of the Cruise Missile. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 1997. xiv, 289 pp.
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Darrell D. Whitcomb, On a Steel Horse I Ride: A History of the MH-53 Pave Low Helicopters in War and Peace. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 2012. xxxi, 738 pp.

James A. Winnefeld and Dana J. Johnson, Joint Air Operations: Pursuit of Unity in Command and Control, 1942-1991. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993. xxv, 219 pp. Six case studies, from Midway through Desert Storm.

Buck Wyndham, Hogs in the Sand: A Gulf War A-10 Pilot's Combat Journal. Virginia Beach, VA: Köehlerbooks, 2020. 440 pp.

 

Friendly Fire

The Investigation of a Friendly Fire Incident During the Persian Gulf War, S.Hrg. 104-268. Hearing of the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, June 29, 1995. v, 202 pp. Deals with the incident of February 27, 1991, when a unit of the 3rd ACR attacked soldiers of an Engineer unit who were waiting beside a road because their truck had broken down.
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Minimizing Friendly Fire: The Army Should Consider Long-Term Solution, In Its Procurement Decision on Near-Term Needs, GAO/NSIAD-94-19, B-253863, U.S. GAO, October 22, 1993.
MICROFICHE GA 1.13: NSIAD-94-19

Operation Desert Storm: Apache Helicopter Fratricide Incident, GAO/OSI-93-4, U.S. GAO, June 30, 1993.
microfiche GA 1.13: OSI-93-4

Operation Desert Storm: Casualties Caused by Improper Handling of Unexploded U.S. Submunitions, GAO/NSIAD-93-212. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, August 1993.

Charles R. Shrader, "Friendly Fire: The Inevitable Price," Parameters, 22 (Autumn 1992) [Shrader appears to be the Army expert on amicide; I am presuming this article must be about Desert Storm.]

United States General Accounting Office, National Security and International Affairs Division, Blackhawk incident legal questions.
microfiche GA 1.13:NSIAD-96-91 R

United States General Accounting Office, Operation Desert Storm: investigation of a U.S. Army fratricide incident. 109 pp. Deals with the incident of February 27, 1991, when a unit of the 3rd ACR attacked soldiers of an Engineer unit who were waiting beside a road because their truck had broken down. microfiche GA 1.13:OSI-95-10

 

The Patriot Missile Controversy

ADA. Professional Bulletin of the U.S. Army Air Defense Artillery Branch. Full texts online at Hathi Trust.

G. L. Lewis and T. A. Postol, "Video Evidence on the Effectiveness of Patriot during the 1991 Gulf War," Science and Global Security, 4:1 (1993), pp 1-63.

George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, "Technical Debate over Patriot Performance in the Gulf War: American Physical Society Panel Correctly Rejects Criticisms of Analysis Showing Patriot Failed to Destroy Scud Warheads", Science & Global Security, 2000, Volume 8, pp. 315-356.

Operation Desert Storm: Data Does Not Exist to Conclusively Say How Well Patriot Performed. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, September 1992. 12 pp. The text is online at Hathi Trust.

Patriot Missile Defense: Software Problem Led to System Failure at Dharan, Saudi Arabia. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, February 1992. 16 pp. The text is online at Hathi Trust.
GAI.13:IMTEC-92-26

Performance of the Patriot Missile in the Gulf War. Hearing before the Legislation and National Security Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, April 7, 1992. GPO, 1993. iv, 341 pp. The text is online at Hathi Trust. I believe there is also a report of the same title from the same committee, House Report 102-1086.

Theodore A. Postol, "Lessons of the Gulf War Experience with Patriot," International Security 16:3 (Winter 1991-1992), pp. 119-171.

"Postol's Video Analysis,", United States General Accounting Office, October 1, 1992. 5 pp.

Jeremiah D. Sullivan, et al., "Technical Debate over Patriot Performance in the Gulf War", Science & Global Security, 8:1 (1999), pp. 41-98.

 

Covert & Special Ops Desert Storm

Michael Asher, The Real Bravo Two Zero: The Truth Behind Bravo Two Zero. Weidenfeld Military, 2002. 240 pp. pb Cassell Military, 2003. An eight-man SAS patrol sent into Iraq 22 January 1991. Three were killed, four were captured, one escaped. Asher, a former member of the SAS but not a participant in the patrol, says that two best-selling books by men who were participants, NcNab and Ryan (see below), were seriously fictionalized.

Mike Coburn, Soldier Five: The Real Truth about the Bravo Two Zero Mission. pb Mainstream Publishing, 2004. 320 pp. He was a participant.

Jared M. Tracy, "PSYOP in Operation DESERT SHIELD." U.S. Army Special Operations Command History Office.

Andy McNab, Bravo Two Zero. Pb Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1994. 412 pp. McNab (pseudonym?) was the team leader of the Bravo Two Zero mission.

Chris Ryan, The One that Got Away: My SAS Mission Behind Enemy Lines. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2006. 241 pp. Previously published in paperback by Arrow Books, 2001. 418 pp. Ryan (pseudonym?) was a corporal in the famous SAS "Bravo Two Zero" mission into Iraq.

Bob Shepherd, The Circuit. London: Pan Books, 2009. 352 pp. I don't know how much this says about the SAS in Desert Storm, including Bravo Two Zero. The book is devoted mostly to Shepherd's career in the private security business after leaving the SAS.

"Special Operations in Desert Storm: Separating Fact from Fiction", Special Warfare 5:1 (March 1992), pp. 2-6, online at Hathi Trust.

United States Special Operations Command History: 20 (1987-2007): Proven in the Past, Vigilant Today, Prepared for the Future. MacDill AFB, Florida: U.S. Special Operations Command, 2007. 142 pp. DESERT SHIELD/ DESERT STORM is pp. 45-53.

 

Intelligence

US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA Support to the US Military During the Persian Gulf War. 16 June 1997.

John Diamond, The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. xiv, 536 pp. Chapter 3 "Intelligence and the Persian Gulf War" is pp. 107-40; Chapter 4 "Iraq Is Ten Feet Tall" is pp. 141-88.

Intelligence Successes and Failures in Operations Desert Shield/Storm. Report of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, House Committee on Armed Services, August 16, 1993. v, 30 pp.

Nomination of Robert M. Gates. Hearings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, on the nomination of Robert M. Gates, a former CIA analyst who had been Deputy National Security Adviser to President Bush during Desert Storm, to become Director of Central Intelligence. Online at Hathi Trust.

David P. Oakley, Subordinating Intelligence: The DoD/CIA Post-Cold War Relationship. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019. xiv, 248 pp. Has more on the first than on the second US-Iraq War.

Brian Shellum, A Chronology of Defense Intelligence in the Gulf War: A Research Aid for Analysts. Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 1997. vii, 49 pp. Online at the National Security Archive.

Brian G. Shellum, Defense Intelligence Crisis Response Procedures and the Gulf War. Washington, DC: Defense Intelligence Agency, 1996. 17 pp. Online at the National Security Archive.

John F. Stewart, Jr., Operation Desert Storm: The Intelligence Story: A View from the G-2, 3d U.S. Army. April 1991. iv, 38 pp. Online at the National Security Archive. This does not appear to have been classified, so there surely must have been important issues omitted.

 

Logistics

Howard K. Butler, Desert Shield and Desert Storm: An Aviation Logistics History, 1990-1991. St. Louis, MO: U.S. Army Aviation Systems Command, 1991. xv, 273 pp. I have also seen a reference to this as xv, 778 pp. I don't know whether that is just an error or an actual alternate version.

Eliot A. Cohen et al., Gulf War Air Power Survey, Volume III: Logistics and Support. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993. Online through Hathi Trust.

Military Review is published monthly by the US Army Command and General Staff College. Articles from this publication are available online through Hathi Trust.

William Pagonis, with Jeffrey Cruikshank, Moving Mountains: Lessons in Leadership and Logistics from the Gulf War. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1992. xix, 248 pp. General Pagonis was Schwarzkopf's chief of logistics. Quite interesting.

United States General Accounting Office, Desert Shield/Storm Logistics: Observations by U.S. Military Personnel. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, November 1991. 58 pp. Online at Hathi Trust.

 

International Aspects

Gazi Ibdewi Abdulghafour, United Nations's Role in the Gulf Crisis. New Delhi, India: Lancers Books, 1992. viii, 185 pp.

Air Power Review (journal of the Royal Air Force) Vol 19, no. 2 (Summer 2016), First Gulf War 25th Anniversary – Special Edition

Josette Alia and Christine Clerc, La guerre di Mitterand: la dernière grande illusion. Paris: O. Orban, 1991. 388 pp.

Chadly Ayari et al., La Guerre du Golfe et l'avenir des Arabes: débat et réflexions. Tunis: Cérès productions, 1991. 225 pp.

Andrew Bennett, Joseph Lepgold, and Danny Unger, eds., Friends in Need: Burden Sharing in the Persian Gulf War. New York: St. Martin's, 1997. 362 pp.

General Sir Peter de la Billière, Storm Command: A Personal Account of the Gulf War. London: HarperCollins, 1992. 348 pp. General de la Billière commanded the British forces of all services in Desert Storm.

Marc Boureau d'Argonne, Irak: guerre ou assassinat programmé? la France pouvait-elle empêcher la guerre du Golfe?. Paris: François-Xavier du Guibert, 2002. 192 pp. A story of secret negotiations aimed at averting the 1991 war.

Nicolas Casanova, "Tempête du désert": octobre 1990 - avril 1991: un peloton di légionnaires cavaliers dans la première guerre du Golfe. Paris: Economica, 2011. ix, 227 pp.

Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine, The Palestinians and the War in the Gulf. Washington, D.C.: The Center, 1991. 31 pp.

D. Chanukya, The Political History of Middle East Crisis, August 1990 - February 1991: Big Five's Role in Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Hyderabad: Megha Hills, 1992. xvii, 258 pp.

Frédéric Charillon, La politique étrangère à l'épreuve du transnational: une étude des diplomaties française et britannique dans la Guerre du Golfe. Paris: l'Harmattan, 1999. 303 pp.

Jeffrey Crean, "War on the Line: Telephone Diplomacy in the Making and Maintenance of the Desert Storm Coalition," Diplomacy & Statecraft 26:1 (2015), 124-38.

Alex Danchev and Dan Keohane, eds., International Perspectives on the Gulf Conflict, 1990-91. New York: St. Martin's, 1994. xvii, 332 pp.

Wolfgang F. Danspeckgruber and Charles R.H. Tripp, eds., The Iraqi Aggression against Kuwait: Strategic Lessons and Implications for Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996. xviii, 344 pp.

Alarik M. Fritz, "How Superpowers Go to War and Why Other States Help Them: The Impact of Security Interdependence on War Coalition Formation." Ph.D. dissertation, Government, Georgetown University, 2008. UMI 3339336. ix, 408 pp. American efforts to obtain support from Japan, Turkey, Germany, and Poland in Desert Shield and Desert Storm are the topic of Chapter Six (pp. 274-328), and are discussed to some extent in other chapters.

James Gow, ed., Iraq, the Gulf Conflict, and the World Community. London: Brassey's/New York: Macmillan, 1993. xxiii, 208 pp.

David Horner, The Gulf Commitment: The Australian Defense Force's First War. Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Melbourne University Press/Portland, Oregon: International Specialized Book Services, 1992. ix, 238 pp.

Matt Jones, "Ending Cold War Fears: Expectation and Interpretation in Mass Observers' Response to the Gulf War, 1990-1991," Contemporary British History 32:2 (2018), pp. 253-75. The Mass Observation Project did not try to get a representative sample of the British public, but got a deeper look at their views than a normal public opinion poll. Many in the sample were very worried that the war against Iraq would escalate into a huge disaster, perhaps a world War.

Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Pierre Lebrun, Mon syndrome du golfe: Opération Daguet, décembre 1990-avril 1991. Paris: J.-P. Rocher, 2002. 178 pp. Preface by Général Japiot.

Ken Matthews, The Gulf Conflict and International Relations. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. 339 pp.

Didier Motchane, Un atlantisme à la charentaise: de Jarnac à Maastricht, dix ans de politique étrangère. Paris: Arléa, 1992. 242 pp.

Alan Munro, An Arabian Affair: The Gulf War from Saudi Arabia. London: Brassey's, 1996. xxii, 426 pp. Reprinted with a new preface as Arab Storm: Politics and Diplomacy Behind the Gulf War. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. 426 pp. Munro was the British Ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 1989 to 1993.

Sir Alan Munro, Keep the Flag Flying: A Diplomatic Memoir. London: Gilgamesh, 2012.

V. K. Nair, War in the Gulf: Lesons for the Third World. New Delhi: Lancer International, 1991. 231 pp.

Reference Services, Central Office of Information, Britain and the Gulf Crisis. London: H.M.S.O., 1993. 85 pp.

Emmanuel de Richouffitz, Encore une guerre de retard? un officier d'active ose parler. Paris: Albin Michel, 1992. 279 pp.

Svetlana Savranskaya and Thomas Blanton, Gorbachev's "Diplomatic Marathon" to Prevent the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Briefing Book #745, National Security Archive, George Washington University, February 26, 1991.

Général Maurice Schmitt, De Diên Biên Phu à Koweït City (From Dien Bien Phu to Kuwait City). Paris: Grasset, 1992. 309 pp. Schmitt, who was the Chief of Staff of the French Army, devotes pp. 165-273 of this memoir to the Gulf crisis of 1990-1991.

Bassam Tibi, Conflict and War in the Middle East, 1967-91: Regional Dynamic and the Superpowers. New York: St. Martin's, 1993. xi, 253 pp. The Arab-Israeli wars and the 1991 US-Iraq War. Translated from the German by Clare Krojzl. 2nd ed. Conflict and War in the Middle East: From Interstate War to New Security. New York: St. Martin's, 1998. xvi, 318 pp.

United Nations role in maintaining international peace and security: Kuwait-Iraq case study. Al-Mansoria, Kuwait: Center for Research and Studies on Kuwait, 1995. 278 pp.

 

Media Desert Storm

Peter Arnett, Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Baghdad, 35 Years in the World's War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. 463 pp.

Rear Admiral Brent Baker, "Decisions at the Speed of Satellite,"

Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, 118:8 (August 1992), pp. 69-72. Baker was Chief of Information for the U.S. Navy.

Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1995. 87 pp. French original La guerre du golfe n'a pas eu lieu. Paris: Galilée, 1991. 99 pp. A French postmodernist philosopher arguing that the media very seriously misrepresented the war.

Christopher Bellamy, Expert Witness: A Defense Correspondent's Gulf War, 1990-1991. London and New York: Brassey's, 1993. xxxi, 252 pp.

W. Lance Bennett and David L. Paletz, eds., Taken by Storm: The Media, Public Opinion, and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Gulf War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. xvi, 308 pp.

Daniel Bougnoux, et al., Les mensonges du Golfe. Montpellier: Arléa/Reporters sans frontières, 1992. 171 pp.

C.D.B. Bryan (introduction), In the Eye of Desert Storm: Photographers of the Gulf War. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991. 155 pp. Images and Text by Sygma photographers.

LT Kimberly Ann Cochran, "Press Coverage of the Persian Gulf War: Questions of Policy Beyond the Shadow of Vietnam." M.A. Thesis, National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, 1992. vii, 105 pp. Vietnam is pp. 48-60; Desert Shield/Desert Storm is pp. 70-92.

Nicholas J. Cull, "'The Perfect War': US Public Diplomacy and International Broadcasting During Desert Shield and Desert Storm, 1990/1991" Transnational Broadcasting Studies No. 15 (variously identified on the journal's web site as Jan.-June 2006 or Fall 2005).

Robert E. Denton, Jr., ed., The Media and the Persian Gulf War. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1993. xviii, 302 pp.

John J. Fialka, Hotel Warriors: Covering the Gulf War. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press/Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991. xv, 78 pp.

Sandy Gall, News from the Front: The Life of a Television Reporter. London: Heinemann, 1994. 344 pp. pb London: Mandarin, 1995. 344 pp. A substantial portion of this deals with Desert Storm. Gall's account of Saudi forces crossing into Iraq at the beginning of the ground war in February 1991 is interesting.

Susan Jeffords and Lauren Rabinovitz, eds., Seeing Through the Media: The Persian Gulf TV War. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994. xii, 343 pp. Looks a bit left wing, maybe.

Richard Keeble, Secret State, Silent Press?: New Militarism, the Gulf and the Modern Image of Warfare. Luton, Bedfordshire, UK: University of Luton Press, 1997. 228 pp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. 228 pp.

Douglas Kellner, The Persian Gulf TV War. Boulder: Westview, 1992. xii, 460 pp.

Douglas Kellner, "The Persian Gulf TV war revisited", in Stuart Allan and Barbie Zelizer, eds., Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime (London and New York: Rougledge [Taylor & Francis], 2004), pp. 136-154.

Michael Kelly, Martyrs' Day: Chronicle of a Small War. New York: Random House, 1993. pb New York: Vintage, 1994. x, 354 pp. 2d ed. with a new foreword and afterword New York: Vintage, 2001. xiv, 365 pp. An impressionistic account of various events related to the war, by a free-lance journalist who arrived in Baghdad January 10, 1991.

Brian MacArthur, ed., Despatches from the Gulf War. London: Bloomsbury, 1991. xxi, 371 pp. A collection of British reporting on the war.

John R. MacArthur, Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War. New York: Hill and Wang (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 1992. viii, 260 pp. 2d ed. with a new preface Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

Thomas A. McCain and Leonard Shyles, eds., The 1,000 Hour War: Communication in the Gulf. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1994. xviii, 212 pp.

[Col.] Lloyd J. Matthews, ed., Newsmen and National Defense: Is Conflict Inevitable?. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 1991. xxiv, 146 pp. I have not seen this, but my impression is that most or all of the essays were written before the 1991 war.

Military Review is published monthly by the US Army Command and General Staff College. Articles from this publication are available online through Hathi Trust.

Randy Miller, ed., text by Gary Blonston, photos by Knight-Ridder photographers, Eye of the Storm: Images of the Persian Gulf War. Miami, FL: Knight-Ridder, 1991. 159 pp.

Captain Jon Mordan, "Press Pools, Prior Restraint and the Persian Gulf War." Aerospace Power Chronicles, June 6, 1999.

David E. Morrison, Television and the Gulf War. London: J. Libbey, 1992. viii, 100 pp.

Hamid Mowlana, George Gerbner, and Herbert I. Schiller, eds., Triumph of the Image: The Media's War in the Persian Gulf. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992. xv, 269 pp.

Pentagon Rules on Media Access to the Persian Gulf War. Hearing, Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, February 20, 1991.
Y 4.G 74/9:S.hrg.102-178

Reuters, Saddam's Iraq: Face-off in the Gulf. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003. iii, 179 pp.

Thomas Rid, War and Media Operations: The US military and the press from Vietnam to Iraq. Abingdon and New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2008. 240 pp.

Claude Salhani, Black September to Desert Storm: A Journalist in the Middle East. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1998. ix, 262 pp. Salhani began working as a photojournalist in 1970 in Beirut. Desert Storm is the last chapter.

Hedrick Smith, ed., The Media and the Gulf War [subtitle on cover but not on title page: The Press and Democracy in Wartime]. Washington, D.C.: Seven Locks Press, 1992. xxvi, 438 pp. This collection, produced under the auspices of the Foreign Policy Institute of the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, looks quite valuable.

Perry M. Smith, How CNN Fought the War: A View from the Inside. New York: Carol, 1991. xvi, 223 pp.

Hedrick Smith, ed., The Media and the Gulf War. Washington, DC: Seven Locks Press, 1992. xxvi, 438 pp.

Marita Sturken, Tangled Memories: The Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. x, 358 pp. Chapter 4 (pp. 122-144), "Spectacles of Memory and Amnesia: Remembering the Persian Gulf War," deals with the way the war was covered on television and the way it has been remembered.

Philip M. Taylor, War and the Media: Propaganda and Persuasion in the Gulf War. Manchester, UK: 1992. xiv, 338 pp. Distributed in the United States by St. Martin's.

Paul Virilio, Desert Screen; War at the Speed of Light. London and New York: Continuum, 2002. xvi, 148 pp. Translated by Michael Degener; French Original Ecran du désert.

Ray E. Weisenborn, ed., Media in the Midst of War: The Gulf War from Cairo to the Global Village. Cairo: Adham Center Press, 1992. viii, 155 pp.

Pete Williams, "A Gulf War Military-Media Review," Defense Issues, March 14, 1991.

 

Medical Consequences of Desert Storm

Christine Abdeldrim-Delanne, Guerre du Golfe: la sale guerre propre. Paris: Cherche-Midi, 2001. 221 pp.

Phil Brown, Toxic Exposures: Contested Illnesses and the Environmental Health Movement. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. xxxiv, 356 pp. Considers breast cancer, asthma, and Gulf War-related illnesses.

Committee on Gulf War and Health, Institute of Medicine of the Nation Academies, Epidemiologic studies of veterans exposed to depleted uranium: feasibility and design issues. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press, 2008. x, 48 pp.

Depleted Uranium Education Project, Metal of Dishonor, Depleted Uranium: How the Pentagon Radiates Soldiers and Civilians with DU Weapons. New York: Internation Action Center, 1997. xxi, 238 pp. I think the editors were probably John Catalinotto and Sara Flounders; the contributors included Ramsey Clark, Pat Broudy, and Helen Caldicott. The book includes the 1991 war, but is not specifically focused on it.

Desert Storm mystery illness/adequacy of care. Hearing, Military Forces and Personnel Subcommittee, House Committee on Armed Services, March 15, 1994. iii, 166 pp.
Y 4.AR 5/ 2 A: 993-94/ 58

Michael Donnelly, with Denise Donnelly, Falcon's Cry: A Desert Storm Memoir. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. x, 251 pp. Major Donnelly served as a fighter pilot in the war. A few years later, he was diagnosed with ALS, which he believes was caused by exposure to Iraqi chemical weapons during the war.

Patrick Eddington, Gassed in the Gulf: The Inside Story of the Pentagon-CIA Cover-Up of Gulf War Syndrome. Insignia, 1997. 347 pp.

Gulf War Health Issues. Hearing before a subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate. iii, 66 pp.
Y 4.AP 6/2:S.HRG. 103-819

Gulf War Illnesses. Special hearing, Subcommittee on Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Senate Appropriations Committee, October 12, 2000. iii, 73 pp.
Y 4.AP 6/2:S.HRG.106-843

Seymour Hersh, Against All Enemies: Gulf War Syndrome, the War between America's Ailing Veterans and their Government. New York: Ballantine, 1998. 103 pp.

House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight / House Committee on Government Reform [see also under GAO below]

House Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Steven Manchester, The Unexpected Storm: The Gulf War Legacy. Central Point, Oregon: Hellgate Press, 2000. Apparently an account of Manchester's own experiences as a sergeant in the 661st MP Company, but he writes about himself in the third person.

James A. Martin, Linette R. Sparacino, and Gregory Belenky, The Gulf War and Mental Health: A Comprehensive Guide. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996. xxxi, 197 pp.

Gary Matsumoto, Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment that's Killing Our Soldiers and Why GI's are Only the First Victims. New York: Basic Books, 2004. xx, 362 pp.

Persian Gulf War Illnesses Task Force, Khamisiyah: A Historical Perspective on Related Intelligence. Central Intelligence Agency, 9 April 1997. iii, 24 pp. Online at the National Security Archive. The Khamisiyah weapons storage facility, destroyed by US forces shortly after the war, may have contained Iraqi chemical munitions.

RAND Corporation (Previously, Rand Corporation). This "think tank" does a lot of research and analysis work on contract for the Defense Department. Most RAND publications can be purchased in hard copy through the RAND Corporation online bookstore, but many also can be read online for free.

Rakib U. Rayhan, et al., "Exercise Challenge in Gulf War Illness Reveals Two Subgroups with Altered Brain Structure and Function," PLOS ONE 8:6 (June 2013), pp. 1-10.

Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses, Gulf War Illness and the Health of Gulf War Veterans: Scientific Findings and Recommendations. Washington, D.C.: Department of Veterans' Affairs/Government Printing Office, 2008. iv, 454 pp. The report of this congressionally mandated study, released in November 2008, concluded that Gulf War syndrome represents a genuine medical problem affecting at least a quarter of the American veterans of the Gulf War, and that it had two major provable causes, both of them chemical: pyridostigmine bromide pills given to U.S. military personnel to protect them against possible use of Iraqi nerve gases, and pesticides used by the U.S. military.

[Distributed by Bernard Rostker, Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses, Department of Defense], Iraq's Scud Ballistic Missiles. Unpaginated, about 90 pp. A version last updated July 25, 2000 has been placed online in the Virtual Vietnam Archive of the Vietnam Project, at Texas Tech University.

Mary T. Sarnecky, A Contemporary History of the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2010. xvii, 556, xix-lvii pp. A history of the Nurse Corps from the end of the Vietnam War to the year 2000. Chapters 17-20 (pp. 413-482) deal with Desert Storm and its aftermath.
D 101.2:N 93/8

Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs

William Jerome Simmons, Operation Desert Shield/Storm Through the Eyes of a Black Lieutenant. Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance, 1995. v, 57 pp.

Zahava Solomon, Coping with War-induced Stress: The Gulf War and the Israeli Response. New York: Plenum Press, 1995. xxv, 254 pp.

U.S. Dual-Use Exports to Iraq and their Impact on the Health of the Persian Gulf War Veterans, Hearing of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, May 25, 1994. iii, 551 pp. Y 4.B 22/3:S.HRG.103-900

United States General Accounting Office (GAO)

Jeff Wheelwright, The Irritable Heart: The Medical Mystery of the Gulf War. New York: Norton, 2001. 427 pp.

 

Collections: Documents and Essays

Philip Auerswald, ed., Iraq, 1990-2006: A Diplomatic History through Documents. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 3 vols.

Haim Bresheeth and Nira Yuval-Davis, eds., The Gulf War and the New World Order. Zed Books, 1991. 293 pp.

Victoria Brittain, ed., The Gulf Between Us: The Gulf War and Beyond. London: Virago, 1991. xx, 186 pp. Essays on a wide variety of issues.

William Dudley and Stacey L. Tipp, eds., Iraq. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1991. 256 pp. A collection of materials reprsenting opposing viewpoints. For juvenile readers, grades 8 and up.

Robert F. Helms II and Robert H. Dorff, eds., The Persian Gulf Crisis: Power in the Post-Cold War World. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1993. vi, 205 pp.

Ibrahim Ibrahim, ed., The Gulf Crisis: Background and Consequences. Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1992. xiv, 354 pp.

Tarik Jan, ed., Gulf War: Causes, Consequences and Future Scenarios. Islamabad: Institute of Policy Studies, 1991. 73 pp.

Michael McKinley, ed., The Gulf War: Critical Perspectives. St. Leonards, N.S.W., Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1994. vii, 201 pp.

Joseph Nye and Roger Smith, eds., After the Storm: Lessons from the Gulf War. Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 1992. x, 415 pp.

John O'Loughlin, Tom Mayer, and Edward S. Greenberg, eds., War and Its Consequences: Lessons from the Persian Gulf Conflict. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. xi, 252 pp. Papers from a 1992 conference at the University of Colorado.

John Pimlott, Stephen Badsey, and members of the Department of War Studies, Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, The Gulf War Assessed. London: Arms and Armour/New York: Sterling, 1992. 287 pp.

Micah L. Sifry and Christopher Cerf, eds., The Gulf War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions. New York: Times Books, 1991. xiii, 526 pp. I believe this was also published by Three Rivers Press, 1991. 526 pp.

Belinda Subraman, ed., The Gulf War: Many Perspectives. El Paso, Texas: Vergin Press, 1992. 164 pp.

Bruce W. Watson, et al., Military Lessons of the Gulf War. London: Greenhill Books/Novato, CA: Presidio, 1991. 272 pp. rev. ed. London: Greenhill Books/Novato, CA: Presidio, 1993. 272 pp.

 

Iraq between the two American Wars

Abbas Alnasrawi, Iraq's Burdens: Oil, Sanctions, and Underdevelopment. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2002. x, 179 pp.

Abdul-Haq al-Ani and Tarik al-Ani,

Genocide in Iraq: The Case Against the UN Security Council and Member States. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2012. Foreword by Joshua Castellino. Very critical of the sanctions imposed on Iraq from 1990 onward.

Anthony Arnove, ed., Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000. 216 pp. Updated ed.: Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2002. 262 pp.

Barbara Nimri Aziz, Swimming Up the Tigris: Real Life Encounters with Iraq. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007. xviii, 314 pp. Aziz, an anthropologist, arrived in Iraq in 1989. The main emphasis of the book is on conditions under the US-led embargo after 1991, but there are also comments on events of 2003 and after. Bitterly critical of US policy.

Amatzia Baram, Building Toward Crisis: Saddam Husayn's Strategy for Survival. Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1998. xvi, 155 pp.

Amatzia Baram, "The Effect of Iraqi Sanctions: Statistical Pitfalls and Responsibility," Middle East Journal 54:2 (Spring 2000), pp. 194-223.

Peter P. Bartos, "A Day on Northern Watch: November 2, 2000. Air Power History, Spring 2007, pp. 16-21.

Hamid al-Bayati, From Dictatorship to Democracy: An Insider's Account of the Iraqi Opposition to Saddam. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. ix, 347 pp. Foreword by Peter Galbraith. As an Iraqi exile in the 1990s, al-Bayati was a spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). A brief section at the end (pp. 289-314) deals with events since his return to Iraq in September 2003.

LtCol Ronald J. Brown, Humanitarian Operations in Northern Iraq, 1991: With Marines in Operation Provide Comfort. Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps / GPO, 1995. viii, 127 pp.

Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman, Confronting Iraq: U.S. Policy and the Use of Force Since the Gulf War. MR-1146-OSD. Santa Monica: Rand, 2000. xxiii, 101 pp.

Patrick Clawson, How Has Saddam Hussein Survived? Economic Sanctions, 1990-93. McNair Paper 22. Washington, D.C.: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, 1993. 78 pp.

Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. 322 pp.

John T. Correll, "Lessons in Limited Force". Air Force Magazine editorial, 82:2 (February 1999). Operation Desert Fox.

Joy Gordon, Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2010. 376 pp.

Samuel Helfont, Iraq against the World: Saddam, America, and the Post-Cold War Order. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.

Dilip Hiro, Neighbors, Not Friends: Iraq and Iran after the Gulf Wars. Routledge, 2001. 388 pp. Includes considerable discussino of the search for WMDs in Iraq in the 1990.

Dilip Hiro, Iraq: A Report from the Inside. Granta, 2003. 271 pp. Critical of U.S. policy.

House Committee on Armed Services

House Committee on Foreign Affairs/House committee on International Relations

House Committee on National Security

Yasmin Husein Al-Jawaheri, Women in Iraq: The Gender Impact of International Sanctions. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner, 2008. 228 pp. Includes the post-2003 results of the 1990-2003 sanctions.

James Kitfield, "The Long Deployment". Air Force Magazine, 83:7 (July 2000), pp. 30-36. Operation Southern Watch, flying missions over southern Iraq from Saudi Arabia.

James Kitfield, "The Highs and Lows of Northern Watch". Air Force Magazine, 85:8 (August 2002).

Kamil Mahdi, ed., Iraq's Economic Predicament. Ithaca Press, 1999. 388 pp.

Liam David O'Brien, "Winning Back the Peace: The George H. W. Bush Administration and the Creation of Operation Southern Watch, August 1992," International History Review 43:2 (2021), pp. 362-80.

Sam Pender is a very prolific author, probably self-publishing, (Virtualbookworm.com), in this area. Titles include America's War with Saddam, 1990-2003 (2004, 392 pp.); The Ignored War: America's War with Saddam, 2/2/91 to 3/19/03 (2004, 292 pp.); Iraq's Smoking Gun (2004, 356 pp.); Saddam's Ties to Al Queda (2005, 684 pp.).

Scott Ritter, Endgame: Solving the Iraq Crisis. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999. pb with afterword dated 2002 New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002. 256 pp.

Joshua Rovner, "Delusion of Defeat: The United States and Iraq, 1990–1998", Journal of Strategic Studies 37:4 (2014), pp. 482-507. Argues that many Americans in the 1990s had an unfounded belief that in Desert Storm the US had "won the war but lost the peace."

Christian P. Scherrer, ed., Iraq: Genocide by Sanctions. Pulau Pinang, Malaysia: Penerbit Universiti Sains Malaysia, 2011. lxiv, 688 pp.

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Geoff [Geoffrey Leslie] Simons, The Scourging of Iraq: Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice, 2d ed. New York: VHPS/St. Martin's, 1998. 384 pp.
JX 1246 .S47 1998

Geoff Simons, Targeting Iraq: Sanctions and Bombing in US Policy. London: Saqi Books, 2002. 274 pp.

Scott A. Snook, Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. xvii, 257 pp. An incident of April 14, 1994, in the no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

Graf H.C. Sponeck, A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. xiv, 322 pp.

Status of U.S. Efforts Regarding Iraq's Compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolutions. A series of reports under this title were sent by the President to the Congress.

Scott Taylor, Spinning on the Axis of Evil: America's War against Iraq. Ottawa: Esprit de Corps Books, 2003. 232 pp. Among other things, this book recounts several trips Taylor, a Canadian journalist, made to Iraq between the two U.S. wars.

United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, reports relating to human rights in Iraq. Reports accessible through this web site include such things as:

A Timothy Warnock, Short of War: Major USAF Contingency Operations. Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program/Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 2000. xxix, 274 pp.

Lt. Col. Paul K. White, USAF, Crises After the Storm: An Appraisal of U.S. Airpower in Iraq since 1991. Military Research Papers, #2. Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1999. 93 pp.

David Wurmser, Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein. Washington, DC: AEI Press, 1999.

Suzanne Xiao Yang, China in UN Security Council Decision-Making on Iraq: Conflicting Understandings, Competing Preferences. Routledge, 2013. 270 pp.

 

The Oil-for-Food Program

Jeffrey A. Meyer and Mark G. Califano, Good Intentions Corrupted: The Oil-for-Food Program and the Threat to the U.N. Introduction by Paul A. Volcker. New York: PublicAffairs, 2006. xl, 275 pp.

House Committee on Commerce

House Committee on Energy and Commerce

House Committee on Government Reform

House Committee on International Relations

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

 

WMDs and Accusations about Iraqi Links with Al Qaeda

Kathleen C. Bailey, The UN Inspections in Iraq: Lessons for On-Site Verification. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995. vii, 151 pp.

Nada Bakos, with David Coburn, The Targeter: My Life in the CIA, Hunting Terrorists and Challenging the White House. Boston: Little, Brown, 2019. viii, 354 pp. Bakos as an analyst dealt among other things with the question of links between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government. Later she was involved in the hunt for Zarqawi.

James Bamford, A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies. New York: Doubleday (Random House), 2004. 420 pp. Paperback [with a substantial afterword added, pp. 379-423]. New York: Anchor (Random House), 2005. 472 pp.

Geoffrey Barker, Sexing it up: Iraq, intelligence and Australia. Sydney, Australia: University of New South Wales Press, 2003. 112 pp.

Rod Barton, The Weapons Detective: The Inside Story of Australia's Top Weapons Inspector. Melbourne, Australia: Black Inc. Agenda, 2006. x, 278 pp. Most of this deals with Barton's investigations of Iraqi WMD programs.

Richard K. Betts, Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. xvi, 241 pp. Includes considerable discussion of U.S. intelligence on Iraq's WMDs, and some discussion of other aspects of the first and second US-Iraq wars.

Shyam Bhatia and Daniel McGrory, Brighter than the Baghdad Sun: Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Threat to the United States. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2000. x, 341 pp.

Hans Blix, Disarming Iraq. New York: Pantheon, 2004. x, 285 pp.

Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe D'Avanzo, Collusion: International Espionage and the War on Terror. Hoboken, NJ: Melville House, 2007. 245 pp. Italian original Mercato della paura: la guerra al terrorismo islamico, inchiesta sull'inganno italiano. Torino, Italy: Einaudi, 2006. Two Italian journalists look at the involvement of the Italian intelligence service in three episodes: the report that a shipment of aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq had been intended for use in uranium-enrichment centrifuges, a report that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Africa, and the American abduction of an Egyptian terrorist, Abu Omar, from Milan, Italy, in 2003.

Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016. 288 pp. The first half of the book deals with Iraq's nuclear program, but only up to 1991. It argues that Iraq was getting fairly close to developing nuclear weapons by 1990.

Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, "Cheater's Dilemma: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Path to War," International Security 45:1 (July 2020), pp. 51-89.

Nathan E. Busch and Joseph F. Pilat, The Politics of Weapons Inspections: Assessing WMD Monitoring and Verification Regimes. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2017. 386 pp. Iraq is one of the cases considered, with the main focus on nuclear programs.

Richard Butler, The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Crisis of Global Security. New York: PublicAffairs, 2000. xxiv, 262 pp. Butler was the former chairman of UNSCOM.

W. Seth Carus, Defining "Weapons of Mass Destruction" [revised and enlarged]. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2012. 91 pp. Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction Occasional Paper No. 8.

Robert W. Chandler, Tomorrow's War, Today's Decisions: Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Implications of WMD-Armed Adversaries for Future U.S. Military Strategy. McLean, VA: AMCODA Press, 1996. xxvii, 229 pp.

Norman Cigar, Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Vision: An Atmomic Shield and Sword for Conquest. Middle East Studies Occasional Papers, No. 1. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2011. x, 89 pp.

Joseph Cirincione et al., WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, January 2004. 107 pp.

Stu Cohen, "Iraq's WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts from Soft Myths." CIA, November 23, 2003. A defense of the pre-war estimates.

Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction [Laurence Silberman and Charles S. Robb, co-chairmen], Report to the President of the United States, March 31, 2005. xi, 601 pp.
PREX 1.19:IN 8/W 37

A Committee of Privy Counsellors, Chairman, Lord Butler of Brockwell, Review of Evidence on Weapons of Mass Destruction. London: The Stationery Office, 2004. xii, 196 pp.

Anthony H. Cordesman, Iraq and the War of Sanctions: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1999. xxiii, 684 pp.

John Diamond, The CIA and the Culture of Failure: U.S. Intelligence from the End of the Cold War to the Invasion of Iraq. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008. xiv, 536 pp. Chapter 9 "Desert Mirage" is pp. 374-425.

Bob Drogin, Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War. New York: Random House, 2007. xxi, 343 pp. "Curveball" was an Iraqi chemical engineer who fabricated stories of Iraqi biological weapons laboratories. Drogin is a journalist, with the Los Angeles Times.

Tyler Drumheller, On the Brink: An Insider's Account of How the White House Compromised American Intelligence. Carroll & Graf, 2006. 304 pp. Drumheller was chief of clandestine operations for Europe from 2001 until his retirement from the CIA in 2005. Argues that the White House distorted intelligence in order to make a case for invading Iraq.

Charles Duelfer, Hide and Seek: The Search for Truth in Iraq. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009. xix, 523 pp. Duelfer was deputy chairman of UNSCOM, the United Nations organization attempting to monitor Iraqi weapons programs, from 1993 to 2000. Later he headed the US government's Iraq Survey Group, and was involved with the interrogation of Saddam Husain.

Peter Eisner and Knut Royce, The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration Used a Fake Letter to Build the Case for War in Iraq. New York: Rodale Press, 2007. xx, 268 pp. The supposed purchase of uranium from Africa.

Mohamed El Baradei, The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times. New York: Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt & Co.), 2011. 340 pp. El Baradei was director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 1997 to 2009. He was bitterly critical of the Bush administration's exaggeration of Iraq's nuclear program in 2003.

Melvin A. Goodman, Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. vi, 394 pp.

Thomas Graham, Jr., and Keith A. Hansen, Preventing Catastrophe: The Use and Misuse of Intelligence in Efforts to Halt the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009. 300 pp. Includes one chapter on the Iraqi case.

Khidir Hamza with Jeff Stein, Saddam's Bombmaker: The Daring Escape of the Man Who Built Iraq's Secret Weapon. pb New York: Touchstone (Simon & Schuster), 2001. 352 pp. [There may have been a 2000 hardback].

Gudrun Harrer, Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme: The Inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency, 1991-1998. Routledge, 2014. xi, 281 pp.

Avigdor Haselkorn, The Continuing Storm: Iraq, Poisonous Weapons and Deterrence. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999. xxvi, 374 pp. Apparently argues (I have seen only summaries, not the book itself), that the threat of Iraqi chemical and especially biological weapons deterred the United States from pushing farther in the 1991 war. The thesis looks improbable to me.

Stephen F. Hayes, The Connection: How al Qaeda's Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America. New YorK: HarperCollins, 2004. xxii, 194 pp. Hayes was a reporter for the Weekly Standard.

Joost R. Hiltermann, A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xxvii, 314 pp.

House Committee on Foreign Affairs / House Committee on International Relations

House Committee on Government Reform

The Hutton Inquiry. BBC journalists began reporting on May 29, 2003, that the British Government had exaggerated the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, in order to strengthen British support for the war against Saddam Hussein. Dr. David Kelly, an expert on biological warfare working for the Ministry of Defense and a crucial source for these reports, was found dead, an apparent suicide, on July 18. An inquiry into these events, headed by Lord Hutton, produced a report on January 28, 2004, that was more critical of the BBC than of the Government.

International Atomic Energy Agency

The Iraq Survey Group was a large oranization made up of American, British, and Australian personnel, formed in 2003 to search for evidence of Iraq's WMD programs. It was headed initally by Davik Kay. Kay resigned in January 2004, and was replaced by Charled Duelfer.

[ ] Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction, NIE 2002-16HC. October 2002. The famous National Intelligence Estimate requested by the Congress. A heavily sanitized text was released in 2004.

Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs. Central Intelligence Agency, October 2002. This is the unclassified version of NIE 2002-16HC. Cover, Key Judgments, and Discussion. 25 pp. Files (maps and photos).

Robert Jervis, "Reports, Politics, and Intelligence Failures: The Case of Iraq." Journal of Strategic Studies, 29:1 (Feb 2006), pp. 3-52. Online to institutions like Clemson that have paid the fee.

Robert Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2010. 248 pp. A political scientist at Columbia University, Jervis served as a consultant to the CIA in its post-mortems on the Iranian Revolution and the 2002 NIE on Iraq's WMD programs. An extended roundtable review of this book was published on H-Diplo, 9 July 2010; the review by Jeffrey Richelson (pp. 12-17) gives the clearest picture of the content of the book.

Brian Jones, Failing Intelligence: The True Story of how we were fooled into going to war in Iraq. Dialogue, 2010. 252 pp. Jones is a former member of the scientific and technical directorate of Britain's Defence Intelligence Staff. He tried but generally failed to restrain exaggerations about Iraq's WMD programs in British intelligence reports before the beginning of the Iraq War.

Kenneth Katzman, Iraq and Al Qaeda: Allies or Not? RL 32217. Congressional Research Service, August 15, 2008. 11 pp.

Peter Kilfoyle, MP, Lies, Damned Lies, and Iraq: An in-depth investigation into the case for war and how it was misrepresented. Petersfield, Hampshire, United Kingdom: Harriman House, 2007. 338 pp.

Jean E. Krasno and James E. Sutterlin, The United Nations and Iraq: Defanging the Viper. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. 264 pp. A study of UNSCOM, apparently focused on 1991-1998.

J. D. Maddox, "The Day I Realized I Would Never Find Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq," New York Times online January 29, 2020. Maddox was an investigator for the Department of Energy, looking for evidence of nuclear weapons programs in Iraq in mid-2003.

Mahdi Obeidi and Kurt Pitzer, The Bomb in My Garden: The Secrets of Saddam's Nuclear Mastermind. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2004. xiii, 242 pp. Favorably reviewed by Hayden Peake.

Matrix Churchill. In 1987, an Iraqi company purchased control of a British manufacturer of machine tools, which was soon renamed Matrix Churchill Ltd. Matrix Churchill began shipping to Iraq large quantities of high-tech tools and equiment, capable of being used for manufacture of weapons, mostly conventional, but including some equpment potentially useful for Iraq's nuclear program. These shipments were brought to a halt after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Some Matrix Churchill executives were arrested for violation of government restrictions on weapons-related exports. Their trial collapsed in 1992 after revelation that the prosecution had been greatly exaggerating the extent to which British government policy had forbidden such exports. There had been an unannounced relaxation of export controls in 1988, after the end of the Iran-Iraq War. An investigation headed by Sir Richard Scott produced "Report of the Inquiry into the Export of Defense Equipment and Dual-Use Goods to Iraq and Related Prosecutions" (the "Scott Report"), released in February 1996.

Albert J. Mauroni, Chemical-Biological Defense: U.S. Military Policies and Decisions in the Gulf War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1998. xxii, 236 pp.

Al [Albert J.] Mauroni, Where are the WMDs? The Reality of Chem-Bio Threats on the Home Front and the Battlefield. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006. xiv, 333 pp.

Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideas. Doubleday, 2008. 400 pp. Mayer writes for the New Yorker.

Judith Miller, The Story: A Reporter's Journey. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015. 381 pp. In 2002 and 2003, Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, published very conspicuous stories, based on information coming from government officials, about Iraq's WMD programs. When the information turned out not to have been accurate, the newspaper was embarrassed and Miller was fired.

Barbara Moe, The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. New York: Rosen, 2005. 64 pp. Intended for juvenile readers.

Stephen Phillip Monteiro, The Gray Bird of Baghdad: An Ex-Secret Service Agent's Desperate Mission to Save an Iraqi Scientist. SparkPress, 2022. 272 pp.

Philip Mudd, Takedown: Inside the Hunt for Al Qaeda. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. xvi, 200 pp. By a CIA analyst. There is a short chapter on intelligence about Iraq during the period leading up to the 2003 war. Mudd was involved in the production of Colin Powell's famous speech to the United Nations. But this chapter is frustratingly vague.

Laurie Mylroie, The War Against America: Saddam Hussein and the World Trade Center Attacks: A Study of Revenge. 2nd rev. ed. Foreword by R. James Woolsey. pb New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), 2001. xxviii, 318 pp. Front cover blurb by Paul Wolfowitz. The original was Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Press, 2000. xviii, 323 pp.

Laurie Mylroie, Bush vs. the Beltway: How the CIA and the State Department Tried to Stop the War on Terror. New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), 2003. 258 pp. Paperback with altered subtitle Bush vs. the Beltway: The Inside Battle over War in Iraq. New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), 2004. 286 pp. Judging by the description in AFIO WIN 08/16/04, this is pretty fanciful about links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and related issues.

The National commission on Terrorist Attacks Upong the United States, commonly known as the 9-11 Commission

Cullen G. Nutt, "Proof of the Bomb: The Influence of Previous Failure on Intelligence Judgments of Nuclear Programs," Security Studies 28:2 (2019), 351-89. Looks at how memories of past mistakes in evaluating WMD programs, including Iraq's, influenced intelligence judgments about whether Syria and Libya had nuclear weapons programs.

Osirak. On June 7, 1981, in a difficult long-distance strike mission, the Israeli Air Force bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor at Osirak, imposing a serious setback on the Iraqi effort to develop nuclear weapons.

Raymond Picquet, "The Acquisition of Chemical Weapons in Iraq: The Social Construction of a Weapon of Mass Destruction in a Rough Neighborhood." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Claremont Graduate University, 2014. DA 3666936.

John Prados, ed., The Record on Curveball: Declassified Documents and Key Participants Show the Importance of Phony Intelligence in the Origins of the Iraq War. Electronic Briefing Book No. 234. National Security Archive, November 5, 2007. An essay by Prados, the text of Colin Powell's famous speech of 5 February 2003 to the United Nations, and excerpts from the reports of five later investigations.

Monica Prasad, et al., "'There Must Be a Reason': Osama, Saddam, and Inferred Justification", Sociological Inquiry, 79:2 (May 2009), pp. 142-162. Looks at why so many Americans have believed, in the face of the evidence, that Saddam Hussein had been responsible for 9/11.

Reports of Weapons of Mass Destruction Findings in Iraq. Hearing, House Committee on Armed Services, June 29, 2006. iii, 105 pp.
Y 4.AR 5/2 A:2005-2006/115

Jeffrey Richelson, Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 80. December 20, 2002. Updated February 11, 2004. A brief introductory essay, and 43 documents.

Scott Ritter, Iraq confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein. New York: Nation Books, 2005. xxiii, 312 pp.

Joshua Rovner, "Intelligence-Policy Relations and the Problem of Politicization." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, MIT, 2008. AAT 0821666. Considers three cases in the relations between intelligence agencies and policymakers: the Johnson administration and intelligence on Vietnam; the Nixon and Ford administrations and intelligence on the Soviet Union; and the U.S. and British governments and prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Joshua Rovner, Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011. ix, 263 pp. An analysis, which looks quite convincing to me, of the reasons why policymakers sometimes politicize intelligence, and sometimes just ignore intelligence analyses that contradict their views. Chapter 7, "Intelligence, Policy, and the War in Iraq" (pp. 137-84), deals with the politicization of American and British intelligence in 2002 and 2003.

Maria Ryan, "Wilful Blindness or Blissful Ignorance? The United States and the Successful Denuclearization of Iraq," Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 29, No. 3 (June 2014), pp. 458- .

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Amy E. Smithson, Ugly Truths: Saddam Hussein and Other Insiders on Iraq's Covert Bioweapons Program. CNS Occasional Paper No. 13. Monterey, CA: Monterey Institute for International Studies, 2014. 36 pp.

Adam D. M. Svendsen, Intelligence Cooperation and the War on Terror: Anglo-American Security Relations after 9/11. London: Routledge, 2010. 236 pp.

Jonathan B. Tucker, Trafficking Networks for Chemical Weapons Precursors: Lessons from the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. CNS Occasional Paper No. 13. Monterey, CA: Monterey Institute for International Studies, 2008. iii, 40 pp.

United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC)

United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM)

Al J. Venter, The Iraqi War Debrief: Why Saddam Hussein Was Toppled. Earthbound Books (Casemate), 2003. 352 pp. I have not seen the book, but the impression I get from the publisher's publicity for it is that it exaggerates Iraqi WMD programs.

Charles Verpoorten, La bombe atomique de Saddam: l'art de se doter clandestinement d'une arme nucléaire. [Brussels?]: Editions Way Press, 1992. 382 pp.

Kathleen Vogel, Phantom Menace or Looming Danger? A New Framework for Assessing Bioweapons Threats. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. 384 pp. One of the cases considered is that of the supposed Iraqi mobile bioweapons labs.

Tracy Walder, The Unexpected Spy: From the CIA to the FBI, My Secret Life Taking Down Some of the World's Most Notorious Terrorists. New York: St. Martin's, 2020. 272 pp.

Craig R. Whitney, ed., The WMD Mirage: Iraq's Decade of Deception and America's False Premise for War. New York: Public Affairs, 2005. xxvii, 671 pp.

Andrew Wilkie, Axis of Deceit. Black Inc. Agenda, 2004. 200 pp. Wilkie, an Australian intelligence officer, resigned from the Office of National Assessments, in protest against what he regarded as disgtortion of intelligence to support the impending Iraq war, in March 2003. I am not sure whether there are revisions and updates in the Kindle edition, Black Inc., 2010, 224 pp.

Joseph Wilson, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004. 513 pp. After Wilson publicly denounced an inaccurate statement by President Bush about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, White House officials leaked to various reporters the fact that his wife (below) worked for the CIA.

Valerie Plame Wilson, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. 320 pp.

Kevin M. Woods, with James Lacey, Saddam and Terrorism: Emerging Insights from Captured Iraqi Documents (redacted). Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2007.

 

The Second U.S. - Iraq War (2003- )

General and Miscellaneous

Tariq Ali, Bush in Babylon: The Recolonisation of Iraq. London and New York: Verso, 2003. x, 214 pp. Very critical of U.S. policy, from a leftist perspective.

Abdul-Haq al-Ani and Tarik al-Ani, Genocide in Iraq, volume II: The Obliteration of a Modern State. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2015.

Gérald Arboit and Michel Mathien, et al., La guerre on Irak: les médias et les conflits armés. Bruxelles: Bruylant, 2006. 330 pp.

Philip Auerswald, ed., Iraq, 1990-2006: A Diplomatic History through Documents. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. 3 vols.

Llyod J. Austin, The Iraq War, 2003-2011. Washington, DC, 2012. 155 pp. Illustrated.
D 1.2:IR 1/7

Orit Bashkin, "Deconstructing Destruction: The Second Gulf War and the New Historiography of Twentieth-Century Iraq," Arab Studies Journal 23:1 (Fall 2015), pp. 210-235.

Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright, The Madman of Freedom Square. Comma Press, 2009. A collection of short stories by an Iraqi who went into exile in 2004.

Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright, The Iraqi Christ. Comma Press, 2013. 140 pp. Another collection of short stories by the same author.

Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright, The Corpse Exhibition and Other Stories of Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2014. Consists almost entirely of selected stories from the two volumes immediately above.

Yossef Bodansky, The Secret History of the Iraq War. New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), 2004. 570 pp. I have not read this book, but I have been told that in it Bodansky, ex-director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, makes statements I find most improbable, such as that Saddam Husayn was deeply involved with al-Qa'ida; that he dispatched a 500-man terrorist battalion to North America in 2002; and that Iraqi forces were armed with WMDs that have been hidden in Syria or buried in the Iraqi desert. The book has a some bibliographic information but no source notes.

Scott A. Bonn, "Whoppers of Mass Deception (WMD): Presidential Rhetoric, Moral Panic and the War in Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, University of Miami, 2007. xi, 216 pp. AAT 3267688.

Richard Bonin, Arrows of the Night: Ahmad Chalabi's Long Journey to Triumph in Iraq. New York: Doubleday, 2011. 304 pp. This looked very impressive--insightful and convincing--to me.

Colonel Walter J. Boyne, USAF (Ret.), Operation Iraqi Freedom: What Went Right, What Went Wrong, and Why. New York: Forge (Tom Doherty Associates), 2003. 304 pp.

Robert K. Brigham, The United States and Iraq Since 1990: A Brief History with Documents. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. 448 pp.

Ben Brody, Attention Servicemember. Red Hook Editions, 2019. 304 pp. Part of this volume deals with Brody's service in Baghdad as US Army photographer. He was under pressure to make the war, and the US military, look good. Photos included.

Linwood B. Carter, Iraq: Summary of U.S. Forces. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, November 28, 2005. 11 pp.

Rodney P. Carlisle, Iraq War. Facts on File, 2004. 176 pp. Facts on File, 2007. 208 pp. For young readers.

Christopher Cerf and Micah L. Sifry, eds., The Iraq War Reader: History, Documents, Opinions. Touchstone, 2003. 736 pp.

Patrick Cockburn, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq. London and New York: Verso, 2006. 229 pp. Cockburn, a British journalist who wrote for the Independent and the London Review of Books, arrived in Iraq just before the war began in 2003, and stayed covering the insurgency.

Joseph J. Collins, Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 2008. x, 43 pp. Institute for National Strategic Studies Occasional Paper 5. Includes discussion of prewar planning for postwar Iraq, not just of the decision to have a war. The text has been placed online both by the British company Selectra and by the Defense Techincal Information Center.

Anthony H. Cordesman, The Iraq War: Strategy, Tactics, and Military Lessons. Washington, D.C.: CSIS Press/Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003. xiv, 572 pp.

Paul Cornish, ed., The Conflict in Iraq, 2003. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. xvi, 297 pp.

David Cortright, A Peaceful Superpower: Lessons from the World's Largest Antiwar Movement. New York: New Village Press (distributed by NYU Press), 2023. 240 pp.

Vice Admiral Barry M. Costello (ret.), Fortune Favors Boldness: The Story of Naval Valor during Operation Iraqi Freedom. London: Fortis, 2018. 351 pp.

Ayça Çubukçu, For the Love of Humanity: The World Tribunal on Iraq. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. 240 pp. The World Tribunal on Iraq, an unoffical body critical of the US occupation of Iraq, was established by intellectuals and human rights activists in 2003. See also below under Sökmen.

Sara Daniel, Voyage to a Stricken Land: Four Years on the Ground Reporting from Iraq: A Woman's Inside Story. Translated from the French by George Holoch. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2006. xii, 193 pp. A French journalist, who had previously worked in the U.S. and Jordan, and who in Iraq covered both Americans and insurgents.

James DeFronzo, The Iraq War: Origins and Consequences. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press (Perseus), 2010. xi, 323 pp. Four chapters on Iraq up to 1990, one on the 1990-91 crises, and five on the US-Iraq War that began in 2003, and its implications and results.

Howard A. DeWitt, The Road to Baghdad. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 2003. 158 pp.

Larry Diamond, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq. New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2005. 369 pp. Diamond was in Iraq as an adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority from January to April 2004.

Toby Dodge and Bassel F. Salloukh, eds., "Consociationalism and the State:Lebanon and Iraq in Comparative Perspective," special issue of Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 30:1 (2024). Includes among others:

Thomas Donnelly, Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Strategic Assessment. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 2004. xvi, 123 pp.

William M. Donnelly, Transforming an Army at war: Designing the modular force, 1991-2005. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2007. viii, 90 pp.
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William Dudley, ed., Iraq: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 2004. 202 pp. For young readers, grades 9 and up.

John Ehrenberg, J. Patrice McSherry, Jose Ramon Sanchez, and Caroleen Marji Sayej, eds. The Iraq Papers. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. xxxiv, 620 pp.

James Fallows, Blind Into Baghdad: America's War in Iraq. New York: Vintage (Random House), 2006. xxv, 229 pp.

Amer Faris (pseud), Red Flags: Memoir of an Iraqi Conscript Trapped Between Enemy Lines in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009. 201 pp.

Rick Fawn and Raymond A. Hinnebusch, eds., The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences. Lynne Rienner, 2006. 357 pp. The essays tend to be hostile to U.S. policy, and many deal with the views of a variety of nations in Europe, the Middle East, and elsewhere.

Mike Ferner, Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran for Peace Reports from Iraq. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. xv, 164 pp.

Alan Feuer, Over There: From the Bronx to Baghdad. New York: Counterpoint, 2005. ix, 283 pp.

Hannah Fischer, "A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Inherent Resolve, Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom." Congressional Research Service, November 20, 2014. 8 pp. The text has been placed online by the U.S. Naval Institute. Includes figures on PTSD and traumatic brain injury, and on the race, ethnicity, and gender distribution of deaths.

David Fitzgerald, "Support the Troops: Gulf War Homecomings and a New Politics of Military Celebration," Modern American History 2:1 (March 2019) pp. 1-22.

Lauri S. Friedman, ed., The Iraq War. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. 111 pp. A guide for young readers on how to write a persuasive essay on the Iraq War.

From the Editors of Time, 21 Days to Baghdad: The Inside Story of How America Won the War Against Iraq. New York: Time Books, 2003. 176 pp. Mostly pictures; a moderate amount of text, pretty enthusiastic about the war.

Charles Glass, The Northern Front: A Wartime Diary. Foreword by P.J. O'Rourke. London: Saqi, 2006. 275 pp. In January 2003, Glass accompanied some of the exile leaders (including Kanan Makiya and Ahmad Chalabi) to Iraqi Kurdistan (going in through Iran), to await the coming war there.

Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E Trainor, Cobra II: The Inside Story of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. New York: Pantheon, 2006. xxxii, 603 pp.

Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. New York: Pantheon, 2012. xix, 779 pp.

Jeremiah Goulka, The Mujahedin-E Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum. Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 2009.

Government Accountability Office (GAO)

Andrew M. Greeley, A Stupid, Unjust, and Criminal War: Iraq, 2001-2007. Orbis, 2007. 215 pp.

La guerre en Irak, le livre noir. Documents reunis at presentes par Reporters san frontieres. Preface de Robert Menard, postface d'Olivier Weber. Paris: Editions la Decouverte, 2004. 219 pp. A collection of reports by Human Rights Watch and other groups about human rights violations during the American war.

Lance Gabriel Hampton, "Justifications for the Iraq War: An Analysis of the Government's Public Case for War, 2001 to 2003." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2008. xiv, 217 pp. AAT 3322314.

Christopher T. Harrison, "The Developmental Implications of Image Theory in Inciting a Population to War: A Content Analysis of Bush Administration Discourse Leading to the Iraq War." Ph.D. dissertation, Clinical Psychology, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, California, 2009. xi, 289 pp. AAT 3354726.

Frank P. Harvey, Explaining The Iraq War: Counterfactual Theory, Logic and Evidence. Cambridge University Press, 2011. 349 pp. I have not seen this, buy my impression is that it argues that had he been president, Al Gore also would have gone to war against Iraq. I am dubious about this sort of counterfactual analysis.

David M. Haugen, Susan Musser, and Kacy Lovelace, eds., Iraq: Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven, 2009. 186 pp. For young readers, grades 10-12.

Dan Hayden, Iraq: In the Crosshairs of Destiny. Advantage Inspirational, 2008. 180 pp. The approach seems to be based on Bible prophecy.

Tom Hayden, Ending the War in Iraq. New York: Akashic Books, 2007. 217 pp. Traces the conflicts between antiwar forces and the neoconservatives back to the 1960s.

Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, "The Place of Framing: Multiple Audiences and Antiwar Protests Near Fort Bragg," Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 29, No. 4 (December 2006): 484-505.

Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, "Partisans, Nonpartisans, and the Antiwar Movement in the United States," American Politics Research, Vol. 35, No. 4 (July 2007), pp. 431-464. The text is online to users at subscribing institutions.

Seymour M. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. xix, 394 pp.

Christopher Hitchens, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq. New York: Plume (Penguin), 2003. vi, 104 pp. A collection of essays, generally favoring the idea of war against Iraq, written from November 2002 to April 2003.

Simon Cottee and Thomas Cushman, eds., Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left. New York and London: New York University Press, 2008. xiii, 365 pp. The first two thirds is made up of articles by Hitchens (the section on Iraq, containing things he wrote between September 2002 and September 2005, generally supportive of the U.S. war, is pp. 99-164). The last third is articles about Hitchens, and sometimes, responses to these by Hitchens.

Rosemary Hollis, Britain and the Middle East in the 9/11 Era. London: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. 218 pp. one long section (pp.86-117) and some shorter ones deal with Iraq.

Ole Rudolf Holsti, American Public Opinion on the Iraq War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2011. xii, 226 pp. Supposed to be quite good.

Hon. John N. Hostettler, Nothing for the Nation: Who Got What Out of Iraq. Publis, 2008. 126 pp. Hostettler was an anti-war member of the U.S. House of Representatives (Republican of Indiana).

The Iraq War 2003-2011. [Washington, D.C.?]: United States Forces - Iraq, 2012. 155 pp. Extensively illustrated.
D 1.2:IR 1/7

Raphael Israeli, The Iraq War: Hidden Agendas and Babylonian Intrigue: The Regional Impact on Shi'ites, Kurds, Sunnis, and Arabs. Portland, Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 2004. x, 278 pp.
DS 79.76 .I87 2004

James Turner Johnson, The War to Oust Saddam Hussein: Just War and the New Face of Conflict. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 160 pp.

Sheila Enslev Johnston, The Iraqi Conflict. Canada: Altitude Publishing, 2008. 192 pp. Johnston is a former Canadian Army officer and a student of military affairs, but the publisher's publicity does not mention any particular qualifications regarding Iraq.

Joint Force Quarterly. Published for the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, by the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University. All issues are available online, beginning with issue #1 (Summer 1993). The articles in this journal tend to be very abstract; I don't find them terribly useful. A few of the ones dealing with Iraq:

Mark N. Katz, Leaving Without Losing: The War on Terror After Iraq and Afghanistan. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012. 168 pp.

John Keegan, The Iraq War. New York: Knopf, 2004. 272 pp. I usually like Keegan's work, but I saw more errors in this one than I had expected.

Michael Knights, ed., Operation Iraqi Freedom and the New Iraq: Insights and Forecasts. Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2004. 375 pp.

Jim Lacey and Sharon Tosi Moore, eds., Fresh from the Fight: The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq: An Anthology of National War College Studies by American Combat Commanders. Zenith Press, (2007, 2008? I am starting to wonder whether publication may have been cancelled).

Ronnie D. Lankford, The Iraq War. Greenhaven Press, 2010. 192 pp. In the series "Social Issues Firsthand," for young adult readers.

Michael A. Ledeen, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction. New YOrk: Truman Talley Books/St. Martin's, 2007. 234 pp. Judging from the review in the New York Times Book Review, September 9, 2007, this seems to be a rather silly book, arguing that Iran has been controlling the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, and controlling Al Qaeda. Ledeen works at the American Enterprise Institute.

James M. Ludes, ed., Iraq Uncensored: Perspectives. Golden, Colorado. Fulcrum Publishing, 2009. xxiv, 162 pp. Foreword by Senator John Kerry. Produced by a think tank called the American Security Project. Some of the topics of the essays look interesting, but they average about 6 pages long, which makes me dubious.

Matthew McAllester, Blinded by the Sunlight: Emerging from the Prison of Saddam's Iraq. New York: HarperCollins, 2004. xiv, 284 pp. There is also a paperback with a different subtitle, Blinded by the Sunlight: Surviving Abu Ghraib and Saddam's Iraq.

Daniel F. McCleary et al., "Types of Patriotism as Primary Predictors of Continuing Support for the Iraq War," Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer 2009, pp. 77-94.

Neil Mackay, The War on Truth: Everything you ever wanted to know about the invasion of Iraq but your government wouldn't tell you. Casemate, 2007. 480 pp. By a Scottish journalist.

Thomas G. Mahnken and Thomas A. Keaney, eds., War in Iraq: Planning and Execution. New YorK: Routledge, 2007. xix, 263 pp. This collection of essays is said to be very good.

Paul Mason, The Iraq War. (Mankato, MN?): Arcturus Publishing, 2010. 48 pp. For juvenile readers.

Camilo Mejía, Road from Ar Ramadi: The Private Rebellion of Staff Sergeant Camilo Mejía. New York: New Press, 2007. 312 pp. Camilo Mejia went into Iraq, probably in April 2003 (though I didn't see a date on a brief scan) with C Company, 1-124 Infantry, Florida National Guard. In 2004 he applied for a CO discharge from the National Guard; he ended up being prosecuted for desertion. Apparently a pretty negative picture of US operations in the Sunni Triangle.

Steven Metz, "Operation Iraqi Freedom: A Selected Strategic-Level Bibliography". U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 2009.

Carl Mirra, Soldiers and Citizens: An Oral History of Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Battlefield to the Pentagon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 224 pp.

Greg Mitchell, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits--and the President--Failed on Iraq. New York: Sterling, 2008. 298 pp.

Thomas R. Mockaitis, The Iraq War: Learning from the Past, Adapting to the Present, and Planning for the Future. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2007. vi, 64 pp.

Lt. Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Operation Iraqi Freedom: By the Numbers. Shaw AFB, SC: Central Air Forces, April 30, 2003. 16 pp. A statistical summary, with particular emphasis on the Air Force role, of the war from 3/19/2003 to 4/18/2003. Interesting for its very high figure for US forces deployed for the operation, and for very detailed figures on air munitions expended.

Bill Murphy Jr., In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point's Class of 2002. New York: Holt, 2008.

Williamson Murray and Major General Robert H. Scales, Jr., The Iraq War: A Military History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. 368 pp.

Williamson Murray, ed., A Nation at War in an Era of Strategic Change. Carlisle, PA: Stategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004. v, 371 pp. Some of the efforts to grapple with the implications of the Iraq War look as if they might be interesting, such as: James D. Scudieri, "Iraq, 2003-4, and Mesopotamia, 1914-18: a comparative analysis in ends and means"; John D. Nelson, "Swiftly defeat the efforts, then what? The 'new American way of war' and the transition from decisive combat operations to post-conflict security operations"; Burt K. Thompson, "Nation building: a bad idea whose time has come?"

Erick W. Nason, From Desert Storm to Iraqi Freedom: One Soldier's Story. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHOuse, 2006. 251 pp. Nason as a Special Forces soldier did SAR during Desert Storm; he was in northern Iraq in 2003, and later in Baghdad.

Ronan O'Callaghan, Walzer, Just War and Iraq: Ethics as Response. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2016. 170 pp.

Off target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq. New York : Human Rights Watch, 2003. 141 pp.

George Packer, The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005. 467 pp.

Salam Pax (pseud.), The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi. New York: Grove Press, 2003. xiv, 206 pp. An Iraqi architect who began blogging in September 2002.

Stephen C. Pelletière, Losing Iraq: Insurgency and Politics. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. xi, 151 pp.

David L. Phillips, Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco. Boulder: Westview (Perseus), 2005. ix, 292 pp. Phillips was with the State Department's Future of Iraq Project, which DoD shoved aside during the runup to the war.

Kimberley L. Phillips, War! What Is It Good For? Black Freedom Struggles and the U.S. Military from World War II to Iraq. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. xi, 343 pp.

Kenneth M. Pollack, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq. New York: Random House, 2002. xxx, 494 pp. A Council on Foreign Relations book. Pollack had served as an analyst in the CIA, then as director for Gulf affairs at the NSC 1995-96 and 1999-2001.

Milan Rai, Regime Unchanged: Why the War on Iraq Changed Nothing. London: Pluto Press, 2003. 256 pp. Milan Rai is or was an anti-war activist in Britain. I have not seen the book; I hope it is not as silly as its title.

RAND Corporation (Previously, Rand Corporation). This "think tank" does a lot of research and analysis work on contract for the Defense Department. Most RAND publications can be purchased in hard copy through the RAND Corporation online bookstore, but many also can be read online for free. Some RAND Corporation publications listed under Theories of Limited War and Counterinsurgency and also contain discussion Iraq. Most of those dealing with the period 2003-2010 are in the section immediately below, but those on the American withdrawal from Iraq are under Post 2003.

Colonel Joel D. Rayburn and Colonel Frank K. Sobchak, eds., The U.S. Army in the Iraq War. Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2019. U.S. Army Chief of Staff Ray Odierno wanted a study of the U.S. experience in Iraq that would look candidly at what had gone wrong, and why. After Odierno retired as chief of staff the project hit political roadblocks that delayed publication, but it has finally appeared, and it should be an extremely important contribution to the literature of the war.

Jeffrey Record, Dark Victory: America's Second War against Iraq. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2004. xv, 203 pp.

Judith Regan, ed., The War in Iraq: A Photo History. New York: ReganBooks (HarperCollins), 2003. 373 pp. A large-format photo book whose body is devoid of text; the photo captions are on the contents/credits pages, pp. 368-373.

Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Patriot System Performance: Report Summary. Washington, DC: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense For Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, 2005. Very short; a three-page report plus appendices.

Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2006. xiv, 482 pp. A very convincing account.

Pierre Rigoulet and Michel Taubmann, eds., Irak, An 1: Un autre regard sur un monde en guerre. (Paris?): Editions du Rocher, 2004. Stephane Courtois, et. al.; a relatively pro-American view.

Les Roberts et. al., "Mortality Before and After the 2003 Invasion of Iraq: Cluster Sample Survey." The Lancet, 20 November 2004 (Vol. 364, No. 9448), pp. 1857-1864. Deaths during the 17.8 months after the March 2003 beginning of the invasion were compared with deaths during the 14.6 months before the invasion (January 2002 onward). See also later version (2006).

Paul William Roberts, A War Against Truth: An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq. Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 2004. 366 pp. Also published as A War Against Truth: Behind the Lines in the Invasion of Iraq. South Yarra, Vic.: Hardie Grant, 2004. 366 pp. By a Canadian journalist, apparently very hostile to US policy.

Aram Roston, The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi. New York: Nation Books, 2008. xiv, 369 pp.

Lawrence Rothfield, The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. xii, 216 pp. The topic is broader than the subtitle suggests; the book deals with a lot of issues relating to antiquities in Iraq, including the looting of archaelogical sites.

Mike Ryan, Baghdad or Bust: The Inside Story of Gulf War II. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword, 2004. 224 pp.

Michael Schwartz, War Without End: The Iraq War in Context. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008. 335 pp. Very hostile to U.S. policy.

Taylor Seybolt, Jay D. Aronson, and Baruch Fischoff, eds., Counting Civilian Casualties: An Introduction to Recording and Estimating Nonmilitary Deaths in Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. xix, 310 pp. Two papers deal to a significant extent with Iraq:

Anthony Shadid, Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War. New York: Henry Holt, 2005. xiv, 424 pp. Shadid, who speaks Arabic, reported from Iraq in 1998 for AP; late in 2002 for the Boston Globe; and from March 2003 to June 2004 for the Washington Post.

Phil Shiner and Andrew Williams, eds., The Iraq War and International Law. Oxford and Portland, Oregon: Hart Publishing, 2008. xxxiii, 352 pp.

Arthur B. Shostak, ed., Beyond 9/11 and the Iraq War. Chelsea House, 2004. For young adults (secondary school students).

Cigdem V. Sirin, "Public Support for Military Interventions across Levels of Political Information and Stages of Intervention: The Case of the Iraq War," Armed Forces & Society 38:2 (April 2012), pp. 252-272.

Müge Gürsoy Sökmen, ed., World Tribunal on Iraq: Making the Case Against War. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2008. xi, 562 pp. (I believe this is a trenslation of a work originally published in Istanbul in Turkish.) The World Tribunal on Iraq, an unoffical body critical of the US occupation of Iraq, was established by intellectuals and human rights activists in 2003. See also above under Çubukçu.

Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes, The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. New York: Norton, 2008. 192 pp. The estimate looks a bit high to me.

Roger Strother, ed., Post-Saddam Iraq: The War Game: "Desert Crossing" 1999 Assumed 400,000 Troops and Still a Mess. Electronic Briefing Book No. 207. National Security Archive, November 4, 2006. A brief description by Strother of the war game run by CENTCOM in April 1999, to evaluate what might happen after an American invasion of Iraq. The five accompanying documents are dated April to November 1999.

Colonel Ted Spain, US Army (ret.), and Terry Turchie, Dep. Asst. Dir. FBI (ret.), Breaking Iraq: The Ten Mistakes That Broke Iraq. History Publishing Company, 2013. 320 pp. Foreword by Tom Ricks. A lot of emphasis on issues involving police. Spain, the primary author, commanded the 18th Military Police Brigade 2003-4.

Anthony Tucker-Jones, The Iraq War: Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword, 2014. 160 pp.

David Turnley, Baghdad Blues: A War Diary. New York: Magowan Publishing/Vendome Press, 2003. 160 pp. Turnley, a photojournalist working for CNN, went from Turkey into Syria and then into Iraq, where he traveled with peshmerga and got to Baghdad on April 11, 2003. pp. 9-39 are Turnley's diary from March 20 to April 15. pp. 40-153 are large color photos. pp. 154-157 are the captions for the photos.

"U.S. Military Operations in Iraq: Planning, Combat, and Occupation". Conference sponsored by Johns Hopkins' SAIS and the U.S. Army's Strategic Studies Institute, November 2, 2005. Summaries of papers presented at Session 1, "Defeating the Iraqi Regime." 7 pp. Summaries of papers presented by Conrad Crane, LTC Richard Lacquement, and Nora Bensahel, at Session 2, "Reconstructing Iraq: U.S. Military Operations in Iraq: Planning, Combat and Occupation." 7 pp. Summaries of papers presented at Session 3, "Countering the Insurgency." 5 pp. Summaries of discussion by Thomas Ricks and LTG Mick Trainor, USMC (ret.), at Session 4, "Lessons, Controversies, and Questions." 4 pp.

Worth H. Weller, ed., Bulletins from Baghdad--Making Peace in a Time of War: The Story of Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq, 2002-2003. North Manchester, IN: DeWitt Books, (2003? This title was announced, but I have been unable to find evidence it was ever actually published.)

Kevin M. Woods, with Michael R. Pease, Mark E. Stout, Williamson Murray, and James G. Lacey, Iraqi Perspectives Project: A View of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Saddam's Senior Leadership. Washington, D.C.: Joint Center for Operational Analysis and GPO, 2006. xi, 210 pp.

Kevin M. Woods, et al., The Iraqi Perspectives Report: Saddam's Senior Leadership on Operation Iraqi Freedom from the Official U. S. Joint Forces Command Report. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2006. xxi, 205 pp. I believe this is essentially a reprint of the item immediately above, but the difference in page numbers suggests there may have been some revisions at least to the front matter.

Kevin Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson Murray, "Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside," Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006. Saddam Hussein's belief that the United States would not go all the way to Baghdad in any invasion of Iraq.

 

Afghanistan and Iraq

Donald Anderson, ed., Quagmire: Personal Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan. Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2021. xvi, 234 pp.

Terry H. Anderson, Bush's Wars. Oxford University Press, 2011. xv, 282 pp. A summary, rather negative, of Bush administration policies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Said to be pretty good but not particularly original.

Richard B. Andres, Craig Wills, and Thomas E. Griffith, Jr., "Winning with Allies: The Strategic Value of the Afghan Model," International Security 30:3 (Winter 2005/06), pp. 124-160. Celebrating the success of the small-footprint model for US military operations, published just as the shortcomings of that model were becoming obvious.

Beth Bailey and Richard Immerman, eds., Understanding the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. New York: New York University Press, 2015. 368 pp. Essays mostly by academics.

John R. Ballard, David W. Lamm, and John K. Wood, From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The U.S. at War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2012. xxvi, 367 pp. Said to be a good analysis of the way U.S. policies for the two wars interacted.

David Barno and Nora Bensahel, Adaptation under Fire: How Militaries Change in Wartime. Oxford University Press, 2020. 440 pp.

Ben Barry, Blood, Metal and Dust: How Victory Turned into Defeat in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oxford and New York: Osprey, 2020. 528 pp.

Stephen D. Biddle, "Allies, Airpower, and Modern Warfare: The Afghan Model in Afghanistan and Iraq," International Security 30:3 (Winter 2005/06), pp. 161-176.

Daniel P. Bolger, Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014. xlii, 502 pp. Iraq, from 1998 to 2011, is covered on pp. 97-276. Bolger, who had held command positions in both Iraq and Afghanistan, retired as a lieutenant general in 2013.

John Sloan Brown, Kevlar Legions: The Transformation of the U.S. Army, 1989-2005. Washington, DC: US Army Center of Military History, 2011. xviii, 539 pp.

Matthew Currier Burden, The Blog of War: Front-Line Dispatches from Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 191 pp. I am told this is made up predominantly of the writings of soldiers who support the war and U.S. policy.

Lawrence E. Cline, "The Two Surges: Iraq and Afghanistan in Comparison," Small Wars & Insurgencies 33:7 (2022), 1152-76.

Marjorie Cohn and Kathleen Gilberd, Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent. Sausalito, CA: PoliPoint Press, 2009. 229 pp. The authors are very hostile to what they regard as illegal wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, eds., Imperial Crusades: Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia: A Diary of Three Wars. London and New York: Verso, 2004. 378 pp. Essays published in counterPunch, of which Cockburn and St. Clair were the editors. Many but not all of the essays dealing with Iraq, which make up most of the second half of the book (pp. 163-364; items originally published November 2002 to January 2004), were written by Cockburn and St. Clair.

Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong, USMC, Ret., with Noah Lukeman, Inside CentCom: The Unvarnished Truth About the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2004. xviii, 222 pp. "Rifle" DeLong was deputy commander of CENTCOM.

SgtMaj David K. Devaney, USMC (Ret.), They Were Heroes: A Sergeant Major's Tribute to the Combat Marines of Iraq and Afghanistan. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014. 256 pp.

Marian Eide and Michael Gibler, After Combat: True War Stories from Iraq and Afghanistan. Lincoln, NE: Potomac, 2018. xi, 258 pp.

Dexter Filkins, The Forever War. New York: Knopf, 2008. 368 pp. Filkins is a correspondent for the New York Times, previously for the Los Angeles Times. The first three chapters are about Afghanistan, 1998 to 2001, but the bulk of the book is about Iraq, from 2003 onward.

Alastair Finlan, Contemporary Military Strategy and the Global War on Terror: US and UK Armed Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001-2012. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. xiii, 218 pp.

Brendan R. Gallagher, The Day After: Why America Wins the War but Loses the Peace. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019. xi, 308 pp.

Erica L. Gaston, Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. New York: Columbia University Press, 2024. xvii, 406 pp.

John A. Gentry and William M. Nolte, eds., After the Wars: International Lessons From the U.S. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington, DC: National Intelligence University, 2018. viii, 344 pp. Papers mostly deal with some particular third country's role or attitude; examples "America's Wars and Turkish Attitudes: A Slippery Slope" and "Chinese Views on the U.S. Wars on Afghanistan and Iraq."

Russell W. Glenn, Christopher Paul, Todd C. Helmus, and Paul Steinberg, "People Make the City," Executive Summary: Joint Urban Operations and Insights from Afghanistan and Iraq. MG-428/2-JFCOM. Santa Monica: RAND, 2007. xxii, 62 pp.

Richard D. Hooker, Jr., and Joseph J. Collins, eds., Lessons Encountered: Learning from the Long War. Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2015. xiv, 473 pp. Compares the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Almost all the contributors are at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University.

Christopher D. Kolenda, Zero-Sum Victory: What We're Getting Wrong About War. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2021. xv, 375 pp. Kolenda, a retired Army colonel, argues that pursuit of "decisive victory" has interfered with effective conduct of recent American wars. Most of the book is devoted to Iraq and Afghanistan.

General Stanley McChrystal, My Share of the Task: A Memoir. New York: Portfolio (Penguin), 2013. xi, 452 pp. McChrystal was Vice Director for Operations, J3, The Joint Staff (July 2002 to September 2003), commander of Joint Special Operations Command (September 2003 to June 2008), and Director of the Joint Staff (August 2008 to June 2009), before commanding U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Stephen L. Melton, The Clausewitz Delusion: How the American Army Screwed Up the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press (MBI Publishing), 2009. xiv, 306 pp. Melton teaches at Leavenworth.

Alex Mintz and Carly Wayne, The Polythink Syndrome: U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions on 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and ISIS. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016. viii, 190 pp.

Pat Proctor, Lessons Unlearned: The US Army's Role in Creating the Forever Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2020. xv, 486 pp.

William Rosenau, "Low-Cost Trigger-Pullers": The Politics of Policing in the Context of Contemporary 'State Building' and Counterinsurgency. WR-620-USCA. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2008. 29 pp. Says police are being misued in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nadia Schadlow, War and the Art of Governance: Consolidating Combat Success into Political Victory. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017. 340 pp. One of the five main chapters is: "Afghanistan and Iraq: Lessons Ignored." Authorship of this book was presumably one of the credentials that got the White House to hire Schadlow, in 2017, to work on drafting security strategy for the United States.

"Lessons learned" during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and ongoing operations in the United States Central Command Region. Hearing, Senate Committee on Armed Services, July 9, 2003. iii, 96 pp. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, and CENTCOM Commander General Tommy R. Franks.
Y 4.AR 5/3:S.HRG.108-654

Deepak Tripathi, Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Foreword by John Tirman. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010. xiv, 183 pp. Tripathi was the BBC's correspondent in Kabul for much of the 1990s. The brief glance I have taken at this book did not impress me favorably.

Spencer C. Tucker, ed., U.S. Conflicts in the 21st Century: Afghanistan War, Iraq War, and the War on Terror. 3 vols. ABC-CLIO, 2015. 1228 pp. A historical dictionary.

Nathan White, "Learning from Iraq and Afghanistan: Four Lessons for Building More Effective Coalitions," Journal on Baltic Security 2:1 (2016), pp. 197-221.

Brian Glyn Williams, Counter Jihad: America's Military Experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. xix, 367 pp.

Dov S. Zakheim, A Vulcan's Tale: How the Bush Administration Mismanaged the Reconstruction of Afghanistan. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2011. xiv, 335 pp. Zakheim became Comptroller of the Department of Defense in 2001, and coordinator for Afghan civilian reconstruction in 2002. Includes significant discussion of Iraq.

 

Comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq

Spencer D. Bakich, Success and Failure in Limited War: Information and Strategy in the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf and Iraq Wars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. xiii, 329 pp.

Robert K. Brigham, Is Iraq Another Vietnam? New York: PublicAffairs, 2006. xv, 207 pp. I don't know whether any modifications were made in the paperback edition, Iraq, Vietnam, and the Limits of American Power. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008.

John D. Caldwell, Anatomy of Victory: Why the United States Triumphed in World War II, Fought to a Stalemate in Korea, Lost in Vietnam, and Failed in Iraq. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2019. xviii, 550 pp. The Vietnam War is pp. 230-315. The US-Iraq Wars are pp. 316-426, of which the second US-Iraq War is pp. 347-426.

Kenneth J. Campbell, A Tale of Two Quagmires: Iraq, Vietnam, and the Hard Lessons of War. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm Publishers, 2007. 160 pp. Very anti-war. The author served in Vietnam.

John Dumbrell and David Ryan, eds., Vietnam in Iraq: Tactics, Lessons, Legacies and Ghosts. New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2007. xi, 240 pp.

George C. Edwards III, Prisoners of their Premises: How Unexamined Assumptions Lead to War and Other Policy Debacles. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022. The three main cases in this short book are Korea 1950, Vietnam 1965, and Iraq 2003.

Jeffrey Allan Friedman, "Cumulative Dynamics and Strategic Assessment: U.S. Military Decision Making in Iraq, Vietnam, and the American Indian Wars," Ph.D. dissertation, Public Policy, Harvard, 2013. DA 3566879.

Lloyd C. Gardner and Marilyn B. Young, eds., Iraq and the Lessons of Vietnam, Or, How Not to Learn from the Past. New York: The New Press, 2007. 322 pp.

Gary J. Heffner and E. R. Worthington, "Vietnam vs. Iraq: A Comparison of the Soldier's Experience, Preparations for Each War, the Fighting in Each War, and the Return Home for the Soldiers of Each War." Paper presented at the Sixth Triennial Vietnam Symposium, Texas Tech University, 3/14/2008.

David Kieran, "'It's a different time. It's a different era. It's a different place.': The Legacy of Vietnam and contemporary memoirs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan." War & Society, March 2012, pp. 64-83.

Nina A Kollars, "War's Horizon: Soldier-Led Adaptation in Iraq and Vietnam," Journal of Strategic Studies 38:4 (2015), pp. 529-53.

James H. Lebovic, The Limits of U.S. Military Capability: Lessons from Vietnam and Iraq. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. x, 297 pp.

James H. Lebovic, Planning to Fail: The US Wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Oxford University Press, 2019. x, 246 pp.

Timothy J. Lomperis, "To a Baghdad Victory via Saigon: How the Wrong Nation-building Strategy That Failed in Vietnam Can Be Righted to Succeed in Iraq," World Affairs 168:4 (Spring 2006), pp. 147-56.

Timothy Lomperis, "The 'First' Surge: The Repule of the Easter Invasion in South Vietnam, 1972—Implications for Iraq and Afghanistan," Small Wars & Insurgencies 27:1 (2016), pp. 132-153.

Kelly McHugh, "Understanding Congress's Role in Terminating Unpopular Wars: A Comparison of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars," Democracy and Security 10:3 (2014), pp. 191-224.

M. Chris Mason, The Strategic Lessons Unlearned from Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan: Why the Afghan National Security Forces Will Not Hold, and the Implications for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Insititute and U.S. Army War College Press, 2015. x, 222 pp.

Richard M. Miller, Jr., Funding Extended Conflicts: Korea, Vietnam, and the War on Terror. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2007. xviii, 179 pp.

Chester Pach, "'The Past Has Another Pattern': Vietnam and Iraq", Passport 35:3 (December 2004), pp. 15-17. Focuses on differences rather than similarities.

"The Politics of Troop Withdrawal" Conference on the politics of American withdrawal from Vietnam, with considerable discussion of withdrawal from Iraq as a comparative case, held at the Miller Center for Public Affairs, University of Virginia, June 5-6, 2008. Audio and in most cases video recordings of the sessions are online at the conference web site. Many of the papers have also been published, more or less modified, in Diplomatic History 34:3 (June 2010). I have listed below only those papers that I am sure contained significant discussion of Iraq; there may also have been some discussion of this topic in some of the others.

Andrew Priest, "From Saigon to Baghdad: The Vietnam Syndrome, the Iraq War and American Foreign Policy" (review essay), Intelligence and National Security, 24:1 (February 2009), pp. 139-171.

Thomas Preston, Pandora's Trap: Presidential Decision Making and Blame Avoidance in Vietnam and Iraq. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. x, 264 pp.

Jeffrey Record and W. Andrew Terrill, Iraq and Vietnam: Differences, Similarities and Insights. Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2004. vii, 69 pp.

There are also works that include some comparison between the Vietnam and Iraq wars in many of the sections above and below, especially Doctrine on Insurgency and Counterinsurgency.

 

The Second U.S. - Iraq War: U.S. Policy

Robert P. Abele, The Anatomy of a Deception: A Reconstruction and Analysis of the Decision to Invade Iraq. University Press of America, 2009. 138 pp.

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, The Road to Iraq: The Making of a Neoconservatism War. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014. 256 pp.

Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed, Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2003. xii, 344 pp. A very hostile interpretation of U.S. policy.

Christian Alfonsi, Circle in the Sand: Why We Went Back to Iraq. New York: Doubleday, 2006. 466 pp.

Babak Bahador, Jeremy Moses, and William Lafi Youmans, "Rhetoric and Recollection: Recounting the George W. Bush Administration's Case for War in Iraq," Presidential Studies Quarterly 48:1 (March 2018), 4-26.

Major General Jonathan B.A. Bailey, British Army (ret.), "Over by Christmas": Campaigning, Delusions and Force Requirements. Land Warfare Papers, No. 51W. Arlington, VA: Institute of Land Warfare, Association of the United States Army, September 2005. v, 23 pp. A comparative study with cases going back to the Russo-Japanese War.

Peter Baker, Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in the White House. New York: Doubleday, 2013. xii, 800 pp.

Joyce Battle and Thomas Blanton, eds., Top Secret Polo Step. Electronic Briefing Book No. 214. National Security Archive, Feb 14, 2007. Power point slides prepared at various dates in 2002, for top level briefings (including to Bush and Rumsfeld) on plans for invasion of Iraq. The phrase "Shock and Awe" appears in Tab I (15 August 2002), page 3; Tab K, slide 3, 5 (former almost identical to Tab J, slide 1). Tab K [said to have been used in briefing Bush and the NSC 8/5/02] projects 5 days of air operations beginning 3 March [!!!], followed by 125 days of ground operations, followed by a stabilization phase of no more than 45 months, at the end of which US forces down to 5,000.

Joyce Battle, ed., The Iraq War--Part I: The U.S. Prepares for Conflict, 2001. Electronic Briefing Book No. 326. National Security Archive, September 22, 2010. The main focus of the essay by Joyce Battle is the year 2001, but the fourteen documents that accompany it have dates ranging from 1997 to 2004. [For Part II see John Prados, below.]

Joyce Battle, ed., Iraq: The Media War Plan. Electronic Briefing Book No. 326. National Security Archive, May 8, 2007. An interpretive essay by Joyce Battle on U.S. plans for influencing/controlling the Iraqi media in post-invasion Iraq, accompanied by one planning document dated January 16, 2003, and excerpts from two later reports written by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General.

Linda Bilmes, "The Ghost Budget: How U.S. war spending went rogue, wasted billions, and how to fix it" Harvard Kennedy School, April 1, 2024.

Joseph Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes,

John Bodnar, Divided by Terror: American Patriotism after 9/11. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. v, 305 pp.

John R. Bolton, Surrender is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad. New York: Threshold Editions, 2007. viii, 486 pp.

Scott A. Bonn, Mass Deception: Moral Panic and the U.S. War on Iraq. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2010. 216 pp.

Hal Brands, What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014. xiii, 273 pp. The chapter on the George W. Bush administration, quite critical, is pp. 144-189.

Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan Smith, eds., In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond. Henry Holt, 2005. xiv, 332 pp. Strongly hostile to U.S. policy.

Susan A. Brewer, Why America Fights: Patriotism and War Propaganda from the Philippines to Iraq. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. x, 342 pp. The second US-Iraq War is pp.230-275 (the first was not covered).

Vincent Bugliosi, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder. Vanguard Press, 2008. 352 pp. Argues that President Bush is criminally responsible for the deaths of the U.S. military personnel who have died in Iraq.

Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life. New York: Random House, 2007. xxviii, 400 pp. Rice cooperated with Bumiller (of the New York Times), but my impression is that the book is supposed to be fairly critical.

Russell A. Burgos, "Re: Path to War", H-Diplo, October 15, 2010.

William J. Burns, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal. New York: Random House, 2019. 501 pp. As assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs (2001-2005), Burns was distressed by the rush to war in Iraq but did not speak out strongly against it.

George W. Bush

Ahsan I Butt, "Why Did the United States Invade Iraq in 2003?" Security Studies 28:2 (2019), pp. 250-285. Argues that the main motive was to demonstrate American power and resolve to the world.

Senator Robert C. Byrd, Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency. New York: Norton, 2004. 269 pp. pb New York: Norton, 2005.

Malcolm Byrne, ed., State Department experts warned CENTCOM before Iraq war about lack of plans for post-war Iraq security. Electronic Briefing Book No. 163. National Security Archive, August 17, 2005. Five documents, dated July 2002 to December 2003.

Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky, eds., Mission Accomplished! Or How We Won the War in Iraq: The Experts Speak. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. xiii, 273 pp. A collection of statements most of which turned out looking false or silly, by politicians, academics, and journalists. With source notes.

Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States. An online archive of press releases, public statements, etc. from the period Cheney was Vice President.

Dick Cheney, with Liz Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir. Threshold, 2011. 565 pp.

Council on Foreign Relations

Charles Edmund Coyote, Iraq War 2003: What Really Happened Behind the Scenes: The Story of the Greatest Blunder in American History. The Coyote Report, 2013. 364 pp.

Jane K. Cramer and A. Trevor Thrall, eds., Why Did the US Invade Iraq? Routledge, 2011. xii, 254 pp.

Neta C. Crawford, Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America's Post-9/11 Wars. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. xvi, 486 pp.

Thomas Cushman, ed., A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq. University of California Press, 2005.

Alex Danchev and Alex MacMillan, eds., The Iraq War and Democratic Politics. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. viii, 272 pp.
            "Bush's War: The Iraq Conflict and American Democracy," by John Dumbrell
            "The Neo-cons: neo-conservative thinking since the onset of the Iraq War," by Dan Plesch

John Davis, ed., Presidential Policies and the Road to the Second Iraq War: From Forty One to Forty Three. Ashgate, 2006. 326 pp.

Aaron M. Dimock, "Public deliberation and going to war: Examining city council resolutions on Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2006. 367 pp. AAT 3219023.

Toby Dodge, "The Causes of US Failure in Iraq," Survival: Global Politics and Security, 49:1 (2007), pp. 85-106.

Robert Draper, Dead Certain: The Presidency of George W. Bush. The Free Press, 2007. 480 pp. Draper, a journalist the Bush White House trusted more than most, got interviews with most of the key figures, including about six hours with Bush.

Robert Draper, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2020. xiv, 480 pp.

John S. Duffield and Peter J. Dombrowski, eds., Balance Sheet: The Iraq War and U.S. National Security. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Stephen Benedict Dyson "What Really Happened in Planning for Postwar Iraq?" Political Science Quarterly Volume 128, Issue 3 (Fall 2013), pages 455–488. An attempt, very unconvincing to me, to defend the Bush administration against charges of gross inadequacy in the planning for postwar Iraq.

Don Eberly, Liberate and Leave: Fatal Flaws in the Early Strategy for Postwar Iraq. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith (MBI Publishing), 2009. ix, 310 pp. Eberly was a senior adviser first to Jay Garner and then to Paul Bremer.

Kurt Eichenwald, 500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars. New York: Touchstone (Simon & Schuster), 2012. 640 pp.

Craig R. Eisendrath and Melvin A. Goodman, Bush League Diplomacy: How the Neoconservatives are Putting the World at Risk. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2004. 268 pp.

Douglas Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism. New York: Harper, 2008. xiv, 674 pp.

Christopher J. Fettweis, Losing Hurts Twice as Bad: The Four Stages to Moving Beyond Iraq. New York: Norton, 2008. 288 pp.

Christopher J. Fettweis, The Pathologies of Power: Fear, Honor, Glory, and Hubris in U.S. Foreign Policy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Kerstin Fisk and Jennifer M. Ramos, eds., Preventive Force: Drones, Targeted Killings, and the Transformation of Contemporary Warfare. New York: New York University Press, 2016. This book devotes a lot of attention to the US decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003, not just to issues invvolving drones and targeted killings.

Ari Fleischer, Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House. New York: Morrow (HarperCollins), 2005. xv, 381 pp.

David Frum and Richard N. Perle, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror. New York: Random House, 2003. 284 pp.

Payam Gahlehdar, The Origins of Overthrow: How Emotional Frustration Shapes US Regime Change Interventions. Oxford University Press, 2021. Chapter 6, "US Dealings with Iraq, 2001-2003," is pp. 167-198.

Peter W. Galbraith, Unintended Consequences: How War in Iraq Strengthened America's Enemies. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. 224 pp.

Barton Gellman, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency. New York: Penguin, 2008. 483 pp.

Christopher Gelpi, Peter Feaver, and Jason Reifler, "Success Matters: Casualty Sensitivity and the War in Iraq," International Security, 30:3 (Winter 2005/06), pp. 7-46.

Christopher Gelpi and Jason Reifler, "Casualties, Polls, and the Iraq War," International Security, 31:2 (2006), pp. 186-198.

Michael J. Gerson, Heroic Conservatism: Why Republicans Need to Embrace America's Ideals (And Why They Deserve to Fail if They Don't). New York: HarperCollins, 2007. Gerson was President George Bush's chief speechwriter for part of the Bush administration.

Jeanne Godfroy and Liam Collins, "Iraq, 2003-2011: succeeding to fail," Small Wars & Insurgencies 30:1 (2019), pp. 140-75.

Philip H. Gordon, Losing the Long Game: The False Promise of Regime Change in the Middle East. New York: St. Martin's, 2020. 358 pp. Chapter 4, "'Mission Accomplished': Iraq, 2003," is pp. 99-144.

Chuck Hagel, with Peter Kaminsky, America: Our Next Chapter: Tough Questions, Straight Answers. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. xi, 306 pp. Two chapters deal with the Iraq War, of which Hagel by this time was very critical.

Stephen J. Hadley, ed., with Peter D. Feaver, William C. Imboden, and Meghan L. O'Sullivan, co-eds., Hand-Off: The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2023. Texts of memoranda Bush administration officials wrote to the incoming Obama administration, on various issues, just before Obama's inauguration, with commentaries written recently by the authors of the memoranda.

Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 2004. xii, 369 pp. Looks at the role of the Neocons in Bush administration post-9/11 policy, particularly the decision to invade Iraq.

Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, The Silence of the Rational Center: Why American Policy is Failing. Basic Books, 2007. 312 pp.

Lance Gabriel Hampton, "Justifications for the Iraq War: An analysis of the government's public case for war, 2001 to 2003." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pittsburgh, 2008. 231 pp. AAT 3322314.

Larry Hartenian, George W. Bush Administration Propaganda for an Invasion of Iraq: The Absence of Evidence. New York: Routledge, 2021.

Stephen John Hartnett and Laura Ann Stengrim, Globalization and Empire: The U.S. Invasion of Iraq, Free Markets, and the Twilight of Democracy. University of Alabama Press, 2006.

Farrah Hassen, ed., New State Department Releases on the "Future of Iraq" Project. Electronic Briefing Book No. 198. National Security Archive, September 1, 2006. The "Future of Iraq" Project was an effort under the State Department, in 2002 and 2003, to plan for postwar Iraq. It produced a 13-volume report totalling about 1,200 pages. Links to each of the 13 volumes are in a gray sidebar, "Future of Iraq Project Working Group Recommendations," on the left side of Part II of the introductory essay by Farrah Hassen. Links to other relevant documents are in the text of the essay.

Craig Arthur Hayden, "The vulcan rhetoric of crisis: Presidential advisors and the war in Iraq". Ph.D. dissertation, Communication, University of Southern California, 2007. vi, 335 pp. AAT 3262750. The main focus in on Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Cheney, and Colin Powell.

T. Walter Herbert, Faith-Based War: From 9/11 to Catastrophic Success in Iraq. London and Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2009. x, 189 pp.

Bradford R. Higgins, "Joint Strategic Planning in Iraq: 'Optimism is not a Plan'—Needed Changes for a Long War," in Christopher M. Schnaubelt, ed., Towards a Comprehensive Approach: Integrating Civilian and Military Concepts of Strategy, Forum Paper 15 (Rome: NATO Defense College, March 2011), pp. 129-58.

Joseph M. Hoeffel, The Iraq Lie: How the White House Sold the War. San Diego: Progressive Press, 2014. 268 pp. Hoeffel was one of the Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives who were persuded to vote for the resolution authorizing war against Iraq.

Stanley Hoffmann, with Frédéric Bozo, Gulliver Unbound: American Imperial Temptation and the War in Iraq. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. 168 pp.

House Committee on Armed Services

House Committee on the Budget (GPO Access)

House Commitee on Government Reform

House Commitee on International Relations

Russ Hoyle, Going to War: How Misinformation, Disinformation, and Arrogance Led America into Iraq. New York: Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's Press), 2008. xvii, 526 pp.

Michael Isikoff and David Corn, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. New York: Crown, 2006. xii, 463 pp. Isikoff is with Newsweek, Corn with The Nation. They seem to have good sources inside the intelligence community.

Dominic D.P. Johnson, Overconfidence and War: The Havoc and Glory of Positive Illusions. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. 280 pp. One chapter--about 30 pages--is devoted to the second US-Iraq War.

Colin H. Kahl, Michèle A. Flournoy, and Shawn Brimley, Shaping the Iraq Inheritance. Washington, D.C.: Center for a New American Security, June 2008. 51 pp. Advocates a policy of "conditional engagement," pressuring Iraqi leaders into political accommodation with one another by making this a condition for continued American support.

Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The War Over Iraq: Saddam's Tyranny and America's Mission. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2003. x, 153 pp. Urging that the United States use military force to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Brian Katulis, Marc Lynch, and Peter Juul, Iraq's Political Transition After the Surge. Washington, D.C.: Center for American Progress, September 2008. 30 pp. Argues that the continued presence of large American forces in Iraq is not promoting the political accommodation within the country that is needed.

John Kerry, Every Day Is Extra. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2018. 622 pp. Kerry says his vote for the resolution authorizing military force in Iraq, in October 2002, was "the single biggest mistake I made in twenty-eight years as a senator." (p. 249)

Glenn Kessler, The Confidante: Condoleezza Rice and the Creation of the Bush Legacy. New York: St. Martin's, 2007. 304 pp. Rice cooperated with Kessler (of the Washington Post), but apparently this is fairly critical.

John Brady Kiesling, Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unpopular Superpower. Potomac Books, 2006. ix, 317 pp. Kiesling resigned from the U.S. Foreign Service, in protest against the impending Iraq War, in February 2003.

Erika G. King and Robert A. Wells, Framing the Iraq War Endgame: War's Denoument in an Age of Terror. Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 288 pp.

James Kitfield, War and Destiny: How the Bush Revolution in Foreign and Military Affairs Redefined American Power. Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2005. xiv, 386 pp. pb Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2007. 400 pp. Kitfield was embedded with V Corps forward HQ in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Stephen F. Knott, Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012. 248 pp. A defense of Bush's policies, especially in regard to executive powers.

Matt Latimer, Speechless: Tales of a White House Survivor. New York: Crown, 2009. 294 pp. Latimer was a speechwriter first for Rumsfeld, then for George W. Bush.

Matthew Coen Leep, "(Ac)Counting (for) their dead: Responsiveness to Iraqi civilian casualties in the US House of Representatives,", International Politics 52:1 (January 2015), pp. 45- .

Melvyn P. Leffler, "The Foreign Policies of the George W. Bush Administration: Memoirs, History, Legacy," Diplomatic History 37:2 (April 2013), pp. 190-216. A review essay on the memoirs of members of the Bush administration.

Melvyn P. Leffler, Confronting Saddam Hussein: George W. Bush and the Invasion of Iraq. Oxford University Press, 2023. xxi, 346 pp. Based to a large extent on interviews with Bush and senior officials.

Peter Liberman and Linda Skitka, "Vicarious Retribution in US Public Support for War against Iraq," Security Studies 28:2 (2019), pp. 189-215.

George W. Liebmann, The Last American Diplomat: John D. Negroponte and the Changing Face of American Diplomacy. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2012. 384 pp. Negroponte was U.S. Ambassador to Iraq 2004-5, and Director of National Intelligence 2005-7.

James D. Long, Daniel Maliniak, Susan M. Peterson and Michael J. Tierney, "Knowledge without power: International relations scholars and the US war in Iraq," International Politics 52:1 (January 2015), pp. 20-44.

Scott McClellan, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008. xiv, 341 pp. McClellan was the White House press secretary.

Michael MacDonald, Overreach: Delusions of Regime Change in Iraq. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014. 325 pp.

George S. McGovern and William R. Polk, Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 142 pp.

Lori Maguire, "Robert Byrd and the Iraq War: A Case Study of Senatorial Power," Federal History, Issue 15 (April 2023), pp. 85-106. Senator Robert Byrd (D-West Virginia) opposed the decision to go to war when most of the Democratic Party's leadership was going along with it.

Kamil Mahdi, Iraq: Axis of Evil? Saddam Hussein and the USA. London: Zed, 2003. 192 pp.

Michael J. Mazarr, Leap of Faith: Hubris, Negligence, and America's Greatest Foreign Policy Tragedy. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019. xiv, 512 pp.

Anita Miller, ed., George W. Bush Versus the U.S. Constitution: The Downing Street Memos and Deception, Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, Coverups in the Iraq War and Illegal Domestic Spying. Academy Chicago, 2006. 300 pp. Compiled at the direction of Representative John Conyers. Introduction by Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson.

David Matthew Monje, "Making enemies: Articulations of the 'enemy' in the War on Terror". Ph.D. dissertation, Communications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2007. vii, 246 pp. AAT 3290323

James Moore, Bush's War for Reelection: Iraq, the White House, and the People. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2004. xviii, 382 pp.

Christoher A. Morrissey, "Peace or War? Religion in the Debate Before the Iraq War," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 2012. DA 3578961.

Donette Murray, Bush's Foreign and Security Policy: Principle or Partisanship?. Routledge. (This was announced as a forthcoming book, but I believe publication was cancelled.)

F. Ugboaja Ohaegbulam, A Culture of Deference: Congress, The President, and the Course of the U.S.-Led Invasion and Occupation of Iraq. Peter Lang, 2007. 309 pp.

D. L. O'Huallachain and J. Forrest Sharpe, eds., Neo-Conned! Just War Principles: A Condemnation of War in Iraq. Vienna, VA: IHS Press, 2005.

D. L. O'Huallachain and J. Forrest Sharpe, eds., Neo-Conned! Again: Hypocrisy, Lawlessness, and the Rape of Iraq. Vienna, VA: IHS Press, 2005.

Robert Parry, Sam Parry, and Nat Parry, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush. The Media Consortium, 2007. 428 pp.

Robert J. Pauly, Jr., and Tom Lansford, Strategic Preemption: US Foreign Policy and the Second Iraq War. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate, 2004. 182 pp.

Ilan Peleg, The Legacy of George W. Bush's Foreign Policy: Moving Beyond Neoconservativism. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2009. xv, 202 pp. Argues that the neoconservative policies of the Bush administration represented a radical break with previous American policies.

James P. Pfiffner and Mark Phythian, eds., Intelligence and National Security Policymaking on Iraq: British and American Perspectives. Manchester University Press, 2008. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. xiii, 296 pp. Essays are pp. 1-243; excerpts from key speeches and documents are pp. 245-290.

James P. Pfiffner, "US Blunders in Iraq: De-Baathification and Disbending the Army," Intelligence and National Security 25:1 (February 2010), pp. 76-85.

William Rivers Pitt, with Scott Ritter, War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know. Context Books, 2002. 96 pp.

Norman Podhoretz, World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism. Doubleday, 2007. 230 pp. Judging from the review in the New York Times Book Review, September 9, 2007, this seems to be a rather silly book.

Andrew J. Polsky, Elusive Victories: The American Presidency at War. Oxford University Press, 2012. 445 pp. The chapter "The Perils of Optimism: George W. Bush" is pp. 273-325.

John Prados, Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War. New York: The New Press, 2004. xvii, 375 pp.

John Prados and Christopher Ames, ed., The Iraq War--Part II: Was There Even a Decision?. Electronic Briefing Book No. 328. National Security Archive, October 1, 2010. The editors' interpretive essay argues that the Bush administration was sufficiently committed to war with Iraq, from a relatively early date, not be to giving serious consideration to any alternative option. The 18 documents that accompany it have dates ranging from February 23 to August 15, 2002. [For Part I see Joyce Battle, above.]

Karine Prépmont, Charles-Philippe David, and Vincent Boucher, "The Clash of Historical Analogies and Their Influence on Decision-Making: The Case of Iraqi Reconstruction under George W. Bush," Diplomacy and Statecraft 29:2 (April 2018), 298-327.

Todd S. Purdum and the staff of the New York Times, A Time of Our Choosing: America's War in Iraq. New York: Times Books/Henry Holt, 2003. xiv, 319 pp.

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq. Tarcher (Penguin), 2003. 256 pp.

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq. New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 2006. x, 258 pp.

Aaron Rapport, Waging War, Planning Peace: U.S. Noncombat Operations and Major Wars. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2015. xvi, 266 pp. A look at the way the United States habitually fails to plan adequately for what it will do after the combat phase of a war, to ensure that military victory will actually lead to achievement of American goals. Based to a large extent on the field of psychological research known as "construal level theory" (CLT). The 2003 invasion of Iraq is one of its four case studies.

Michael Ratner, Against War with Iraq: An Anti-War Primer. Seven Stories Press, 2003. 80 pp.

Jeffrey Record, Wanting War: Why the Bush Administration Invaded Iraq. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010. vii, 217 pp.

Research Unit for Political Economy, Behind the Invasion of Iraq. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003. 144 pp. A Marxist interpretation of U.S. policy, written by a group based in Mumbai, India.

Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington. New York: Crown, 2011. xviii, 766 pp. Rice was National Security Advisor during George W. Bush's first term as president, and Secretary of State during his second.

Frank Rich, The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 9/11 to Katrina. New York: Penguin, 2006. 341 pp. Supposed to be good.

Nick Ritchie and Paul Rogers, The Political Road to War with Iraq: Bush, 9/11 and the drive to overthrow Saddam. Abingdon and New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2007. xi, 228 pp.

David Rose, "Neo Culpa", Vanity Fair, January 2007. Rose interviewed a number of neconservatives, indluding Richard Perle, David Frum, and Kenneth Adelman, who had supported the Iraq War but were distressed by what they saw as the incompetence of the Bush administration in running that war.

Gary Rosen, ed., The Right War? The Conservative Debate on Iraq. Cambridge University Press, 2005. ix, 254 pp.

Kenneth Roth, "Was the Iraq War a Humanitarian Intervention?" Journal of Military Ethics, 5:2 (2006), pp. 84-92. The text is available online if you are browsing the Internet from an institution that has paid the fee for Taylor & Francis Journals.

Karl Rove, Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. New York: Threshold Editions (Simon & Schuster), 2010. xi, 596 pp. By the chief political adviser to George W. Bush.

Gordon W. Rudd, Reconstructing Iraq: Regime Change, Jay Garner, and the ORHA Story. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2011. xxvii, 457 pp. Rudd was a field historian with ORHA and the CPA.

Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense, was among the primary architects of US policy toward Iraq from 2001 to 2006. In addition to the works listed here, you might find it worthwhile to do a keyword search for Rumsfeld in this bibliography to locate some published transcripts of congressional committee hearings (I am sure I have not caught them all) at which Rumsfeld was a witness.

Paul Rutherford, Weapons of Mass Persuasion: Marketing the War Against Iraq. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004. xii, 226 pp.

Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer, and Lakshmi Chaudhry, The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us about Iraq. Seven Stories, 2003. 128 pp.

Michael Scheuer, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq. New York: Free Press, 2008. 384 pp.

Michael N. Schmitt, "The Legality of Operation Iraqi Freedom under International Law." Journal of Military Ethics, 3:2 (June 2004), pp. 82-104. The text is available online if you are browsing the Internet from an institution that has paid the fee for Taylor & Francis Journals.

John M. Schuessler, Deceit on the Road to War: Presidents, Politics, and American Democrac. Ithaca: cornell University Press, 2015. xi, 176 pp. The overselling of the Iraq War is pp. 93-116.

John Bennett Sears, "Peace Work: The Antiwar Tradition in American Labor from the Cold War to the Iraq War." Diplomatic History 34:4 (September 2010), pp. 699-720.

Senate Committee on Appropriations

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs

Martin Shaw, The New Western Way of War: Risk Transfer and Its Crisis in Iraq. Polity Press, 2005. 164 pp. Argues that policy in recent wars by western powers has been to minimize risk to their own troops, at the cost of transferring risk to civilians, and that this policy has worked badly in Iraq.

Robert Shrum, No Excuses: Concessions of a Serial Campaigner. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Shrum was an advisor to Senators John Kerry and John Edwards.

Geoff Simons, Future Iraq: US Policy in Reshaping the Middle East. Interlink Publishing, 2004. 400 pp. Looks at US policy in the context of the region.

Jean Edward Smith, Bush. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016. 832 pp. A critical biography.

Jonathan Steele, Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Published in the US as Defeat: Why America and Britain Lost Iraq. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2008. 290 pp. By a correspondent for The Guardian. He argues that the occupation of Iraq would have had no chance of success even if much better planned.

A. Trevor Thrall and Jane K. Cramer, eds., American Foreign Policy and the Politics of Fear: Threat Inflation since 9/11 London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Four of the twelve essays in this volume are about Iraq, and others surely deal to some extent with Iraq.

Transforming Iraq's Economy. Hearing, Joint Economic Committee, June 11, 2003. 85 pp. S. Hrg. 108-220.
Y 4.EC 7:IR 1/3

Craig Unger, The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future. New York: Scribner, 2007. 448 pp.

U.S. Department of Defense, Office of Inspector General, Review of the Pre-Iraqi War Activities of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. February 9, 2007. 109 pp. Looks at activities that are sometimes said (inaccurately, according to this report) to have been carried out by the "Office of Special Plans."

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Archive. Contains documents released during the presidency of George W. Bush, 2001-2009, including such things as:

U.S. Department of State Electronic Reading Room: Declassified/Released Document Collections: State Department Collections. The State Department as placed online several collections of declassified documents, searchable through the above web page. The collections that relate to Iraq are:

Eric Van Rythoven, "The Perils of Realist Advocacy and the Promise of Securitization Theory: Revisiting the Tragedy of the Iraq War Debate, European Journal of International Relations 2:3 (September 2016), pp. 487-511.

Gary Vogler, Iraq and the Politics of Oil: An Insider's Persepctive. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. xxv, 302 pp.

Gary Vogler, Lessons Learned: Iraq Energy Sector, 2002-2004. Howitzer Consulting LLC, 2016. 124 pp. An updated and corrected version of a report originally written for the US Army in 2006.

Stefaan Walgrave and Dieter Rucht, eds., The World Says No to War: Demonstrations Against the War on Iraq. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. The content analysis of newspapers in eight countries, January 15 to March 21, 2003, should contain some useful data.

C. William Walldorf, Jr., To Shape Our World for Good: Master Narratives and Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy, 1900-2011. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019.

Michael Walzer and Nicolaus Mills, eds., Getting Out: Historical Perspectives on Leaving Iraq. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 168 pp.

Albert L. Weeks, Choice of War: The Iraq War and the Just War Tradition. ABC-CLIO, 2009. 200 pp.

Eliot Weinberger, What I Heard About Iraq. London: Verso, 2005. 96 pp.

Eliot Weinberger, What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles. London: Verso, 2006. 240 pp.

Alan Weisman, Prince of Darkness: Richard Perle: The Kingdom, the Power, and the End of Empire in America. Sterling, 2007. 320 pp.

Jon Western, Selling Intervention and War: The Presidency, the Media, and the American Public. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. xi, 305 pp. Chapter 6, "The War Over Iraq," is pp. 175-219.

Craig M. White, Iraq: The Moral Reckoning: Applying Just War Theory to the 2003 War Decision. Lexington Books, 2010. 290 pp.

John Fabian Witt, "Law and War in American History," American Historical Review, 115:3 (June 2010), pp. 768-78.

Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack: The Definitive Account of the Decision to Invade Iraq. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004. 467 pp.

Slavoj Žižek (Zizek), Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle. Verso, 2005. 188 pp. A critique of the arguments used to justify the Iraq war.

 
Discussion of U.S. policy in the second US-Iraq War can also be found in many books listed under U.S. Policy: Overall.

 

The Obama Administration

Jonathan Alter, The Promise: President Obama, Year One. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. 458 pp. Says considerably more about Afghanistan than about Iraq.

Stephen L. Carter, The Violence of Peace: America's Wars in the Age of Obama. Beast Books, 2011. 272 pp.

David Fitzgerald and David Ryan, Obama, US Foreign Policy and the Dilemmas of Intervention. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Michael R. Gordon and General Bernard E Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq from George W. Bush to Barack Obama. New York: Pantheon, 2012. xix, 779 pp.

Christopher R. Hill, Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. 448 pp. A substantial part of this memoir is devoted to Iraq. Hill was appointed U.S. ambassador to Iraq in 2009.

Christopher R. Hill, "How the Obama Administration Ignored Iraq: One ambassador's story of an exit strategy gone wrong," Politico, October 2, 2014.

Erika G. King, Obama, the Media, and Framing the U.S. Exit from Iraq and Afghanistan. Farnham, Surrey, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. 226 pp.

Jeremy Kuzmarov, Obama's Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State. Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2019.

James Mann, The Obamians: The Struggle Inside the White House to Redefine Amerian Power. New York: Viking, 2012. xx, 392 pp.

Barack Obama, A Promised Land. New York: Crown, 2020. xvi, 751 pp.

Leon Panetta, with Jim Newton, Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace. New York: Penguin, 2014. 512 pp. Panetta's involvement in the Iraq War came in its late stages, during the Obama administration, first as head of the CIA and then as secretary of defense.

Samantha Power, The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir. New York: Harper Collins, 2019. xii, 580 pp. Power was a foreign policy adviser to Obama before his election to the presidency, and his ambassador to the United Nations for part of his administration.

Ben Rhodes, The World As It Is: A Memoir of the Obama White House. New York: Random House, 2018. 480 pp.

Bob Woodward, Obama's Wars. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. xviii, 441 pp. The early part of the Obama administration. Mostly about Afghanistan, but contains a significant amount on Iraq.

 

The Trump Administration

Peter Bergen, Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos. New York: Penguin, 2019. 386 pp.

Hal Brands, American Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2018. xv, 236 pp.

Ivo Daalder and James M. Lindsay, The empty throne: America's abdication of global leadership. New York: PublicAffairs, 2018. ix, 237 pp.

John Glasser, Christopher A. Preble, and Trevor Thrall, Fuel to the fire: how Trump made America's broken foreign policy even worse (and how we can recover). Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2019.

Nikki R. Haley, With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace. New York: St. Martin's, 2019. Trump's ambassador to the United Nations.

Cliff Sims, Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House. New York: Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's), 2019. xx, 360 pp.

Guy M. Snodgrass, Holding the Line: Inside Trump's Pentagon with Secretary Mattis. New York: Sentinel, 2019.

 

International Aspects

Lt. Col. Robert B. Adolph, Surviving the United Nations: The Unexpected Challenge. Washington, DC: New Academia, 2020. 340 pp. After retiring from the US Army (Special Forces), Adolph went to work for the United Nations. Among other assignments, he went to Baghdad in 2003 as chief of security for the UN mission there.

Daniel F. Baltrusaitis, "Friends indeed? Coalition burden sharing and the War in Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Government, Georgetown University, 2008. xiii, 512 pp. AAT 3320690. Looks at South Korean, Turkish, and German responses to American requests for support in Iraq.

Daniel F. Baltrusaitis, Coalition Politics and the Iraq War: Determinants of Choice. FirstForum Press, 2009. 259 pp. Book publication of the above item.

Kil-Joo Ban, "The Reliable Promise of Middle Power Fighters: The ROK Military's COIN Success in Vietnam and Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Arizona State University, 2011. DA 3461798. xviii, 309 pp. The role of forces from the Republic of Korea. Iraq is pp. 169-236.

Stephen A. Carney, Allied Participation in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2011. viii, 129 pp.

Arthur ten Cate and Thijs Brocades Zaalberg, A Gentle Occupation: Dutch Military Operations in Iraq, 2003-2005. Leiden, the Netherlands: Leiden University Press, 2014. 312 pp.

Jonathan Cook, Israel and the Clash of Civilizations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East. Pluto Press, 2008. 204 pp.

John K. Cooley, An Alliance Against Babylon: The U.S., Israel, and Iraq. London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press, 2005. xii, 258 pp.

Lloyd Cox and Brendon O'Connor, "Australia, the US, and the Vietnam and Iraq Wars: 'Hound Dog, not Lapdog,'" Australian Journal of Political Science 47:2 (June 2012).

Jack Cunningham and Ramesh Thakur, eds. Australia, Canada and Iraq: Perspectives on an Invasion. Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2015. 312 pp. Essays by political figures and academics from Australia and Canada.

Alex Danchev and Alex MacMillan, eds., The Iraq War and Democratic Politics. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. viii, 272 pp.
            "The European Dimension," by John Vogler
            "Turkey: Democratic Legitimacy," by Christopher Brewin

Jason W. Davidson, America's Allies and War: Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. ix, 250 pp. The chapter on the war of 2003- is pp. 133-68.

Jason Davidson, "Heading for the Exits: Democratic Allies and Withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan," Democracy and Security 10:3 (2014), pp. 251-286.

Dieter Dettke, Germany Says No: The Iraq War and the Future of German Foreign and Security Policy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009. 293 pp.

Sandra Dieterich, Hartwig Hummel, and Stefan Marschall, "Bringing democracy back in: The democratic peace, parliamentary war powers and European participation in the 2003 Iraq War," Cooperation and Conflict, Vol. 50, No.1 (March 2015), pp. 87-106.

Fredrik Doeser, "When Governments Ignore Public Opinion in Foreign Policy: Poland and the Iraq Invasion," European Security 22:3 (2013), p. 413-431.

Jakub Eberle, Discourse and Affect in Foreign Policy: Germany and the Iraq War. Abindgdon and New York: Routledge, 2019. 144 pp. The publisher's description of the theoretical approach looks a bit weird to me.

Kerstin Eppert, UN Intervention Practices in Iraq: A Discursive Approach to International Interventions. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2019. 252 pp.

Alarik M. Fritz, "How Superpowers Go to War and Why Other States Help Them: The Impact of Security Interdependence on War Coalition Formation." Ph.D. dissertation, Government, Georgetown University, 2008. UMI 3339336. ix, 408 pp. American efforts to obtain support from Japan, Turkey, Germany, and Poland in the war that began in 2003 are the topic of Chapter Four (pp. 86-177), and are discussed to some extent in other chapters.

Philip H. Gordon & Jeremy Shapiro, Allies at War: America, Europe, and the Crisis over Iraq. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004. vi, 266 pp.

Jan Hallenberg and Hakan Karlsson, eds., The Iraq War: European Perspectives on Politics, Strategy and Operations. London and New York: Routledge, 2005. xv, 253 pp.

Stéfanie von Hlatky, American Allies in Time of War: The Great Asymmetry. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Looks at U.S. relations with Australia, Britain, and Canada.

Netsuyo Ishibashi, "Diverging Allies of the Super Power: Alliance Security Dilemma and German and Japanese Responses to the U.S. Invasion of Iraq, 2001-2003." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Indiana University, 2010. DA 3409761.

Éric Mauger, ed., Les artilleurs Français en Iraq. Paris: Economica, 2019. 110 pp.

Kathleen J. McInnis, "Varieties of Defection Strategies from Multinational Military Coalitions: Insights from Operation Iraqi Freedom," Contemporary Security Policy 40:1 (2019), 116-33.

Donna Mulhearn, Ordinary Courage: My Journey to Baghdad as a Human Shield. Sydney, NSW, Australia: Murdoch Books, 2010. 272 pp. By an Australian woman. The book has achieved little if any distribution outside Australia.

Heraldo Muñoz, A Solitary War: A Diplomat's Chronicle of the Iraq War and Its Lessons. Foreword by Kofi Annan. Golden, Colorado: Fulcrum, 2008. xiii, 270 pp. Munoz was Chile's ambassador to the United Nations.

Stephen C. Pelletiere, Israel in the Second Iraq War: The Influence of Likud. Greenwood, 2009. 144 pp.

Dominique Reynié, La fracture occidentale: naissance d'une opinion européenne. Paris: Table Ronde, 2004. 203 pp.

Simon Serfaty, Architects of Delusion: Europe, America, and the Iraq War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008. Looks mainly at the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany.

William Shawcross, Allies: The U.S., Britain, Europe, and the War in Iraq. New York: PublicAffairs, 2004. viii, 261 pp. Endorsed the American-British war in Iraq, and criticized French and German resistance to it.

Sheila A. Smith, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. xi, 333 pp. Japan's involvement in Iraq is covered on pp. 71-81.

Ramesh Thakur and Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu, eds., The Iraq Crisis And World Order: Structural, Institutional, And Normative Challenges. United Nations University Press, 2006. 549 pp.

Thijs Brocades Zaalberg and Arthur ten Cate, "A Gentle Occupation: Unraveling the Dutch Approach in Iraq, 2003-2005," Small Wars & Insurgencies 23:1 (2012), pp. 117-43.

 

Canada

Stephen Azzi and Norman Hillmer, "Intolerant Allies: Canada and the George W. Bush Administration, 2001–2005," Diplomacy and Statecraft 27:4 (2016): 726–745. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09592296.2016.1238704.

Argeo Paul Cellucci, Unquiet Diplomacy. Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2005. 240 pp. Cellucci was the American ambassador to Canada.

Jean Chrétien, My Years as Prime Minister. Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf Canada, 2007. 435 pp. As prime minister of Canada, Chrétien decided that Canada would not assist or endorse the American invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Eddie Goldenberg, The Way It Works: Inside Ottawa. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 206. 402 pp. Goldenberg was Senior Policy Advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien while Canada was deciding not to support the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Timothy A. Sayle, "'But he has nothing on at all!': Canada and the Iraq War, 2003." Canadian Military History 19:4 (Autumn 2010), pp. 5-19.

 

France

Eric Aeschimann and Christophe Boltanski, Chirac d'Arabie: les mirages d'une politique française. Paris: Grasset, 2006. 430 pp.

Pascal Boniface, La France contre l'Empire. Paris: Laffont, 2003. 154 pp.

Frédéric Bozo, Histoire secrète de la crise Irakienne: La France, les États-Unis el l'Irak, 1991-2003. Paris: Perrin, 2013. 408 pp.

Frédéric Bozo, "'We Don't Need You': France, the United States, and Iraq, 1991-2003," Diplomatic History 41:1 (January 2017), pp. 183-208.

Jacques Chirac, Mon combat pour la paix: textes et interventions. Odile Jacob, 2007. 555 pp. Writings and speeches on international relations by the president of France, 1995-2007.

Jacques Chirac, avec Jean-Luc Barré, Mémoires

Jacques Chirac, with Jean-Luc Barré, translateed by Catherine Spencer, My Life in Politics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 344 pp.

André Glucksmann, Ouest contre Ouest. Paris: Plon, 2003. 208 pp.

Christian Lequesne and Maurice Va&9unl;sse, eds., La politique étrangère de Jacques Chirac. Paris, 2013.

Jean-Claude Maurice, Si vous le répétez, je démentirai: Chirac, Sarkozy, Villepin. Paris: Plon, 2009. 300 pp.

Pierre Pean, L'inconnu de l'Elysée. Paris: Fayard, 2007. 600 pp. Argues that Chirac and de Villepin were not nearly so adamantly opposed to going to war in Iraq as has generally been supposed. A big best seller in France.

Jean-Marc de La Sablière, Dans les Coulisses du Monde: Du Rwanda à la guerre d'Irak, un grand négotiateru révèle le dessous des cartes. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2013. de La Sablière was French ambassador to the United Nations.

David Styan, "Jacques Chirac's 'non': France, Iraq, and the United Nations, 1991-2003," Modern & Contemporary France 12:3 (2004), pp. 371-85.

Henri Vernet and Thomas Cantaloube, Chirac contre Bush: l'autre guerre. Paris: JC Lattès, 2004. 349 pp.

Dominique de Villepin, Toward a New World: Speeches, Essays, and Interviews on the War in Iraq, the U.N., and the Changing Face of Europe. Hoboken, NJ: Melville House, 2004. xxix, 427 pp. (French original Un autre monde. L'Herne, 2003.) Part One, "Iraq and War," containing material dated October 1, 2002, to October 18, 2003, is pp. 1-133. "Commentary and Debate," a collection of writings by authors other than de Villepin, is pp. 249-390.

 

The United Kingdom

Jonathan Bailey, Richard Iron, and Hew Strachan, eds., British Generals in Blair's Wars. Farnham, Surrey, England, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013. xvi, 385 pp.

Ben Baker, The Iescapable Truths of Urban Warfare: Five Lessons from Basra 2007. Modern War Institute, USMA, June 6, 2019.

Huw Bennett, "Enmeshed in Insurgency: Britain's Protracted Retreats from Iraq and Afghanistan," Small Wars & Insurgencies 25:3 (2014), pp. 501-21.

Tony Blair, A Journey. Hutchinson. 694 pp. Published simultaneously in the United States as A Journey: My Political Life. New York: Knopf, 2010. 700 pp. Autobiography of the British Prime Minister. The review in the New York Times says it is not very revealing about Blair's decisionmaking on Iraq.

Alastair Campbell, The Blair Years: Extracts from the Alastair Campbell Diaries. London: Hutchinson, 2007. xx, 794 pp. New York: Knopf, 2007. xx, 794 pp. pb Arrow Books, 2008. 816 pp. Diaries of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's press secretary. The title on the dust jacket seems to have been just The Blair Years: The Alastair Campbell Diaries.

Alastair Campbell and Bill Hagerty, eds., The Alsatair Campbell Diaries, vol. 4, The Burden of Power: Countdown to Iraq. London: Hutchinson, 2012. xxviii, 724 pp. From September 11, 2001, to August 2003.

Robin Cook, The Point of Departure: Why One of Britain's Leading Politicians Resigned over Tony Blair's Decision to Go to War in Iraq. Simon & Schuster, 2004. 384 pp. pb The Point of Departure: Diaries from the Front Bench. Pocket Books, 2004. 432 pp. Cook, Leader of the British House of Commons and former Foreign Secretary, resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet on March 17, 2003, in protest against the impending war in Iraq.

General Sir Richard Dannatt, Leading from the Front: An Autobiography. London: Bantam Press, 2010. Dannatt was involved in the Iraq War at the policy and planning level, rather than on the ground in Iraq. He was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2008.

Mark Danner, The Secret Way to War: The Downing Street Memo and the Iraq War's Buried History. New York: Random House (New York Review Books?). 176 pp.

Stephen Benedict Dyson, The Blair Identity: Leadership and Foreign Policy. 2009.

Stephen Benedict Dyson, "Alliances, Domestic Politics, and Leader Psychology: Why Did Britain Stay Out of Vietnam and Go into Iraq?" Political Psychology 28:6 (December 2007), pp. 647-66.

Thomas Eason, "The governance of covert action: asymmetric power and the British plan to overthrow Saddam," Intelligence and National Security 36:6 (2021), pp. 863-80. A British plan to promote a coup in Iraq in 2001.

Christopher L. Elliott, High Command: British Military Leadership in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. London: Hurst, 2015. 295 pp. A critical study by a former major general, who interviewed other generals.

Jack Fairweather, A War of Choice: The British in Iraq 2003-9. London: Jonathan Cape, 2011. 431 pp.

George Galloway, I'm Not the Only One. London and New York: Allen Lane, 2004. xiv, 184 pp. Rev. ed. London and New York: Penguin, 2006. Galloway, a Member of Parliament and an extreme opponent of the Iraq War, was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003.

Teemu Häkkinen, "Challenging the Royal Prerogative: The Decision on War against Iraq in Parliamentary Debates in 2002–3," Parliamentary History 35:1 (February 2016), pp. 54-66.

Eric Herring and Piers Robinson, "Deception and Britain's Road to War in Iraq," International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, vol. 8, nos. 2&3, pp. 213-232.

Eric Herring and Piers Robinson, "Report X Marks the Spot: The British Government's Deceptive Dossier on Iraq and WMD,"

Political Science Quarterly 129:4 (2014), pp. 551-84.

The Iraq Inquiry. On November 24, 2009, a panel chaired by Sir John Chilcot began hearings on British policy toward the Iraq War both before and after the invasion of 2003. Although the hearings were polite, they probed more deeply and embarrassingly than Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have intended, when he set up the panel.

General Sir Mike Jackson, Soldier: The Autobiography. London: Bantam Press, 2007. Jackson was involved in the Iraq War at the policy and planning level, rather than on the ground in Iraq. He was Chief of the General Staff from 2003 to 2006.

John Kampfner, Blair's Wars. London: The Free Press, 2003. xii, 367 pp. pb with a new preface (and possibly other changes?) The Free Press, 2004. 401 pp.

Dan Keohane, "The United Kingdom," in Alex Danchev and Alex MacMillan, eds., The Iraq War and Democratic Politics (London and New York: Routledge, 2005).

Steven Kettell, Dirty Politics? New Labour, British Democracy and the Invasion of Iraq. London: Zed Books, 2006. x, 213 pp.

Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011. viii, 304 pp. Based on the author's experience in Basra and in Helmand province, plus interviewing and other research.

Ministry of Defense, Operations in Iraq: Lessons for the Future. London: Directorate General Corporate Communication, 2003. 86 pp.

Marcia and Thomas Mitchell, The Spy Who Tried to Stop a War: Katharine Gun and the Secret Plot to Sanction the Iraq Invasion. Sausalito, CA: Polipoint Press, 2008. 210 pp. Gun, a translator at GCHQ, leaked a classified memo about an American program to spy on other countries' UN delegations during the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003.

Andrew Mumford, Counterinsurgency Wars and the Anglo-American Alliance: The Special Relationship on the Rocks. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2017. x, 240 pp.

Patrick Porter, Blunder: Britain's War in Iraq. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. xviii, 232 pp.

General Sir David Richards, Taking Command. London: Headline Publishing, 2014. Richards was involved in the Iraq War at the policy and planning level, rather than on the ground in Iraq. He was Chief of the Defense Staff from 2010 to 2013.

Anthony Seldon, with Chris Ballinger, Daniel Collings, and Peter Snowdon, Blair. London: The Free Press (Simon & Schuster UK), 2004. 784 pp.

Anthony Seldon, with Peter Snowdon and Daniel Collings, Blair Unbound. London: Simon & Schuster UK, 2007. 669 pp.

Clare Short, An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power. Free Press, 2005. Short resigned from the British cabinet in 2003 because of her opposition to the Iraq War. Judging from reader comments on amazon.co.uk, this might be more about British politics, and less about Iraq, than the title suggests.

Peter Stothard, Thirty Days [published with various subtitles: An Inside Account of Tony Blair at War,   With Blair at the Centre of the World, and A Month at the Heart of Blair's War]. London: HarperCollins, 2003. Stothard, a journalist, was embedded with Prime Minister Tony Blair from March 10 to April 9, 2003, the period that included the beginning of the war.

 
For the involvement of British personnel in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, see works by Kevin K. Mervin and Mike Rossiter in the section "On the Ground" (immediately below).
For British involvement in the postwar occupation of Iraq, see works by Andrew Alderson, Mark Etherington, Michael Knights & Ed Williams, Emma Sky, Rory Stewart, and Hilary Synnott in the section Post 2003; and see the section British Military.

 

The Second U.S. - Iraq War: On the Ground

Sgt. 1st Class Frank Antenori, US Army (Retired), and Hans Halberstadt, Roughneck Nine-One: The Extraordinary Story of a Special Forces A-Team at War. New York: St. Martin's, 2006. pb New York: St. Martin's, 2007. xx, 265 pp. Includes the Battle of Debecka Crossroads, SW of Irbil, April 6, 2003.

Armor. Professional Development Bulletin of the U.S. Army's Armor Branch. Full texts online at Hathi Trust.

Rick Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers. 2004. Atkinson, a serious (Pulitzer-winning) military historian and a reporter for the Washington Post, was embedded with the 101st Airborne, spending a lot of time with the commander, Maj. Gen. David H. Petraeus.

Robert O. Babcock, Operation Iraqi Freedom I: A Year in the Sunni Triangle. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: St. John's Press, 2005. xi, 369 pp. The 4th Infantry Division and Task Force Ironhorse in Iraq, April 2003 to April 2004.

Stephen Biddle, "Speed Kills? Reassessing the Role of Speed, Precision, and Situation Awareness in the Fall of Saddam," Journal of Strategic Studies 30 (February 2007), pp. 3-46.

Ron Breland, Castles in the Sand. Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2006. 267 pp.

Charles H. Briscoe, et. al, All Roads Lead to Baghdad: Army Special Operations Forces in Iraq. Fort Bragg, North Carolina: USASOC History Office, 2006. xxx, 517 pp.

Timothy D. Brown, Unconventional Warfare as a Strategic Force Multiplier: Task Force Viking in Northern Iraq, 2003. Occasional Paper, Joint Special Operations University Press, September 2017. 18 pp.

Todd S. Brown, Battleground Iraq: Journal of a Company Commander. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History/GPO. xi, 292 pp. Captain Brown was in Iraq April 2003 to March 2004. He went in as a staff officer of the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. In July 2003 he was given command of B Company, 1-8 Infantry.
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J. Pepper Bryars, American Warfighter: Brotherhood, Survival, and Uncommon Valor in Iraq, 2003-2011. Barnhill House, 2016. 350 pp.

C. J. Chivers, The Fighters: Americans in Combat in Afghanistan and Iraq. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018. 374 pp. Detailed profiles of some Americans who fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, or both.

Ryan A. Conklin, An Angel from Hell: Real Life on the Front Lines. New York: Berkley, 2010. 400 pp. Conklin served a 2005-6 tour in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division, returned to civilian life, and than was called back to service to begin a second tour in 2009.

Capt. Jason Conroy and Ron Martz, Heavy Metal: A Tank Company's Battle to Baghdad. Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2005. xxi, 288 pp. Conroy commanded C Company, Task Force 1-64, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. Martz was a journalist embedded in the unit.

Christine Cook, Living on Tattooine (a.k.a. Kuwait). Ann Arbor, Michigan: Porch Swing Press, 2005. 245 pp. Cook served in the 163d Personnel Services Battalion.

Gunnery Sgt. Jack Coughlin, USMC, and Capt. Casey Kuhlman, USMCR, with Donald A. Davis, Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper. New York: St. Martin's, 2005.

John R. Crawford , The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell: An Accidental Soldier's Account of the War in Iraq. New York: Riverhead, 2005. xiv, 219 pp. Crawford was in a National Guard unit that was in Iraq for more than a year 2003-4, being shifted around among various parent units.

Thomas L. Day, Along the Tigris: The 101st Airborne Division in Operation Iraqi Freedom: February 2003 to March 2004. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2007. 320 pp.

Michael D. Doubler, The National Guard and the War on Terror: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Washington, DC: National Guard Bureau, Office of Public Affairs, Historical Services Division, 2008. iv, 112 pp. Covers from the pre-war preparations through 2006.

William Doyle, A Soldier's Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq. New York: NAL Caliber (Penguin), 2011. Patriquin was the tribal and civil affairs officer for the First Brigade, First Armored Division, in al Anbar province in 2006.

Sam Faddis [Charles S. Faddis], The CIA War in Kurdistan: The Untold Story of the Northern Front in the Iraq War. Philadelphia and Oxford: Casemate, 2020. xiii, 226 pp. Faddis led a CIA team into northern Iraq around mid-2002 to lay the groundwork for the 2003 war to overthrow Saddam Hussein. [See also below under Tucker].

Col. Gregory Fontenot, Lt. Col. E.J. Degen, and Lt. Col. David Tohn, On Point: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. xxiii, 539 pp. Foreword by Gen. Tommy Franks.

Brandon Friedman, The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War: A Screaming Eagle in Afghanistan and Iraq. St. Paul, Minnesota: Zenith, 2007. 254 pp. Freidman went into Iraq with the 101st Airborne, stayed for the initial months of the occupation. Very disillusioned with the US Policy.

Aaron Glantz, How America Lost Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2005. viii, 303 pp. Glantz was an antiwar reporter for Pacifica Radio, who was startled to see how U.S. was welcomed to Baghdad in 2003, wondered how he had been wrong, but then saw the popularity squandered.

Jason Christopher Hartley, Just Another Soldier: A Year on the Ground in Iraq. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. 328 pp. He was in a National Guard Unit that was activated in October 2003, went to Kuwait in February 2004, went to Iraq in March. Attached to the 1st Infantry Division.

J.B. Hogan, From Basic to Baghdad: A Soldier Writes Home. Chesworld, DE: Brave Ideas, 2005. xvii, 250 pp.

Col. Christopher P. Hughes, War on Two Fronts: An Infantry Commander's War in Iraq and the Pentagon. Philadelphia: Casemate, 2007. xi, 306 pp. Hughes went into Iraq in March 2003 commanding the 2/327 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division. He later served in the Pentagon. A 2016 reprint identifies Hughes by his more recent rank of Major General, but does not appear to have been modified otherwise.

Satish Jacob, Satish Jacob from Hotel Palestine, Baghdad: Pages from a War Diary. Foreword by Paul Danahar. New Delhi: Rolhi Books, 2003. xxix, 178 pp. Jacob, a BBC correspondent usually based in Delhi, was the only Indian journalist in Baghdad during the 2003 war.

David E. Johnson et al., The U.S. Army and the Battle for Baghdad: Lessons Learned—And Still to Be Learned. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2019. xxvi, 292 pp. Covers the whole story, from the pre-war planning to the withdrawal.

Dillard Johnson and James Tarr, Carnivore: A Memoir by One of the Deadliest American Soldiers of All Time. New York: William Morrow, 2013. 320 pp. (The Kindle edition has a different subtitle, A Memoir of a Cavalry Scout at War.) In the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Staff Sergeant Johnson commanded a Bradley fighting vehicle in 1/C/3-7th CAV. In a later tour, he had a very large number of confirmed kills as a sniper.

Lt. Col. Thomas L. Kelly and Lt. Col. (Ret.) John P. Andreasen, "Joint Fires: A BCD Perspective in Operation Iraqi Freedom". Field Artillery, November-December 2003, pp. 20-25.

Charles E. Kirkpatrick, Joint Fires as They Were Meant to Be: V Corps and the 4th Air Support Operations Group During Operation Iraqi Freedom. Land Warfare Papers, No. 48. Arlington, VA: Institute of Land Warfare, Association of the United States Army, October 2004. v, 22 pp.

Lance Kittleson, Meditations from Iraq: A Chaplain's Ministry in the Middle East. CSS Publishing, 2005. 237 pp. Kittleson, a Lutheran chaplain, served in Iraq 2003-4 with a support unit.

Jim Lacey, Takedown: The 3rd Infantry Division's Twenty-One Day Assault on Baghdad. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2007. xiii, 267 pp. Lacey, a former Army officer, was working as a journalist, embedded in the 101st Airborne, during the invasion of Iraq.

John C. McManus, The 7th Infantry Regiment: Combat in an Age of Terror: The Korean War Through the Present. Tom Doherty Associates, 2008. 416 pp. A short introduction (pp. 19-24), and an extended section toward the end of the book, cover the second US-Iraq War.

Kevin J. Mervin, Weekend Warrior: A Territorial Soldier's War in Iraq. Edinburgh and London: Mainstream, 2005. 352 pp. He was in Iraq until April 25, 2003.

Alan D. Meyer, "The SOD-JF in Iraq: A 'Total Force' Success Story." Veritas: Journal of Army Special Operations History, 2:3 (2006), pp. 18-25.

Richard C. Meyer, Four in the Corps: From Boot Camp to Baghdad--One Grunt's Enlistment. iUniverse, 2005. 432 pp. Sergeant Meyer was in the USMC from 2000 to 2004. He served in G Company, 2/5 Marines.

Larry Minear, Through Veterans' Eyes: The Iraq and Afghanistan Experience. Potomac Books, 2010. 270 pp.

Larry Minear, "Conscience and Carnage in Afghanistan and Iraq: US Veterans Ponder the Experience," Journal of Military Ethics 13:2 (2014), pp. 137-57.

Misleading Information from the Battlefield: The Tillman and Lynch Episodes. First Report by the [House] Committee on Oversight and Government Reform together with Additional Views. House Report 110-858, September 16, 2008. v, 76 pp. Jessica Lynch, a soldier in the U.S. Army's 507th Maintenance Company, was captured by Iraqi forces in An-Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003. See also book by Bragg on the Lynch episode.

Rory Mulholland, Camp Britney, Tikrit: The Genteel Art of War Reporting. North Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2005. 197 pp. Diary entries and stories filed by Mulholland, an Irish Reporter working for AFP, 12/21/03 to 1/18/04. He was embedded with the 1/22 (Infantry?), 4th ID, in Tikrit.

Leigh Neville, Special Operations Forces in Iraq. Osprey, 2008. 64 pp. Illustrated. Includes a variety of coalition forces not just U.S.

Rageh Omaar, Revolution Day: The Real Story of the Battle for Iraq. Viking, 2004. pb, apparently an expanded edition, London: Penguin, 2005. xix, 283 pp. Omaar, a Somali, first went to Iraq for the BBC in 1997.

Christian Parenti, The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq. New York: The New Press, 2004. x, 211 pp.

Joshua M. Peters and Josh R. Fansler, Not on My Watch: The 21st Century Combat Medic. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2005. xxi, 222 pp. Looks as it if covers both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Jonathan Pieslak, Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. xii, 226 pp.

Lt. Col. William G. Pitts, "Overview: Field Artillery in Operation Iraqi Freedom". Field Artillery, September-October 2003, pp. 2-4.

Oliver Poole, Black Knights: On the Bloody Road to Baghdad. London: HarperCollins, 2003. pb London: HarperCollins, 2005. xxi, 280 pp. Poole, a British journalist reporting for the Daily Telegraph, was embedded with 1/15 Infantry, 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, and in particular with B Company, 1/64 Armor (Bradleys and Abrams tanks, "Black Knights") which was part of that battalion, going into Iraq in 2003.

Major Philip D. Rice, "Decisive Fires, Decisive Victory: 1-9 FA in OIF". Field Artillery, September-October 2003, pp. 29-32.

Paul Rieckhoff, Chasing Ghosts: A Soldier's Fight for America from Baghdad to Washington. New York: NAL Caliber (Penguin), 2006. vi, 326 pp. Paperback titled Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier's Perspective. New York: NAL Caliber (Penguin), 2007. vi, 326 pp. A National Guard 1LT, Rieckhoff went into Baghdad in 2003 as a platoon leader. He was shocked by the poor planning for the postwar. After returning to the US, he became a critic of US policy and a founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

Linda Robinson, Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces. pb Perseus, 2005. 388 pp. Starts with Just Cause. One chapter on Desert Storm, one on Afghanistan, six on Iraq 2003.

Walter C. Rodgers, Sleeping with Custer and the 7th Cavalry: An Embedded Reporter in Iraq. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. xiii, 224 pp. Rodgers, a CNN reporter, was embedded in A Troop, 3/7 Cavalry, a recon unit that went into Iraq in March 2003.

Mike Rossiter, Target Basra: The High-Octane Story of the Royal Marine Commandos in Iraq. Bantam, 2008. 320 pp. Royal Navy Marines of 40 and 42 Commando went into Iraq on 20 March 2003, going first for petroleum facilities in extreme southern Iraq, and then for the city of Basra.

James A. Russell, Innovation, Transformation, and War: Counterinsurgency Operations in Anbar and Ninewa Provinces, Iraq, 2005-2007. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. x, 270 pp.

Mike Ryan, Special Operations in Iraq. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen & Sword Military, 2004. 175 pp. St. Paul, Minnesota: Motorbooks International. 176 pp.

Asne Seierstad, A Hundred and One Days: A Baghdad Journal. London: Virago (Time Warner), 2004. 321 pp. Trans. by Ingrid Christophersen. Norwegian original Hundre og en dag: en reportasjereise. Oslo: J.S. Cappelen, 2003. 335 pp. Seierstad, an experienced war correspondent but not an Arabist, reported from Baghdad January-April 2003 for several Scandinavian newspapers.

John Simpson, The Wars Against Saddam: Taking the Hard Road to Baghdad. London: Macmillan, 2003. x, 415 pp. pb London: Pan, 2004. x, 433 pp. Simpson, the BBC's World Affairs Editor, who covered Iraq off and on for many years, was almost killed April 6, 2003, in a mistaken US airstrike near Kirkuk that killed 18 people (334-47).

Ryan Smithson, Ghosts of War: The True Story of a 19-Year-Old GI. New York: Collins (HarperCollins), 2009. Intended for juvenile readers.

Elise Forbes Tripp, Surviving Iraq: Soldiers' Stories. Olive Branch Press, 2007. 274 pp.

Mike Tucker and Charles Faddis, Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press (Globe Pequot Press), 2008 [the copyright page says 2009]. xxii, 216 pp. Faddis led an eight-man CIA paramilitary team into Iraq in July 2002. The book is very critical of the Bush administration. The lurid and sometimes exaggerated language didn't give me a lot of faith in it when I first saw it, but the Review by "Matt P." in the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence, 54:2 (June 2010), is at least reasonably respectful. See also above under Faddis.

Mike Tucker, Among Warriors in Iraq: True Grit, Special Ops, and Raiding in Mosul and Fallujah. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press (Globe Pequot Press), 2005. xxi, 234 pp. Pages 1-85 are Mosul, September 27 to November 9, 2003. Pages 87-223 are Fallujah, November 13, 2003 to February 6, 2004.

United States Special Operations Command History: 20 (1987-2007): Proven in the Past, Vigilant Today, Prepared for the Future. MacDill AFB, Florida: U.S. Special Operations Command, 2007. 142 pp. Operation IRAQI FREEDOM is pp. 113-127.

J. B. Walker, Nightcap at Dawn: American Soldiers' Counterinsurgency in Iraq. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012.

Cherilyn A. Walley and Michael R. Mullins, "Order from Chaos: The 422nd CA Battalion in OIF." Veritas: Journal of Army Special Operations History 2 (2006), pp. 70-75.

Owen West, The Snake Eaters: An Unlikely Band of Brothers and the Battle for the Soul of Iraq. New York: Free Press (Simon & Schuster), 2012. xvii, 327 pp.

Trish Wood, What Was Asked of Us: An Oral History of the Iraq War by the Soldiers Who Fought It. New York: Little, Brown (Hachette Group), 2006. xxii, 309 pp.

Col. Darron L Wright, Iraq Full Circle: From Shock and Awe to the Last Combat Patrol in Baghdad and Beyond. Oxford and New York: Osprey, 2012. 376 pp. Wright was operations officer of the 1-8 Infantry, in Iraq 2003-4; executive officer of the 4th Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, in Iraq 2005-6; and deputy commander of the 4th Stryker Brigade in Baghdad ending August 2010. He has a basically positive view of the Iraq war.

Karl Zinsmeister, Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq. New York: St. Martin's, 2003. 213 pp. Zinsmeister works for the American Enterprise Institute. The 82nd didn't get to Baghdad, but conducted urban warfare, clearing Samawah 80 miles SE of Najaf.

David Zucchino, Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad. New York: Grove Press (Grove/Atlantic), 2004. xiii, 345 pp. The Second Brigade (Spartan Brigade) of the Third Infantry Division (Mechanized). Zucchino was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

 

The Second U.S. - Iraq War: U.S. Marines

Colonel Rod Andrew Jr., U.S. Marines in Battle: An-Nasiriyah, 23 March - 2 April 2003 [title on cover] / The Battle of An-Nasiriyah [title on page 1]. Washington, DC: History Division, United States Marine Corps, 2009. 46 pp. An interesting and well-written account of what happened in the first place U.S. forces encountered serious resistance in March 2003.

Jane Blair, Hesitation Kills: A Female Marine Officer's Combat Experience in Iraq. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. 296 pp. Blair, a relatively new second lieutenant, went into Iraq in the 2003 invasion, with the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Squadron of the 3d Marine Air Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Russ Bryant (photography) and Amy Goodpaster Strebe (text), Desert Dogs: The Marines of Operation Iraqi Freedom. St. Paul, MN: MBI Pubishing, 2004. 143 pp.

Benjamin Busch, Dust to Dust: A Memoir. Ecco, 2012. 320 pp. Busch served two tours in Iraq as a Marine officer, but the book also has a lot about the rest of his life.

Lt. Carey H. Cash, A Table in the Presence. New York: Random House, 2005. 256 pp. Lt. Cash was a chaplain with the 1/5 Marines going into Baghdad in 2003. The cover states (not quite looking like a subtitle): "The inspiring account of how a U.S. Marine battalion experienced God's grace amid the chaos of THE WAR IN IRAQ"

Major Thomas W. Crecca, United States Marine Corps Reserve Operations, 11 September 2001 to November 2003. New Orleans, LA: U.S. Marine Forces Reserve, 2005. vii, ?? pp.

GySgt Jason K. Doran, USMC (Ret.), I Am My Brother's Keeper: Journal of a Gunny in Iraq. Caisson Press, 2005. 220 pp. Doran was with the 1/2 Marines, part of Task Force Tarawa, including at An Nasiriyah.

LtCol Kenneth W. Estes, USMC (ret.), U.S. Marine Corps Operations in Iraq, 2003–2006. Quantico, VA: History Division, United States Marine Corp, 2009. 153 pp.

LtCol Kenneth W. Estes, USMC (ret.), U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2004–2005: Into the Fray. Washington, D.C.: History Division, United States Marine Corps, 2011. vii, 200 pp.

Nathaniel Fick, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. 372 pp. Fick, a Marine platoon leader, went into Iraq in the First Reconnaissance Battalion (see Evan Wright, below).

Major Walker M. Field, USMC, "Marine Artillery in the Battle of An Nasiriyah". Field Artillery, November-December 2003, pp. 26-30.

Seth W.B. Folsom, The Highway War: A Marine Company Commander in Iraq. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2006. xix, 425 pp. Folsom commanded D Company, 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. Went into Baghdad in the 2003 offensive, then on to Tikrit.

Seth W.B. Folsom, In the Gray Area: A Marine Advisor Team at War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2010. 256 pp. Major Folsom was sent back to Iraq in February 2008 to command a U.S. Marine advisor team embedded in an Iraqi Army battalion in al-Anbar province.

Ruben Gallego with Jim DeFelice, They Called Us "Lucky": The Life and Afterlife of the Iraq War's Hardest Hit Unit. New York: Custom House (HarperCollins), 2021. Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marines, 4th Marine Division, a Reserve unit, did not suffer casualties during its first weeks in Iraq in 2005, but from May 2005 onward suffered extraordinarily heavy casualties.

Jess Goodell with John Hearn, Shade It Black: Death and After in Iraq. Havertown, PA: Casemate. Goodell, a female Marine, served in a mortuary affairs unit in Iraq.

Michael S. Groen, and contributors, With the 1st Marine Division in Iraq, 2003: No Greater Friend, No Worse Enemy. Quantico, VA: History Division, Marine Corps University, 2006. xi, 413 pp.

Nathaniel R. Helms and Haytham Faraj, No Time for Truth: The Marines, Justice, and the Haditha Incident. This book about the incident that has sometimes been called the "Haditha Massacre," November 19, 2005, and its aftermath, was scheduled for publication by the U.S. Naval Institute, but publication was cancelled.

Major Christopher M. Kennedy, et al., eds., U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2003: Anthology and Annotated Bibliography. Washington, D.C.: History Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 2006. xiv, 339 pp.
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John Koopman, McCoy's Marines: Darkside to Baghdad. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press (MBI), 2004. 304 pp. Koopman, a former Marine sergeant and a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, was embedded with the 3/4 Marines, commanded by Lt. Col. Bryan P. McCoy ("Darkside"). They went initially to Basrah, later were the unit that pulled down the Saddam statue in Baghdad.

Jon Krakauer, Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman. New York: Doubleday, 2009. xxv, 383 pp. Tillman is most famous for his death by friendly fire in Khost province, Afghanistan, 2004, but as a comparative case to the Army's prolonged concealment of the way Tillman died, Krakauer discusses in some detail the military's lack of candor (p. 204: "The brazenness of the [military investigating] board's dishonesty was breathtaking") about friendly fire casualties in Nasiriyah, Iraq, in March 2003.

Gary Livingston, An Nasiriyah: The Fight for the Bridges. Caisson, 2004. 209 pp.

LtCol Nathan S. Lowrey, USMCR, Marine History Operations in Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom I: A Catalog of Interviews and Recordings, Historical Documents, Photographs and Combat Art. Washington, DC: History and Museums Division, United States Marine Corps, 2005. vi, 254 pp.

Richard S. Lowry, Marines in the Garden of Eden: The True Story of Seven Bloody Days in Iraq. New York: Berkley, 2006. xxi, 422- pp. March 23- in An Nasiriyah. Based on extensive interviewing.

Andrew Lubin, Charlie Battery: A Marine Artillery Unit in Iraq. Central Point, Oregon: Hellgate Press, 2004. 194 pp. One chapter deals with the battle of An Nasiriyah.

Marco Martinez, Hard Corps: From Gangster to Marine Hero. New York: Crown Forum (Random House), 2007. 256 pp. Martinez was with one of the Marine units that went into Baghdad in 2003. Very gung ho, critical of those who don't support the war.

Jimmy Massey, with Natasha Saulnier, Cowboys from Hell (forthcoming). Massey, a Marine, was in Iraq March-May 2003. His book, which apparently is pretty negative about the Marines' behavior toward Iraqi civilians, has not yet managed to appear in English, but the French translation has been out for a while, under the title Kill! Kill! Kill!. Paris: Panama, 2005. 389 pp.

Jim Mattis and Bing West, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead. New York: Random House, 2019. xiv, 300 pp. Much of the book is devoted to Iraq, with which Mattis was involved in various roles from the spring of 2002, when he was given command of the 1st Marine Division and told to begin preparing for the invasion of Iraq (p. 79), up through the Obama administration.

Lt. Col. Michael R. Melillo, USMC, "Cannon Cockers at War: The 11th Marines in Operation Iraqi Freedom". Field Artillery, September-October 2003, pp. 24-28.

Jesse Odom, Through Our Eyes. Bella Rosa Books, 2008. 208 pp. Odom was squad leader of 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon, A Company, 5th Marines, going into Iraq.

John Pettegrew, Light It Up: The Marine Eye for Battle in the War for Iraq. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2015. xvi, 215 pp. How new technologies have altered the way the US Marines perceive and understand the battlefield, and how such issues relate the way war appears in popular culture.

Lt. Col. John P. Piedmont, Det One: U.S. Marine Corps U.S. Special Operations Command Detachment, 2003-2006. Washington, D.C.P History Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 2010. ix, 123 pp. The detachment was deployed in Iraq from April to October 2004. Most of it functioned in Iraq as "Task Unit Raider"; some of its intelligence personnel were assigned to various other organizations.

Nick Popaditch, Once a Marine: An Iraq War Tank Commander's Inspirational Memoir of Combat, Courage, and Recovery. Savas Beatie, 2008. 312 pp. Gunnery Sgt. Popaditch went into Iraq in the original invasion in 2003. The main part of the book apparently deals with his recovery from severe wounds suffered in Fallujah on April 6, 2004.

Tim Pritchard, Ambush Alley: The Most Extraordinary Battle of the Iraq War. New York: Presidio (Ballantine), 2005. xvi, 294 pp. The battle for Nasiriyah, March 23, 2003.

Jim Proser, No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy: The Life of General James Mattis. New York: HarperCollins, 2018. 277 pp.

Col. Nicholas E. Reynolds, USMCR (Ret.), Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond: The U.S. Marine Corps in the Second Iraq War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. xi, 276 pp. Reynolds was in charge of USMC history operations in the war.

Col. Nicholas E. Reynolds, USMCR (Ret.), U.S. Marines in Iraq, 2003: Basrah, Baghdad, and Beyond. Washington, D.C.: History Division, United States Marine Corps, 2007. ix, 191 pp.

Malcolm Rios, Under the Gun: Infantryman, Medic, Tattoo Artist: My Year in Iraq. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse, 2006. 306 pp.

Richard H. Shultz, Jr., The Marines Take Anbar: The Four Year Fight Against al Qaeda. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2013. xiii, 293 pp.

Lisa Ellen Silvestri, Friended at the Front: Social Media in the American War Zone. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2015. 288 pp. The way Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan have used social media, especially Facebook and YouTube.

R. E. Talkington, "First Reconnaissance Battalion Command Chronology, 1 January to 30 June 2003".

Gy. Sgt. Patrick Tracy, Street Fight in Iraq: The Private Journal of a U.S. Marine Warrior. Leatherneck Publishing, 2006. 396 pp. Based on Tracy's diary, August 2004 to April 2005.

Mike Tucker, Ronin: A Marine Scout-Sniper Platoon in Iraq. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2008 (forthcoming). 256 pp. Covers 2005-2006, including some operations in Fallujah.

Bing West [Francis J. West] and Maj. Gen. Ray L. Smith USMC (Ret.), The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division. Introduction by John Keegan. New York: Bantam, 2003. xi, 303 pp. West and Smith, both of whom had served in the division long before, were permitted to accompany it, as civilian observers, during the campaign.

Matthew D. Wojtecki, Every Other Four: The Journal of Cpl. Matthew D. Wojtecki, Weapons Company 3rd Battalion 25th Marines, Mobile Assault Team Eight. AuthorHouse, 2006. 388 pp. In Al Anbar province, I think in 2005.

Evan Wright, Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and the New Face of American War. New York: Putnam's (Penguin), 2004. 354 pp. Wright, a reporter for Rolling Stone, was embedded with a platoon of the USMC First Reconnaissance Battalion during the 2003 war (see Nathaniel Fick, above).

Matt Young, Eat the Apple: A Memoir. New York: Bloomsbury, 2017. 253 pp. Young served multiple deployments in Iraq as a mortarman with the 3-5 Marines.

Matt Zeigler, Three Block War: U.S. Marines in Iraq. iUniverse, 2004. 132 pp.

 

Air War

Air Force Magazine. The monthly journal of the Air Force Association. Texts of some but not all past articles have been placed online at the Air Force Magazine Archive. There is a separate web page "Perspectives on Gulf War II" that lists a lot of articles on recent events in Iraq (and to some extent Afghanistan). A sample of articles:

Steve Call, Danger Close: Tactical Air Controllers in Afghanistan and Iraq. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2007. xix, 250 pp. Afghanistan up to late March 2002, around the end of Operation Anaconda. The initial stage of the war in Iraq, up to April 2003. Has discussion of the politics of relations between air and ground commanders.

Steve Davies, F-15C/E Eagle Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing, 2004. 96 pp.

Robert Deeter, Bullseye: Journal of a Black Hawk Pilot. Bloomington, IN: AuthoHouse, 2009. xii, 176 pp.

Matt Dietz, Eagles Overhead: The History of US Air Force Forward Air Controllers, from the Meuse-Argonne to Mosul. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2023. 368 pp. Chapter 7 (pp. 177-210) deals with the post-9/11 wars.

Lou Drendel, Air War Iraq: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publications, 2003. 64 pp.

Kenneth Finlayson, "Valiant 41: 160th SOAR in Combat in Iraq." VERITAS: Journal of Army Special Operations History 5 (2009), pp. 16-20. The 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment.

Rebecca Grant, The First 600 Days of Combat. Washington, DC: IRIS Press, 2004. 160 pp.

Dan Hampton, Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat. New York: William Morrow (HarperCollins), 2012. xi, 337 pp. Hampton flew F-16 Wild Weasels from 1986 to 2006; he was in both the first and second US-Iraq Wars.

Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Unseen War: Allied Air Power and the Takedown of Saddam Hussein. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2013. xxiv, 435 pp.

Kristin F. Lynch, et al., Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces: Lessons from Operation Iraqi Freedom. Santa Monica: RAND, 2005. xlix, 121 pp.

Forrest L. Marion, "Comparing and Contrasting USAFCENT's Air Advising Mission in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2005-2015," Air Power History, 66:2 (Summer 2019), pp. 15-30.

Richard F. Miller, A Carrier at War: On Board the USS Kitty Hawk in the Iraq War. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2005. xii, 243 pp. Miller, an amateur historian of the Civil War, was embedded aboard the Kitty Hawk, as a correspondent for Talk Radio New Service, from March 9 to March 23, 2003.

Lon Nordeen, AV-8B Harrier II Units of Operation Iraqi Freedom I-VI. Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2013. 96 pp.

Tim Ripley, Air War Iraq. Barnsley, UK: Pen and Sword, 1004. 144 pp. Heavily illustrated.

Dr Sebastian Ritchie, "The RAF in Operation TELIC: Offensive Air Power, March-April 2003," Air Power Review Vol 19, no. 2 (Summer 2016), First Gulf War 25th Anniversary – Special Edition, pp. 256-270

Sebastian Ritchie, "The RAF's Experience of Command and Control in Operation TELIC, the Second Gulf War, 2003," Air Power Review 21:3 (Autumn/Winter 2018), pp. 60-81.

Jay Stout, Hammer from Above: Marine Air Combat Over Iraq. New York: Presidio, 2005. xxi, 392 pp.

David Stubbs, "The Direction, Planning, and Implementation of the Operation Iraqi Freedom Air Campaign, 19 March–2 May 2003," War in History 29:3 (July 2022), pp. 727-48.

Squadron Leader Mark Tobin, "Operation IRAQI FREEDOM Air Campaign: A Tactical Military Success, or a Strategic Information Failure?" Air Power Review Vol 19, no. 2 (Summer 2016), First Gulf War 25th Anniversary – Special Edition, pp. 271-289.

David E. Thaler et al., Future U.S. Security Relationships with Iraq and Afghanistan: U.S. Air Force Roles. MG-681-AF. Santa Monica: Rand, 2008. xxx, 151 pp.

LCDR David Walch, Interview, March 29, 2005. Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, 2005. 16 pp. Walch was the intelligence officer for Carrier Air Wing Eight, on U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt, in the Eastern Mediterranean March-April 2003. The interesting thing is that Iraq's integrated air defense system had not been attrited as much as expected, because the war didn't start with an air-only phase, and the emphasis of early air strikes was against leadership rather than against air defense (pp. 12-13).

Darrell D. Whitcomb, On a Steel Horse I Ride: A History of the MH-53 Pave Low Helicopters in War and Peace. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 2012. xxxi, 738 pp.

Thomas W. Young, The Speed of Heat: An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008. x, 263 pp. The 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard, which operated C-130 cargo planes. Young, a former reporter with AP, served in the unit.

 

Intelligence

James Bamford, The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. Doubleday, 2009. 395 pp.

LTG William G. Boykin, with Lynn Vincent, Never Surrender: A Soldier's Journey to the Crossroads of Faith and Freedom. New York: FaithWords (Hachette), 2008. viii, 352 pp. Boykin was commissioned on graduation from Virginia Tech at the end of 1970. He wanted a combat assignment in Vietnam but was unable to get one. He joined Delta Force in 1978. Maj. Gen. Boykin (commander of the JFK Special Warfare Center and School at Ft. Bragg, and up for a third star), was picked in 2003 to become deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence (deputy to Undersecretary for Intelligence Steve Cambone).

Henry A. Crumpton, The Art of Intelligence: Lessons from a Life in the CIA's Clandestine Service. New York: Penguin, 2012. A lot about Afghanistan, some discussion of diversion of effort to Iraq.

David Grantham, Consequences: An Intelligence Officer's War. Seattle: Blue Ear Books, 2020. vi, 225 pp. The bulk of the book (pp. 11-17, and 87-224) deals with Grantham's service as a counterintelligence officer for the USAF Office of Special Ivestigations, at Camp Bucca, Iraq, in the first half of 2006.

Michael Hayden, Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror. New York: Penguin, 2016. 448 pp. Devoted mostly to broader issues of the Global War on Terror, but devotes significant attention to the Iraq War. USAF General Hayden was director of NSA 1999-2005; principal deputy to the director of national intelligence 2005-2006, and director of the CIA 2006-2009. The book is organized topically rather than chronologically; it is not a memoir.

Adam J. Hebert, "Aerospace World Special: The Road to Victory". Air Force Magazine, 86:5 (May 2003), pp. 10-16.

Gregory Hooker, Shaping the Plan for Operation Iraqi Freedom: The Role of Military Intelligence Assessments. Military Research Papers, #4. Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2005. xiv, 114 pp. Hooker was CENTCOM's senior intelligence analyst for Iraq; had been an UNSCOM inspector in 1996 and 1998.
DS79.76 .H66 2005

Jon R. Lindsay, Information Technology and Military Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2020. xi, 291 pp. Chapter 5, "Irregular Problems and Biased Solutions: Special Operations in Iraq" (pp. 136-179) deals with the not very effective system, in which the author was a participant 2007-8, providing intelligence support for Navy SEALs conducting counterterrorism raids in Anbar Province,

Military Intelligence Professional Bulletin, sometimes just called Military Intelligence, is a quarterly journal published by the U.S. Army Intelligence Center at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Some issues have been placed online by the Hathi Trust. The articles tend to be very short. Some examples include:

Jonathon P. Myers, LtCol. USMC (Ret.), American to the Corps: Iraq, Bosnia, Benghazi, Snowden - A Marine Intelligence Officer's Journey. Self-published, 2021. x, 291 pp. One chapter (pp. 153-81) covers Myers' assignment, as a major in the Marine Corps Reserve, to go into Iraq with the Marine units invading in 2003, observe and evaluate every aspect of the way Marine Corps intelligence was functioning, and report directly the to Commandant of the Marine Corps, not going through the Director of Marine Corps intelligence. Myers does not say much about what he found.

Paul R. Pillar, Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy: Iraq, 9/11, and Misguided Reform. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. xvi, 413 pp.

Richard Saccone, The Unseen War in Iraq: Insurgents in the Shadows. Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym International, 2008. Saccone served a year, though the publicity for the book does not make it clear which year, as a USAF counterintelligence officer in Iraq, workiing to prevent insurgents from infiltrating US bases. The excerpt from Chapter 1 that is available on the Amazon.com website looks a bit fictionalized to me.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

 
See also WMDs and Accusations about Iraqi Links with al Qaeda

 

Post 2003

Sarwar Mohammed Abdullah, "Corruption protection: fractionalization and the corruption of anti-corruption efforts in Iraq after 2003," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46:3 (2019), pp. 358-74.

John Agresto, Mugged by Reality: The Liberation of Iraq and the Failure of Good Intentions. New York: Encounter Books, 2007. xxii, 202 pp. Agresto worked for the CPA September 2003 to June 2004, as senior adviser to Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.

Fouad Ajami, The Foreigner's Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. New York: The Free Press, 2006. xix, 378 pp.

Andrew Alderson, Bankrolling Basra: The Incredible Story of a Part-time Soldier, $1 Billion, and the Collapse of Iraq. London: Robinson (Constable and Robinson), 2007. xiii, 272. Alderson, a former banker in Britain, joined the Territorial Army, was sent to Iraq in 2003, and became head of the Economic Planning and Development Department for the British occupation of southern Iraq.

Zaid al-Ali, The Struggle for Iraq's Future: How Corruption, Incompetence and Sectarianism have Undermined Democracy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014. viii, 295 pp.

David I. Aliyev and Thomas C. Kwon, eds., Rebuilding Iraq: Cost and Revenue Sharing. Nova Science Publishers, 2013.

Hamid Alkifaey, The Failure of Democracy in Iraq: Religion, Ideology and Sectarianism. Abindgdon and New York: Routledge, 2019.

Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. xxiv, 518 pp. Allawi became Minister of Defense approximately April 2004, but this excellent book is a history (with 33 pp. of endnotes) rather than a memoir; he refers to himself in the third person.

Deborah Amos, Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East. New York: PublicAffairs, 2010. 256 pp. Looks at the problems posed by the huge number of Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who have fled Iraq to neighboring countries in recent years.

Liam Anderson and Gareth Stansfield, Crisis in Kirkuk: The Ethnopolitics of Conflict and Compromise. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 312 pp.

Christopher Ankersen, ed., Civil-Military Cooperation in Post-Conflict Operations: Emerging Theory and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2008. 253 pp. The case studies include Iraq.

Lawrence Anthony, with Graham Spence, Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2007. 248 pp.

Andrew Arato, Constitution Making Under Occupation: The Politics of Imposed Revolution in Iraq. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. 360 pp.

Anthony Arnove, Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal. New York: The New Press, 2006. Foreword by Howard Zinn. xxi, 184 pp. 2d ed. New York: Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt and Company), 2007. xxv, 177 pp. A strongly anti-war view.

Ibrahim Aziz, Power-Sharing in Iraq after 2003: The Role of the US-Led Coalition and Consociationalism. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2021. xiv, 173 pp.

Will Bardenwerper, The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid. New York: Scribner, 2017. 272 pp.

Tom Basile, Tough Sell: Fighting the Media War in Iraq. Lincoln, Nebraska: Potomac Books (University of Nebraska Press), 2017. xii, 303 pp. Foreword by John R. Bolton. Basile was senior press advisor to the Coalition Provisional Authority, 2003-2004.

Pierre Bienaimé, "Are journalists lowballing the number of Iraqi war dead?" Columbia Journalism Review, July 7, 2015 [I am not sure whether that is the original publication date or the date of this revised version, with some errors corrected]. The main focus is on estimates of Iraqi dead by the organization Iraq Body Count, widely used by the media.

Christopher M. Blanchard, Iraq: In Brief. Congressional Research Service, March 5, 2018. 16 pp.

Captain Albert G. Bossar, "Fires Brigade TAB: Expanded and Unique Missions in OIF". Field Artillery, January-February 2007, pp. 20-21. A Target Acquisition Battery.

Markus E. Bouillon, David M. Malone, and Ben Rowswell, eds., Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict. Lynne Rienner, 2007. 349 pp.

Brett Bowden, Hilary Charlesworth, and Jeremy Farrall, eds., The Role of International Law in Rebuilding Societies after Conflict: Great Expectations. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. There are scattered comments on Iraq, and one paper specifically devoted to Iraq:

Wayne H. Bowen, Undoing Saddam: From Occupation to Sovereignty in Northern Iraq. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2006. xxiii, 201 pp. An AUSA (Association of the US Army) book. Bowen served in Nineveh, Dohuk, and Erbil provinces, Feb-Oct 2004, as a US Army Reserve civil affairs officer in the 416th Civil Affairs Battalion.

Joseph Braude, The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People, the Middle East, and the World. New York: Basic Books, 2003. xxii, 211 pp. A relatively optimistic projection, by a man who apparently had reasonable claims to expertise, about the prospects for postwar Iraq, written shortly before the war began.

L. Paul Bremer III, with Malcolm McConnell, My Year in Iraq: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. 417 pp.

Paul Brinkley, War Front to Store Front: Americans Rebuilding Trust and Hope in Nations Under Fire. Nashville and New York: Turner Publishing/Wiley, 2014. xii, 392 pp. As deputy under secretary of defense for business transformation and then director of the Task Force for Business and Stability Operations, Brinkely worked from 2006 onward, with considerable success, to try to restart industry in Iraq. The book is convincing and looks extremely important. Recommended.

Charles H. Briscoe, "Fighting Through the 'Fog of War': The Battle of An Najaf, 28-29 January 2007." Veritas: Journal of Army Special Operations History, 4 (2008), pp. 1-15.

Christopher Brownfield, My Nuclear Family: A Coming of Age in America's 21st Century Military. New York: Knopf, 2010. x, 314 pp. The title comes from Brownfield's service as an officer on the nuclear submarine USS Hartford, but most of the book is about his 2006-2007 tour in Iraq, as one of the officers who were supposed to be assisting the revival of Iraq's electrical power system. He describes the organization in which he served as having been pretty disfunctional, although it got somewhat better during the time he was there. Quite interesting.

Eric Burkhart, Mukhabarat, Baby! Mortars, WMD, Mayhem, and Other Memoirs of a Wartime Spy. Booklockier.com / Scottsdale Multimedia, 2015. 300 pp. Burkhart's tour as a CIA officer in Iraq began in 2003; I cannot tell from the table of contents how long the tour lasted, or how much of the book is devoted to it.

Gilbert Burnham, Riyadh Lafta, Shannon Doocy, and Les Roberts, "Mortality after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: a cross-sectional cluster sample survey." The Lancet, October 11, 2006. Data from 1,849 households containing 12,801 individuals was gathered between May and July 2006. The pre-invasion mortality rate was 5.5 per 1000 people per year; the post-invasion rate was 13.3 per 1000 people per year. The authors estimate that as of July 2006 there had been 654,965 excess Iraqi deaths as a result of the invasion, or about 2.5% of the population. "Of post-invasion deaths, 601,027 were due to violence, the most common cause being gunfire." [See also earlier version (2004).] Commentaries on and reactions to the 2006 study include:

Daniel L. Byman and Kenneth M. Pollack, Things Fall Apart: Containing the Spillover from an Iraqi Civil War. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2007. xiv, 239 pp. Looks at a variety of civil wars in search of lessons relevant to the Iraqi situation.

Lt. Col. Richard M. Cabrey and Captain Douglas M. Thomas, "1-5 FA in OIF II: Maintaining FA Competencies While Deployed". Field Artillery, January-February 2007, pp. 15-19. The 1-5 Field Artillery was at Ramadi, approximately October 2003 to September 2004.

Col. Dominic J. Caraccilo and Lt. Col. Andrea L. Thompson, Achieving Victory in Iraq: Countering an Insurgency. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2008. xxiv, 215 pp. Foreword by Bing West.

Paolo Casaca, The Hidden Invasion of Iraq. Acacias Publishing, 2008. 250 pp. The growth of Iranian influence in Iraq since 2003. Casaca, a member of the European Parliament since 1999, was previously a member of the Azorean Regional Parliament and of the Portuguese Parliament. He is a member of the Socialist Party, with a longstanding interest in human rights issues and the Middle East. But I don't get the impression he has spent much time in Iraq.

Graciana del Castillo, Rebuilding War-Torn States: The Challenges of Post-Conflict Economic Reconstruction. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 436 pp. Iraq is one of the four cases considered.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. New York: Knopf, 2006. xi, 320 pp. This is partly life in the Green Zone, but also a history of Bremer administration policies. Chandrasekaran was head of the Washington Post's Baghdad bureau.

Zaki Chehab, Inside the Resistance: The Iraqi Resistance and the Future of the Middle East. New York: Nation Books, 2005. x, 277 pp. Published in the U.K. as Iraq Ablaze: Inside the Insurgency. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.

Norman Cigar, Iraq's Shia Warlords and Their Militias: Political and Security Challenges and Options. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Insititute and U.S. Army War College Press, 2015. x, 114 pp.

Steven E. Clay, Iroquois Warriors in Iraq. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007. ix, 275 pp. Members of the Army Reserve's 98th Division (Institutional Training), serving in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, advising and training Iraqi forces.

Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA): This organization, headed by Paul Bremer, governed Iraq during the period of open, unambiguous occupation, up to the middle of 2004. The University of North Texas has archived its main web site.

Ken Coates, ed., Fallujah: Shock and Awe. Nottingham, England: Spokesman, 2005. 88 pp. The essays deal with a range of topics relating to the Iraq War, not just Fallujah. Very critical of the U.S.

Patrick Cockburn, Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq. New York: Scribner, 2008. 226 pp. Published in the U.K. as Muqtada al-Sadr and the Fall of Iraq. Faber and Faber, 2008.

Robert Cole, as told to Jan Hogan, Under the Gun in Iraq: My Year Training the Iraqi Police. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007. 309 pp. Some names have been changed.

Congressional Record. The Congressional Record, which includes not only the complete record of what is said on the floor of the U.S. House and Senate but also a lot of documents entered into the record, is available online courtesy of the GPO. I have not looked much at this, but as an example of what you might find:

Congressional Research Service. Some research publications have been placed online by the Federation of American Scientists and other organizations.

Steven L. Costel, ed., Surging Out of Iraq? Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2008 (forthcoming).

Anthony H. Cordesman, with Patrick Baetjer, Iraqi Security Forces: A Strategy for Success. Westport: Praeger, 2006. xxvi, 410 pp.

Anthony H. Cordesman, with Emma R. Davies, Iraq's Insurgency and the Road to Civil Conflict. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008. xxix, 841 pp. (pp. i-xxix are in each volume.)

Anthony H. Cordesman, The Tenuous Case for Strategic Patience in Iraq: A Trip Report." Center for Strategic and International Studies, August 6, 2007.

Conrad C. Crane and W. Andrew Terrill, Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, February 2003. vi, 78 pp. Only Crane's and Terrill's names are on the title page, but this is an institutional product, with input from agencies other than the Army, for which drafts were being discussed by late 2002.

Frank Gallagher with John M. Del Vecchio, The Bremer Detail: Protecting the Most Threatened Man in the World. Charlie Foxtrot Books, 2014. 285 pp.

Erica De Bruin, "Coup-Proofing for Dummies: The Benefits of Following the Maliki Playbook," Foreign Affairs, July 27, 2014. Argues that the way Prime Minister Maliki divided and politicized Iraqi security forces was rational. A coup by his security forces would have been a greater danger to him than the enemies against whom he would have needed strong security forces.

Hadani Ditmars, Dancing in the No-Fly Zone: A Woman's Journey Through Iraq. Northhampton, MA: Olive Branch Press (Interlink), 2006. 263 pp. Ditmars, a Canadian journalist, first reported from Iraq in 1997, but this book covers September 2003 onward.

Toby Dodge, Iraq's Future: The Aftermath of Regime Change. London and New York: Routledge, for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2005. 72 pp.

Toby Dodge, Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2012. 176 pp.

Robert Earle, Nights in the Pink Motel: An American Strategist's Pursuit of Peace in Iraq. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008. viii, 259 pp. Earle arrived in Iraq in 2004 as a senior assistant to Ambassador Negroponte.

Economist Intelligence Unit, Country Report Iraq. A monthly report, published online. A subscription allowing access to the latest issues is pretty expensive; some universities compromise by buying a cheaper subscription that does not give accesss to the most recent issues.

David M. Edelstein, Occupational Hazards: Success and Failure in Military Occupation. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. ix, 235 pp. Discusses 26 cases, from the early 19th century through the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ivan Eland, Partitioning for Peace: An Exit Strategy for Iraq. Independent Institute, 2009. 136 pp.

David Enders, Baghdad Bulletin: Dispatches on the American Occupation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. xiii, 179 pp.
DS79.76 .E53 2005

Mark Etherington, Revolt on the Tigris : The Al-Sadr Uprising and the Governing of Iraq. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2005. xiii, 252 pp. Etherington, formerly a British paratrooper, became the chief CPA representative for Wasit province (capital: al-Kut) in October 2003.

James Fallows, "Why Iraq Has No Army." The Atlantic Monthly, December 2005, pp. 60-77.

Farnaz Fassihi, Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008. xii, 291 pp. Ms. Fassihi ran the Baghdad Bureau of the Wall Street Journal 2003-2006.

Noah Feldman, What We Owe Iraq: War and the Ethics of Nation Building. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. pb with a new afterword: Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. 160 pp. Feldman, a law professor from New York University who also had some serious qualifications as an Arabist, was Senior Constitutional Adivser to the CPA in 2003. He argues for a humbler approach to nation building.

Charles Ferguson, No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent Into Chaos. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008. xxiv, 640 pp. Mostly this is compilation of transcripts of interviews Ferguson conducted while making a documentary film of the same title. He talked with a lot of the relevant people.

Financial Reconstruction in Iraq. Hearings, Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, September 16, November 4, 2003, and February 11, 2004.
Y 4.B 22/3:S.HRG.108-784

Dexter Filkins, "Where Plan A Left Ahmad Chalabi," New York Times Sunday Magazine, November 5, 2006.

Dexter Filkins, "What We Left Behind: An increasingly authritarian leader, a return of sectarian violence, and a nation worried for its future," New Yorker, April 28, 2014, pp. 50-63. Extremely interesting on Prime Minister Maliki's background and behavior.

Daniel Fink and Steven Leibowitz, The Muslim Scholars Association: A Key Actor in Iraq. Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, December 2006. 11 pp. Can be downloaded from the Institute's web page.

Victoria Fontan, Voices from Post-Saddam Iraq: Living with Terrorism, Insurgency, and New Forms of Tyranny. Praeger, 2009.

Georg Frerks and Niels Terpstra, "Thin blue line: police advising in dynamic environments, Iraq (2003-2014) and Afghanistan (2009-2015)," in Donald Stoker and Edward B. Westermann, eds., Expeditionary police advising and militarization: building security in a fractured world (Solihull, West Midlands, UK: Helion, 2018).

Aaran Glantz, ed. / Iraq Veterans Against the War, Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan: Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2008. x, 237 pp.

Government Accountability Office (GAO)

Heather S. Gregg, Hy S. Rothstein, and John Arquilla, eds., The Three Circles of War: Understanding the Dynamics of Conflict in Iraq. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010. xi, 253 pp. The one essay at which I have glanced, "Intelligence and the Wars in Iraq," by Joshua Rovner, looked extremely interesting.

Heyrick Bond Gunning, Baghdad Business School: The Challenges of a War Zone Start Up. Eye Books Direct, 256 pp. The author is British, and I believe quite young.

Mohammed M. Hafez, Suicide Bombers in Iraq: The Strategy and Ideology of Martyrdom. United States Institute of Peace, 2007. 285 pp.

Haider Ala Hamoudi, Howling in Mesopotamia: An Iraqi-American Memoir. New York: Beaufort Books, 2008. xiii, 273 pp. Hamoudi, an Iraqi-American attorney and a relative of Chalabi, went to Iraq in July 2003 expecting to work as an attorney. He gave up and left in October, then returned in December 2003 to work on an AID-funded project to rebuild Iraqi law schools.

James E. Harley, The Trouble in Iraq: A Diary of a National Guardsman. Denver, Colorado: Outskirts Press, 2005. 189 pp. Anti-war in tone.

Ahmed S. Hashim, Insurgency and Counter-Insurgency in Iraq. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. xxviii, 482 pp. Dust jacket neglects to mention that Hashim served in Iraq 2003-2004. He is now (2007) an adviser to Gen. Petraeus.

Ahmed S. Hashim, Iraq's Sunni Insurgency. Routledge, 2009. 89 pp. Published in the Adelphi Series.

Mohammed Hassan and David Pestieau, l'Irak face a l'occupation. Berchem, Belgium: EPO, 2004. 185 pp. Translated from the Dutch by Frank Degrez.

Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian, Collateral Damage: America's War against Iraqi Civilians. New York: Nation Books, 2008. xxxvii, 122 pp.

Eric Herring and Glen Rangwala, Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and Its Legacy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006. xii, 354 pp.

Richard Hil and Paul Wilson, Dead Bodies Don't Count: Civilian Casualties and the Forgotten Costs of the Iraq Conflict. Zeus Publications, 2007. 125 pp.

House Committee on Armed Services

House Committee on the Budget

House Commitee on Government Reform/House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

House Commitee on International Relations / House Committee on Foreign Affairs

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Brian E. Humphreys, "Imagining Armies: Symbolic Dimensions of Military Power and Contested State Legitimacy in Iraq, 2003-2014," Ph.D. dissertation, political science, Rutgers, 2015. DA 3734223.

Gerald L. Hunt, The Kill Zone: Day to Day Convoys in Iraq. AuthorHouse, 2007. 88 pp.

Imtiaz Hussain, Afghanistan, Iraq and Post-conflict Governance: Damoclean Democracy?. Brill, 2010. 308 pp.

Initial Benchmark Assessment Report. Report submitted to the Congress by the White House, July 12, 2007, on progress in Iraq. 25 pp.
PREX 1.2:IR 1

International Crisis Group, Iraq database. For each month since August 2003, there is a one-paragraph summary of events in Iraq that month, and links to a few other relevant items. The entry for each month is placed there the first day of the following month.

International Crisis Group, Middle East Briefings/Reports

Iraq Body Count compiles statistics, continously updated, on documented civilian deaths in Iraq since 2003. Since its figures are limited to documented deaths, they presumably are below the number of actual deaths, perhaps by a considerable margin.

Iraq Index [subtitle varies slightly]. A compilation of data on Iraq, published by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, at the Brookings Institution, updated frequently. Contains a considerable variety of useful statistics.

Iraq Legal Development Project, American Bar Association.

Iraq: Reconstruction and Future Role. Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates: Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, 2004. xv, 182 pp.

Dahr Jamail, Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007. xvi, 313 pp. I believe this is pretty negative about U.S. policy. Jamail arrived in Iraq in November 2003.

Issam Jameel, Iraq Through a Bullet Hole: A Civilian Returns Home. Ann Arbor, MI: Modern History Press (Loving Healing Press), 2009. iv, 196 pp. Issam Jameel, a playwright, returned to Iraq in 2005 after a prolonged exile in Australia.

Zuhair al-Jezairy, The Devil You Don't Know: Going Back to Iraq. Saqi Books, 2009. 288 pp.

Joint Economic Committee

Frederick W. Kagan, Choosing Victory: A Plan for Success in Iraq. Phase I Report. A Report of the Iraq Planning Group at the American Enterprise Institute. January 2007.

Kenneth Katzman and Carla E. Humud, Iraq: Politics and Governance. Congressional Research Service, September 15, 2015. 38 pp.

David Kilcullen, "Anatomy of a Tribal Revolt," Small Wars & Insurgencies, (18:2?) (June?) 2007.

R. Alan King, Lieutenant Colonel, USAR, Twice Armed: An American Soldier's Battle for Hearts and Minds in Iraq. St. Paul, Minnesota: Zenith Press (MBI), 2006. 303 pp. King commanded the 442nd Civil Affairs Battalion in the 3rd ID in Iraq from the March invasion to August 2003, then worked for the CPA until June 2004, first as tribal outreach coordinator, then in the Office of Provincial Outreach.

Nemir Kirdar, Saving Iraq: Rebuilding a Broken Nation. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2009. 320 pp. I have not seen the book, but I get an impression it is more about what needs to be done than about how to do it.

Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. New York: Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt), 2007. 558 pp. The way advocates of free-market capitalism use crises to push their agenda. Includes extensive discussion of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Michael Knights and Ed Williams, The Calm Before the Storm: The British Experience in Southern Iraq. Washington, D.C.: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, February 2007. vii, 37 pp. Can be downloaded from the Institute's web page.

Nicholas Krohley, The Death of the Mehdi Army: The Rise, Fall, and Revival of Iraq's Most Powerful Militia. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xiv, 305 pp. Krohley served from February to December 2008 in Tisa Nissan district of eastern Baghdad, as part of a US Army Human Terrain Team.

Eric J. Labs, et. al., Paying for Iraq's Reconstruction. Congressional Budget Office and GPO, January 2004.

David A. Lake, The Statebuilder's Dilemma: On the Limits of Foreign Intervention. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2016. x, 241 pp. Argues that when the US is trying to build a government in another country, the demand that it conform to American wishes makes it unlikely that it will be regarded as legitimate by its own people.

Cornelis J. Lammers, "The American Occupation Regime in Comparative Perspective: The Case of Iraq," Armed Forces & Society 40:1 (January 2014), pp. 49-70.

Matthew Coen Leep, "Partisan Discourse, Polarization, and the Politics of Military Fatalities in Iraq," Democracy and Security 11:4 (2015), pp. 329-53.

David Little and Donald K. Swearer, eds., Religion and Nationalism in Iraq: A Comparative Perspective. Cambridge, MA: Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard Divinity School (distributed by Harvard University Press), 2007. viii, 213 pp. Compares Iraq with Sri Lanka, Sudan, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. The Iraq chapters are Juan R. I. Cole, "The Rise of Religious and Ethnic Mass Politics in Iraq" (pp. 43-62); Phebe Marr, "Kurds and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites: Can an Iraqi Identity be Salvaged?" (pp. 63-72). Some of the publisher's publicity also lists Yitzakh Nakash, "Iraq after the January 2005 Elections," but apparently that was eliminated from the volume in the late stages of the editing.

Ray LeMoine and Jeff Neumann, with Donovan Webster, Babylon by Bus: Or, the true story of two friends who gave up their valuable franchise selling YANKEES SUCK T-shirts at Fenway to find meaning and adventure in Iraq, where they became employed by the occupation in jobs for which they lacked qualification and witnessed much that amazed and disturbed them. New York: Penguin, 2006. pb New York: Penguin, 2007. 316 pp. LeMoine and Neumann arrived in Iraq in January 2004.

Konrad R. K. Ludwig, Stryker: The Siege of Sadr City. Roland-Kjos Publishing, 2013. 446 pp. Sgt. Ludwig went to Iraq in 2007 with B Company, 1st Squadron/2nd Stryker Cavalry Regiment. The unit was involved in heavy fighting against the Jaish al-Mahdi in the Sadr City district of Baghdad.

Rory McCarthy, Nobody Told Us We Are Defeated: Stories from the New Iraq. London: Chatto & Windus, 2006. 327 pp. McCarthy lived in Baghdad 2003-2005 as a reporter for the Guardian.

Lt. Col. Richard A. McConnell, Major Christopher L. Matson, and Captain Brent A. Clemmer, "The MiTT and Its 'Human Terrain': Transitioning the Iraqi Army into the Lead". Field Artillery, January-February 2007, pp. 11-14. The Military Transition Team.

Paul K. MacDonald, Networks of Domination: The Social Foundations of Peripheral Conquest in International Politics. Oxford University Press, 2014. Looks at the factors determining whether a major power can go from military conquest of a peripheral society to effective rule of that society. One chapter (pp. 182-214) deals with the US in Iraq; the other cases are the British conquests of India, southern Africa, and Nigeria.

Capt. Robert P. McGovern, All American: Why I Believe in Football, God, and the War in Iraq. New York: William Morrow, 2007. xv, 316 pp. After four years as a pro football player, he became an attorney. As an Army reservist, he was sent to Afghanistan and then (June 2005 onward) to Baghdad, where he prosecuted terrorist suspects. I have not read the book, but the title does not make me optimistic.

Carter Malkasian, "The Role of Perceptions and Political Reform in Counterinsurgency: The Case of Western Iraq, 2004-05." Small Wars and Insurgencies, 17:3 (September 2006), pp. 367-394.

John David Manza, "A critical analysis of American post-conflict reconstruction efforts in southern Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Wayne State University, 2008. 217 pp. AAT 3310891. Research was conducted in Iraq between August 2006 and July 2007.

Ramzy Mardini, ed., Volatile landscape: Iraq and its insurgent movements. Washington, DC: Jamestown Foundation, 2010. 323 pp.

George Michael and Joseph Scolnick, "The Strategic Limits of Suicide Terrorism in Iraq." Small Wars and Insurgencies, 17:2 (June 2006), pp. 113-125.

Military Review. "The Professional Journal of the U.S. Army." Published by the Combined Arms Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Recent issues contain a lot about Iraq, both detailed tactical accounts and broader analyses. (Some articles about general issues of insurgency and counterinsurgency, rather than the specific experience of Iraq since 2003, are listed above in the section "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency Doctrine").

Thomas Mowle, ed., Hope is Not a Plan: The War in Iraq from Inside the Green Zone. Westport: Praeger, 2007. xx, 172 pp. The focus is on efforts in late 2004 and early 2005 to solve the Iraqi problem. Mowle himself served in the Strategy, Plans, and Assessment Division, Headquarters, Multinational Force – Iraq, August to December 2004.

Peter J. Munson, Iraq in Transition: The Legacy of Dictatorship and the Prospects for Democracy. Foreword by Steven Metz. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2009. xiii, 321 pp. Munson is an Arabic speaking Middle East specialist and a Marine officer.

Patrick J. Murphy, with Adam Frankel, Taking the Hill: From Philly to Baghdad to the United States Congress. New York: Henry Holt, 2008. x, 275 pp. Murphy, who had been teaching law at West Point, was sent to Iraq in June 2004 to be the JAG for the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne. He stayed until January 2004. Feeling that what he had seen represented terrible failures of planning, he ran for Congress as a Democrat, and won.

Greg Muttitt, Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq. London: Bodley Head, 2011. New York: The New Press, 2012. xxxiv, 398 pp.

Capt. Eric Navarro, USMCR, God Willing: My Wild Ride with the New Iraqi Army. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008. ix, 271 pp. Navarro was assigned to work with Iraqi soldiers at the end of 2004, in al Anbar province.

Michael A. Newton and Michael Scharf, Enemy of the State: The Trial and Execution of Saddam Hussein. New York: St. Martin's, 2008. 305 pp.

Steven K. O'Hern, The Intelligence Wars: Lessons from Baghdad. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2008. 292 pp. Foreword by Bart Bechtel. O'Hern arrived in Iraq in April 2005 to head the Strategic Counterintelligence Directorate of the Multi-National Force. He complains that U.S. intelligence tended to ignore Iranian activities in Iraq because of an excessive focus on the Sunni insurgency, and that it underemphasized human intelligence. Names have been changed.

Brendan O'Leary, How to Get Out of Iraq With Integrity. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 263 pp.

Carole A. O'Leary and Nicholas A. Heras, Muqtada al Sadr and Neo-Iraqi Nationalism: Implications and Opportunities. McDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2021. xi, 90 pp.

Colonel Kim Olson, USAF (Ret.), Iraq and Back: Inside the War to Win the Peace. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006. xii, 211 pp. Olson was Jay Garner's executive officer in 2003.

David Siddhartha Patel, "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq's Sacred Spaces," in C. Christine Fair and Sumit Ganguly, eds., Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 140-176. I believe this deals primarily with operations in Najaf in 2004.

Heidi M. Peters, Moshe Schwartz, and Lawrence Kapp, Department of Defense Contractor and Troop Levels in Iraq and Afghanistan: 2007–2017. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, April 28, 2017. R44116. 13 pp.

Joan T. Phillips, Conflict Termination in the Iraqi War 2003. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Library, February 2005. This is a bibliography.

Kenneth M. Pollack, Raad Alkadiri, J. Scott Carpenter, Frederick W. Kagan, and Sean Kane, Unfinished Business: An American Strategy for Iraq Moving Forward. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011. viii, 129 pp.

Oliver Poole, Red Zone: Five Bloody Years in Baghdad. London: Reportage Press, 2008. xiii, 336 pp. Poole, a reporter for the London Daily Telegraph who had covered the 2003 invasion, returned and spent 2005-6 in Iraq. He says it was pretty bad.

Stephen C. Poulson and Kelly A. Burke, "Levels of Combatant Control and the Patterns of Non-Incumbent/Insurgent Violence Experienced by Civilians Living in Sunni-Arab Communities in Iraq (2004-2009)," Medicine, Conflict and Survival 34:2 (2018), pp. 95-120.

Harith Hasan Al-Qarawee, "The 'formal' Marja': Shi'i clerical authority and the state in post-2003 Iraq," British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46:3 (2019), pp. 481-97.

RAND Corporation (Previously, Rand Corporation). This "think tank" does a lot of research and analysis work on contract for the Defense Department. Most RAND publications can be purchased in hard copy through the RAND Corporation online bookstore, but many also can be read online for free. RAND publications dealing with the American withdrawal from Iraq include:

Joel Rayburn, Iraq after America: Strongmen, Sectarians, Resistance. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2014. xvi, 302 pp.

Michael Rear, Intervention, Ethnic Conflict and State-building in Iraq: A Paradigm for the Post-colonial State. Routledge, 2008. 298 pp.

Rebuilding Iraq: Integrated Strategic Plan Needed to Help Restore Iraq's Oil and Electricity Sectors. US Government Accountability Office (GAO), May 2007. iii, 58 pp. Bar graph showing enemy attacks by month, May 2003 to April 2007, on p.34.

Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. New York: Penguin, 2009. 394 pp.

Antonius C.G.M. Robben, Iraq at a Distance: What Anthropologists Can Teach Us about the War. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. ix, 186 pp. Includes comparisons with Cambodia, Palestine, and Argentina.

Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq. New York: PublicAffairs, 2008. xix, 411 pp.

Paul Rogers, Iraq and the War on Terror: Twelve Months of Insurgency, 2004/2005. I.B. Tauris, 2006. 144 pp. Rogers is a professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University.

Paul Rogers, A War Too Far: Iraq, Iran and the New American Century. Pluto Press, 2006. 256 pp.

Major Travis E. Rooms, Beginning with the End in Mind: Post-Conflict Operations and Campaign Planning. Ft. Leavenworth: School of Advanced Military Studies, 2005. v, 60 pp.

Nir Rosen, In the Belly of the Green Bird: The Triumph of the Martyrs in Iraq. New York: The Free Press, 2006. xvi, 264 pp. Paperback titled The Triumph of the Martyrs: A Reporter's Journey into Occupied Iraq. Potomac Books, 2008. Rosen speaks Iraqi-accented Arabic. Covers April 2003 to January 2005.

A. Ray Royalty, "U.S. Military Advisors in Iraq: A Phenomenological Research Study on the Role of National Culture in Tactical Decision-making during Wartime," Ph.D. dissertation, George Washington University, 2015. DA 3718052.

Jonathan E. Sanford, Iraq's Economy: Past, Present, Future. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, June 3, 2003. 62 pp.

Caroleen Marji Sayej, Patriotic Ayatollahs: Nationalism in Post-Saddam Iraq. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2018. xx, 216 pp.

Marc Scarcelli, "The Uneven Application of the 'Civil War' Label to Iraq," Civil Wars 19:1 (2017), pp. 87-107.

Senate Committee on Appropriations

Senate Committee on Armed Services (GPO web page)

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (GPO web page)

Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs

Senate Committee on the Judiciary

Chad C. Serena, It Takes More than a Network: The Iraqi Insurgency and Organizational Adaptation. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. x, 226 pp.

Giuliana Sgrena, Friendly Fire: The remarkable story of a journalist kidnapped in Iraq, rescued by an Italian secret service agent, and shot by U.S. forces. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2006. 215 pp. Foreword by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! Translated by Lesley Freeman Riva. Italian original Fuoco amico (Feltrinelli, 2005). A reporter for Il Manifesto, Sgrena was held by insurgents from Feb 4 to March 4, 2005. She was wounded and Major General Nicola Calipari was killed by an American checkpoint while they were in a car driving her to the airport on the day of her release.

Miranda Sissons and Abdulrazzaq Al-Saiedi, A Bitter Legacy: Lessons of De-Baathifi cation in Iraq. International Center for Transitional Justice, 2013. 46 pp.

Emma Sky, The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq. New York: PublicAffairs, 2015. xvi, 383 pp. The British government sent Emma Sky to Iraq in 2003, for what was supposed to be a stay of only a few months. She ended up serving for years as a trusted adviser to U.S. military commanders.

Major Scott A. Sparks, The Impact of Misunderstanding the Enemy's Will to Fight in OIF. Ft. Leavenworth: School of Advanced Military Studies, 2005. iv, 42 pp.

Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR; Stuart W. Bowen, Jr.), web site

Robert Springborg, et. al., Oil and Democracy in Iraq. London: Saqi Books / London Middle East Institute, School of Oriental and African Studies, 2007. 122 pp. An analysis of the policy issues involved in the reconstruction of, and control of, the Iraqi petroleum industry.

James Stephenson, Losing the Golden Hour: An Insider's View of Iraq's Reconstruction. Washington, D.C: Potomac Books, 2007. xx, 175 pp. Foreword by Richard L. Armitage. Stephenson went to Iraq in February 2004 to head the operations of the Agency for International Development (AID) there.

Rory Stewart, The Prince of the Marshes, and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq. New York: Harcourt, 2006. xviii, 396 pp. Stewart was sent to Iraq in September 2003 by the British Foreign Office, as acting governorate coordinator for Maysan, the governorate north of Al Basrah, bordering on Iran.

Sandy Storrie, "Talking to the 'enemy' - Informal conflict termination in Iraq," British Army Review, Winter 2009/2010, pp. 13-26.

Hilary Synnott, Bad Days in Basra: My Turbulent Time as Britain's Man in Southern Iraq. London: I.B. Tauris, 2008. xvi, 287 pp. Synnott, a senior British diplomat, was picked in July 2003 to be the coordinator of the occupation in the four provinces at the southeast corner of Iraq.

Amir Taha, "Turning Ex-Combatants into Sadris: Explaining the Emergence of the Mahdi Army," Middle Eastern Studies 55:3 (2019), pp. 57-73.

Matt Taibbi, The great derangement: A terrifying true story of war, politics, and religion at the twilight of the American empire. New York: Spiegel and Grau, 2008. 269 pp. Taibbi is a reporter for Rolling Stone. One short chapter (pp. 88-97) deals with his experiences embedded with the 615th Military Police ("Bloodhounds") in Baghdad. I don't see a date for this in the book, but I believe it was mid-2006 (see Taibbi's article "Fort Apache, Iraq" in Rolling Stone, issue 1004/1005, July 13-27, 2006).

Stefan Talmon, The Occupation of Iraq.

W. Andrew Terrill, Nationalism, Sectarianism, and the Future of the U.S. Presence in Post-Saddam Iraq. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, July 2003. vi, 44 pp.

W. Andrew Terrill and Conrad C. Crane, Precedents, Variables, and Options in Planning a U.S. Military Disengagement from Iraq. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005. vii, 60 pp. Warns against unfounded optimism.

Ian Thomas, "Pointing the Way Out: The Utility of Force and the Basra Narrative, January-August 2007," British Army Review, Winter 2009/2010, pp. 8-12.

Ches Thurber, "Militias as Sociopolitical Movements: Lessons from Iraq's Armed Shia Groups," Small Wars & Insurgencies, vol. 25, issue 5-6 (2014), pp. 900-923.

Jürgen Todenhöfer, Why Do You Kill? The Untold Story of the Iraqi Resistance. New York: The Disinformation Company, 2009. 204 pp. I believe the German original was Warum tötest du, Zaid? Bertelsmann, 2008.

Ray C. Tran and Francis E. Cunningham, eds., Iraq under Nuri al-Maliki: Developments and Dysfunctions. Nova Science Publishing, 2012. 159 pp.

U.S. Department of Defense, Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq. A series of quarterly reports sent to the Congress. No particular author or office within the Department of Defense shows on the reports I have seen, but I believe the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (see above) played an important role in producing them.

U.S. Institute of Peace [this entity was created by the U.S. government, but to a significant extent operates autonomously]

Peter Van Buren, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. New York: Metropolitan Books (Henry Holt), 2011. x, 269 pp. Van Buren, a Foreign Service officer, arrived in Iraq in 2009, without adequate training, to head a Provincial Reconstruction Team.

Geert van Kesteren, Baghdad Calling. Episode Publishers, 2008. Geert van Kesteren, a photojournalist, both photographs and writes about Iraqis in Baghdad, and in exile in neighboring countries, in 2006 and 2007.

Steven Vincent, In the Red Zone: A Journey Into the Soul of Iraq. Spence, 2004. viii, 247 pp. Based on two trips to Iraq as a free-lance journalist, Sept-Oct 2003 and Jan-Mar 2004. Apparently believed in the effort to create democracy there. He was working on a book about Basra when killed there.

Reidar Visser, A Responsible End? The United States and the Iraqi Transition, 2005-2010. Charlottesville, VA: Just World Publishing, 2010. 301 pp. The failure of the Iraqi political system to move beyond ethno-sectarian competition.

Reidar Visser and Gareth Stansfield, eds., An Iraq of its Regions: Cornerstones of a Federal Democracy? New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. xxii, 274 pp.

"Johnny Walker" with Jim Defelice, code Name Johnny Walker: The Extraordinary Story of the Iraqi Who Risked Everything to Fight with the U.S. Navy SEALs. New York: William Morrow (HarperCollins), 2014. 285 pp. A translator for U.S. forces from 2003 to 2009; then Navy SEALs helped him and his family resettle to the U.S.

Major Christopher W. Wendland, "BCT FSCOORD in OIF: Targeting by LOOs". Field Artillery, March-Apri 2007, pp. 42-45.

Bing West, The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq. New York: Random House, 2008. xx, 417 pp.

J. Kael Weston, The Mirror Test: America at War in Iraq and Afghanistan. New York: Knopf, 2016. xix, 585 pp. Weston, working for the State Department, arrived in Iraq in 2003 as the Coalition Provisional Authority was just getting started. He was in Fallujah from late 2004 to early 2007.

Andrew White, Iraq: Searching for Hope. London: Continuum, 2005. xi, 164 pp. 2d edition London: Continuum, 2007. 192 pp. White, an Anglican minister, first visited Iraq in 1999. He went there about the end of May 2003 to work on reforming Iraq's Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Andrew White, The Vicar of Baghdad: Fighting for Peace in the Middle East. Oxford: Monarch Books (Lion Hudson), 2009. 208 pp.

Phil Williams, Criminals, Militias, and Insurgents: Organized Crime in Iraq. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2009. xvii, 275 pp.

Rusty B. Wilson, Iraq: The Story You'll Never Get from the Media: Life on a Forward Operating Base in the War Zone. Orange, California: Songbird, 2006. 213 pp.

Bob Woodward, State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006. xiv, 560 pp.

Bob Woodward, The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. xvi, 487 pp.

Michael Yon, Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New 'Greatest Generation' of American Soldiers is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope. Richard Vigilante Books, 2008. 227 pp. Yon is a blogger, who has spent a lot of time embedded in US units in Iraq. His web site is at http://www.michaelyon-online.com/.

Michael Yon, Gates of Fire: A Deuce Four Dispatch (Iraq, 2005). Michael Yon, LLC, 2010. 49 pp. Apparently published only on Kindle.

Marc Youngquist, The 143rd in Iraq. East Montpelier, VT: Green Frog Publishing, 2015. xiv, 416 pp. 2nd ed.: The 143rd in Iraq: Training the Iraqi Police In Spite of it All, Sherman, CT: Emerald Lake Books, 2016. xiv, 420 pp. The 143rd Military Police Company, a Connecticut National Guard unit, arrived in Kuwait in mid-April 2003, but did not go into Iraq until well into May. It patrolled Baghdad and also trained Iraqi police. Youngquist was a master sergeant in the unit.

Rex J. Zedalis, The Legal Dimensions of Oil and Gas in Iraq: Current Reality and Future Prospects. Cambridge University Press, 2009. 368 pp.

Karl Zinsmeister, Dawn Over Baghdad: How the U.S. Military is Using Bullets and Ballots to Remake Iraq. San Francisco: Encounter Books, 2004. xi, 237 pp.

See also Theories of Limited War and Counterinsurgency.

 

Post-2003: Military

Milo S. Afong [et al.], Hogs in the Shadows: Combat Stories from Marine Snipers in Iraq. New York: Berkley Caliber (Penguin), 2007. viii, 259 pp. Sergeant Afong assembled this collection, combining one story of his own actions with eleven by other HOGs ("hunters of gunmen").

"Agreement Between the United States of America and the Republic of Iraq On the Withdrawal of United States Forces from Iraq and the Organization of Their Activities during Their Temporary Presence in Iraq", 17 November 2008. Article 24 stated that all United States combat forces were to withdraw from Iraqi "cities, villages, and localities" no later than June 30, 2009, and that "All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than December 31, 2011."

Armor. "The Magazine of Mobile Warfare", "The Professional Bulletin of the Armor Branch", or "The Professional Journal of Mounted Warfare". Fort Knox, Kentucky: U.S. Army Armor School, later U.S. Army Armor Center. This started as a cavalry journal in 1888, and changed names several times before becoming Armor in 1950. Issues since 1995 were for several years available on-line to the general public at the Armor web site, but this access is now blocked so firmly that articles are retroactively blocked on the Wayback Machine. The journal is currently available online to military personnel through the Army Knowledge Online system. Some recent issues are available to many academics through their university libraries' web systems. Some issues are available through other channels.
D 101.78/2:

Lt. Col. Michael A. Baumann (USA, Ret.), Adjust Fire: Transforming to Win in Iraq. Roseville, MN: Birch Grove Publishing, 2008. 483 pp. Baumann commanded the 1-21 Artillery for a one-year tour in Iraq beginning March 2004. The 1-21, under the 5th Brigade Combat Team, First Cavalry Division, was assigned to the Al Rashid district of southern Baghdad.

Lieutanant Colonel David A. Benhoff, Among the People: U.S. Marines In Iraq. Quantico, Virginia: Marine Corps University Press, 2008. 109 pp. A photo book, devoted mostly to Marine Corps Civil Affairs operations in al Anbar province; some is on the training teams that worked with Iraqi security forces. Lt. Col. Benhoff deployed to Iraq as a field historian in 2005.

Mathew Bocian, with Derek Szmyt and Tim Gauthier, Operation Erdanus: 2-14 Cavalry's Zone Recon of the Euphrates River Valley. Self-published through Amazone Digital Services, 2015. 237 pp. An operation by a Stryker unit near the Sayrian border, in May 2005.

Adrian T. Bogart III, Block by Block: Civic Action in the Battle of Baghdad, January-November 2006. JSOU Report 07-8. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2007. xvii, 97 pp. Bogart was the G9—the principal staff officer responsible for civic action, Special Operations Forces integration, and counterinsurgency training—for the Multi-National Division, Baghdad.

Matthew Bogdanos, with William Patrick, Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine's Passion for Ancient Civilizations and the Journey to Recover the World's Greatest Stolen Treasures. Bloomsbury, 2005. 302 pp. pb New York: Bloomsbury, 2006. 335 pp. Marine Reserve Col. Bogdanos hunted Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, then arms smugglers in Iraq, then the treasures stolen from the Baghdad Museum.

Christopher O. Bowers, "Future Megacity Operations--Lessons from Sadr City," Military Review 95:3 (May-June 2015), pp. 8-16.

Majors Jarett D. Broemmel, Shannon E. Nielsen, and Terry L. Clark, "An Analysis of Counterinsurgency in Iraq: Mosul, Ramadi, and Samarra from 2003-2005." Thesis, Master of Science in Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, 2006. xvi, 127 pp.

Todd S. Brown, Battleground Iraq: Journal of a Company Commander. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History/GPO. xi, 292 pp. Captain Brown was in Iraq April 2003 to March 2004. He went in as a staff officer of the 3d Brigade, 4th Infantry Division. In July 2003 he was given command of B Company, 1-8 Infantry.
D 114.2:IR 1

John R. Bruning, The Devil's Sandbox: With the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry at War in Iraq. St. Paul, MN: Zenith Press (MBI), 2006. xii, 340 pp. A National Guard unit from Oregon that arrived in Iraq in April 2004 and served in Najaf, Fallujah, Sadr City, etc. Bruning did a lot of interviewing but was not there.

Benjamin Buchholz, Private Soldiers: A Year in Iraq with a Wisconsin National Guard Unit. State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 2007. 200 pp. Oversize, illustrated. The 2/127 Infantry began an Iraq tour in June 2005, doing road security and convoy escort.

Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, Suicide Bombings in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Land Warfare Papers, No. 46W. Arlington, VA: Institute of Land Warfare, Association of the United States Army, September 2004. v, 22 pp.

Brian Burton and John Nagl, "Learning as we go: the US army adapts to counterinsurgency in Iraq, July 2004-December 2006." Small Wars and Insurgencies, 19:3 (September 2008), pp. 303-327.

Colby Buzzell, My War: Killing Time in Iraq. New York: Putnam, 2005. 358 pp. Buzzell was sent to Mosul late in 2003, with the 1/23 Infantry in the Stryker Brigade (3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division). Book is based on his blog.

Caleb S. Cage and Gregory M. Tomlin, The Gods of Diyala: Transfer of Command in Iraq. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2008. x, 307 pp. Cage and Tomlin arrived in Iraq in March 2004 with Task Force 1-6 Field Artillery.

Dick Camp, Battle for the City of the Dead: In the Shadow of the Golden Dome, Najaf, August 2004. Zenith Press, 2011. 320 pp.

Donovan Campbell, Joker One: A Marine Platoon's Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood. New York: Random House, 2009. xi, 313 pp. pb New York: Random House, 2010. xi, 317 pp. Campbell commanded a platoon of the 2/4 Marines in Ramadi in 2004. He had been an intelligence officer on the staff of the 1st Marine Division during a previous tour in Iraq, in 2003. The book is supposed to be good.

Katherine Blue Carroll, "The Strangest Tribe: U.S. Military Claims in Iraq," Middle East Policy 22:4 (Winter 2015), pp. 40-54. Looks at the way the U.S. military system for paying compensation to Iraqi civilians who had been harmed by U.S. actions fitted in with Iraqi tribal customs.

Brian Castner, The Long Walk: A Story of War and the Life that Follows. New York: Random House, 2012. 240 pp. Castner commanded an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq.

Colonel Shannon W. Caudill, ed., Defending Air Bases in an Age of Insurgency. Maxwell AFB, Alabama: Air University Press, 2014. xxxii, 410 pp. The two chapter of Part 2, "Case Study—Balad Air Base, Iraq," are pp. 199-242.

Gina Cavallaro with Matt Larsen, Sniper: American Single-Shot Warriors in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press (Globe Pequot Press), 2010. xxiii, 215 pp.

First Sergeant Robert S. Colella, retired, Battle for Baqubah: Killing Our Way Out.

Peter W. Connors, The US Army in Kirkuk: Governance Operations on the Fault Lines of Iraqi Society, 2003-2009. Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper 35. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2011. vi, 119 pp.

Dick Couch, The Sheriff of Ramadi: Navy SEALs and the Winning of al-Anbar. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2008. xxix, 251 pp.

Graham Dale, with Neil Fetherstonhaugh, The Green Marine: An Irishman's War in Iraq. London: Hodder & Staughton, 2008. 320 pp. Dale, a U.S. Marine, served a tour in western Iraq.

David J. Danelo, Blood Stripes: The Grunt's View of the War in Iraq. Stackpole, 2006. 352 pp. Marines in 2004.

Christian Davenport, As You Were: To War and Back with the Black Hawk Battalion of the Virginia National Guard. Wiley, 2009. 272 pp. Davenport, a reporter for the Washington Post, was embedded in the 2nd Battalion, 224th Aviation Regiment, Virginia Army National Guard, during its 2005-6 deployment.

Major Michael L. Davidson, Culture and Effects-based Operations in an Insurgency. Ft. Leavenworth: School of Advanced Military Studies, 2005. iv, 55 pp.

Colonel Anthony E. Deane (ret.), with Douglas Niles, Ramadi Declassified: A Roadmap to Peace in the Most Dangerous City in Iraq. Bay Village, Ohio: Praetorian Books, 2016. Deane commanded Task Force Conqeror (1-35 Armor) in Ramadi in 2006.

Aidan Delgado, The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq. Boston: Beacon Press, 2007. xvii, 228 pp. Delgado, an Army reservist who spoke Arabic, arrived in Iraq April 4, 2003, with the 320th Military Police Company. He was offended by US behavior, and applied for CO status.

Mark R. DePue, Patrolling Baghdad: A Military Police Company and the War in Iraq. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007. 320 pp. 233rd MP Company, from Springfield, Illinois, in Iraq April 2003 to April 2004. A dust jacket blurb refers to this as a "unit memoir," but DePue, a retired officer, was not there.

Mike Dowling, with Damien Lewis, Sergeant Rex: The Unbreakable Bond between a Marine and His Military Working Dog. New York: Atria Books, 2011. 290 pp. Rex worked as a bomb-sniffing dog, particularly in Mahmudiyah, in 2004.

Morten G. Ender, American Soldiers in Iraq: McSoldiers or Innovative Professionals? Cass Military Studies (Routledge), 2009. 224 pp. The author is a professor of Sociology at West Point.

Colonel Marcus Fielding, Red Zone Baghdad: My War in Iraq. Newport, NSW, Australia: Big Sky Publishing, 2011. 246 pp. Fielding, an Australian officer, was in Iraq 2008-9.

Sean Michael Flynn, The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guard Unit's Journey from Ground Zero to Baghdad. New York: Viking, 2007. xx, 300 pp. pb The Fighting 69th: From Ground Zero to Baghdad. New York: Penguin, 2008. xvi, 306 pp. The 69th Infantry Regiment, New York National Guard, was deployed to Iraq late in 2004, initially to Taji, not far north of Baghdad. In February 2005, the unit was brought to Baghdad, and assigned to patrol the Airport Highway. Flynn was a company commander. The book is not just about the Iraq deployment; it covers the background of the unit, going back for years.

Jim Frederick, Black Hearts: One Platoon's Descent into Madness in Iraq's Triangle of Death. New York: Harmony Books, 2010. xxiii, 439 pp. 1st Platoon, B Company, 1-502 Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, which went into the area south of Baghdad late in 2005. Some of the men were involved in a case of rape and murder in Mahmudiyah. Frederick is a journalist who works for Time magazine.

Matt Gallagher, Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War. Da Capo, 2010. 336 pp. The book is based on Lt. Gallagher's blog, which the Army shut down in June 2008.

Vivian H. Gembara, with Deborah A. Gembara, Drowning in the Desert: A JAG's search for Justice in Iraq. Minneapolis: Zenith Press (MBI), 2008. x, 310 pp. Captain Vivian Gembara was an Army JAG with 3rd Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, in Iraq 2003-4.

Michel Goya, IraK: les armées du chaos, Paris: Economica, 2008. 272 pp. 2d ed. Paris: Economica, 2009. 292 pp.

Wesley Gray, Embedded: A Marine Corps Adviser Inside the Iraqi Army. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2009. ix, 257 pp. 1st Lt. Gray, who spoke Arabic, was in the area of Haditha, Anbar province, in 2006.

Eric Greitens, The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL. Mariner Books, 2011 or 2012. 345 pp. A small part of this book deals with Iraq.

Darrell Griffing Sr., and Darrell "Skip" Griffin Jr., Last Journey: A Father and Son in Wartime. New York: Atlas, 2009. Staff Sergeant Darrell Griffin Jr. was serving with the 1-5 Infantry, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, when he was killed in Iraq in March 2007. He had been writing a book, apparently pretty negative about the war. After his death, his father finished the book.

William H. Grube, "The evolution of combined USMC/Iraqi army operations: a company commander's perspective, Fallujah, Iraq, September 2005 to April 2006," in Donald Stoker, ed., Military Advising and Assistance: From Mercenaries to Privatization, 1815-2007 (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 210-223.

John F. Holmes, The Longest War: Stories from the Battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan told by those who lived through it. New York: World Audience Publishers, 2012.

Scott A. Huesing, Echo in Ramadi: The Firsthand Story of U.S. Marines in Iraq's Deadliest City. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2018. Huesing commanded E company, 2-4 Marines, in Ramadi 2006-2007.

Institute for the Study of War, Washington, D.C. (Kimberly Kagan, founder and president). Published reports include:

James E. Harley, The Trouble in Iraq: A Diary of a National Guardsman. Outskirts Press, 2005. 204 pp.

Jon T. Hoffman, ed., Tip of the Spear: U.S. Army Small-Unit Action in Iraq, 2004-2007. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2009. ix, 201 pp.

House Committee on Government Reform

Dahr Jamail, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009. 237 pp. Foreword by Chris Hedges.

Kerry C. Kachejian, SUVs Suck in Combat: Chaos and Valor: The Rebuilding of Iraq during a Raging Insurgency. Jacksonville, FL, and Herndon, VA: Fortis, 2010. Kachejian was sent to Iraq in March 2004, as one of the few military officers in a mostly civilian organization, the Gulf Region Division, to work on reconstruction in Iraq.

David E. Kelly, Hell in the Streets of Husaybah: The April 2004 Fights of 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines in Husaybah, Iraq. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2022. xiii, 168 pp.

Kelly Kennedy, They Fought for Each Other: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Hardest Hit Unit in Iraq. New York: St. Martin's, 2010. xiii, 318 pp. C Company, 1-26 Infantry, arrived in the Adhamiya neighborhood of Baghdad in October 2006. Kennedy was embedded with the unit as a reporter for Army Times.

Raffi Khatchadourian, "The Kill Company: Did a colonel's fiery rhetoric set the conditions for a massacre?" The New Yorker, July 6 & 13, 2009, pp. 41-59. Controversy over killings of Iraqis by soldiers of the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, in the vicinity of Al Muthanna, Salah ad Din province, in May 2006 during Operation Iron Triangle. Abstract. (See also Mestrovic, below).

Phil Kiver, 182 Days in Iraq. Tarentum, PA: Word Association, 2005. 231 pp. 2nd ed.: 182 Days in Iraq, Plus a Year of Reaction at Home. Tarentum, PA: Word Association, 2006. 266 pp. Kiver was an Army journalist, in Iraq July 2004 to January 2005. For the 2006 edition, he added retrospective comments (written a year after his return to the United States) to his original journal entries.

Nina Kollars, "Military Innovation's Dialectic: Gun Trucks and Rapid Acquisition," Security Studies 23:4 (2014), pp. 787-813.

Francis Xavier Kozlowski, The Battle of An-Najaf [cover title: U.S. Marines in Battle: An-Najaf, August 2004]. Washington, D.C.: United States Marine Corps History Division, 2009. 47 pp.
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Chris Kyle, with Scott McEwen and Jim DeFelice, American Sniper: The Autobiography of the Most Lethal Sniper in U.S.Military History. New York: HarperCollins, 2012. Memorial edition, with commemorations of Kyle added after his death, New York: HarperCollins, 2013. 640 pp.

Kevin Lacz, with Ethan E. Rocke and Lindsey Lacz, The Last Punisher: A SEAL Team Three Sniper's True Account of the Battle for Ramadi. New York: Threshold Editions (Simon & Schuster), 2016. 320 pp. Fighting in Ramadi during 2006.

Christopher J. Lamb, Matthew J. Schmidt, and Berit G. Fitzsimmons, MRAPs, Irregular Warfare, and Pentagon Reform. Institute for National Strategic Studies, Occasional Paper 6. Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, June 2009. x, 47 pp.

Joe LeBleu, Long Rifle: A Sniper's Story in Iraq and Afghanistan. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press (Globe Pequot Press), 2009. LeBleu arrived in Iraq about the beginning of September 2003, and was sent to Fallujah. xi, 225 pp.

James E. Lewandowski, Road Hunter in the Land Between the Two Rivers: Disillusioned Hearts and Minds. n.p.: Prairie Hills Publishing, 2007. 314 pp. Lewandowski was in Iraq 2004-2005 as a gun truck commander in a South Dakota National Guard unit, the 2d Battalion, 147th Field Artillery Brigade.

Master Sergeant Jack W. Lynch II, USMC (ret.), with Rick Lynch, The Majestic Twelve: The True Story of the Most Feared Combat Escort Unit in Baghdad. New York: Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin's), 2009. viii, 324 pp. Lynch was in Iraq February to August 2004.

Peter Maass, "Professor Nagl's War," New York Times Magazine, January 11, 2004. A profile of John Nagl, who had published a book on counterinsurgency, and then found himself actually conducting it as an officer in the 1-34 Armor, in Anbar province.

John J. McGrath, ed., Between the Rivers: Combat Action in Iraq, 2003-2005. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2012. ix, 128 pp.

Eric Maddox, with Davin Seay, Mission: Black List #1: The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein--As Told by the Soldier Who Mastermind His Capture. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. 266 pp.

Carter Malkasian, "Did the United States Need More Forces in Iraq? Evidence from Al Anbar," Defense Studies 8:1 (2008), pp. 78-104.

Peter R. Mansoor, Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. xxvii, 376 pp. Mansoor commanded the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, in Baghdad roughly mid 2003 to mid 2004.

Matthew Martin, with Charles W. Sasser, Predator: The Remote-Control Air War over Iraq and Afghanistan: A Pilot's Story. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press (MBI Publishing), 2010.

Nicholas P. Maurstad & Darwin Holmstrom, Bristol's Bastards: In Iraq with the 2nd Battalion, 136th Infantry of Minnesota's National Guard. Minneapolis: Zenith Press (MBI), 2008. x, 308 pp. The unit arrived in Iraq around the end of March 2006, and served in Anbar province.

Shannon Meehan, with Roger Thompson, Beyond Duty: Life on the Front Line in Iraq. Cambridge, England, and Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2009. vii, 270 pp. Lt. Meehan went to Iraq in October 2006 with a tank company (D Company, 1-12 Cavalry), and was sent to Diyala province. In Baqubah, mid 2007, he called in a missile strike that he expected to kill only enemy combatants, but that turned out to kill civilians. Some names of persons and places have been changed.

Stjepan G. Mestrovic, Rules of Engagement: A Social History of an American War Crime: Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq. Algora, 2008. 196 pp.

Stjepan G. Mestrovic, The "Good Soldier" on Trial: A Sociological Study of Misconduct by the US Military Pertaining to Operation Iron Triangle, Iraq. New York: Algora, 2009. xi, 282 pp. Appears to be a sequel to, not a revised version of, the previous item. Mestrovic argues that the U.S. military was guilty of gross injustice against soldiers of the 3d Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, who were charged with war crimes in the deaths of some Iraqis in the vicinity of Al Muthanna, Salah ad Din province, on May 9, 1966. I have glanced at the Introduction and was not impressed. (See also Khatchadourian, above.)

Steven Metz, "Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in Iraq," Washington Quarterly 27:1 (Winter 2003-04), pp. 25-36.

Robert Mills, Blackdeath 23: My Journal as an Army Helicopter Pilot in Iraq. Sulphur, LA: Wise Publications, 2014. 214 pp. Mills first arrived in Iraq in February 2004, to serve with the 4th Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry. He had another tour later in the war.

Jim Michaels, A Chance in Hell: The Men Who Triumphed Over Iraq's Deadliest City and Turned the Tide of War. New York: St. Martin's, 2010. x, 260 pp. The 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division, achieved dramatic success in Ramadi in 2006, even while things were going very badly in other areas of Iraq. Michaels, a reporter for USA Today and a former Marine officer, interviewed personnel of the unit after their return to Germany in the spring of 2007.

Neil James Mitchell, Democracy's Blameless Leaders: From Dresden to Abu Ghraib, How Leaders Evade Accountability for Abuse, Atrocity, and Killing. New York: New York University Press, 2012. 262 pp. Two chapters (pp. 138-187) deal with the occupation of Iraq.

Thomas R. Mockaitis, Iraq and the Challenge of Counterinsurgency. Praeger, 2008. 208 pp. Covers both the evolution of U.S. doctrine, and the evolution of the conflict in Iraq. The book looks pretty short, for such a broad topic.

Major General Jim Molan, Running the War in Iraq: An Australian general, 300,000 troops, the bloodiest conflict of our time. Sydney, NSW, Australia: HarperCollins, 2008. xiv, 358 pp. Australian Major General Molan went to Iraq in April 2004 to serve as director of operations on the coalition staff, but did not actually get that job until August. He remained until April 2005.

Nicholas Moore and Mir Bahmanyar, Run to the Sound of the Guns: The True Story of an American Ranger at War in Afghanistan and Iraq. Oxford and New York: Osprey, 2018. 304 pp. Moore alternated between service in Afghanistan and Iraq. He went into Iraq with the invading force in March 2003; again in 2004, spending some time in Mosul; again in Mosul 2006, and Ramadi 2006-2007; and again in Mosul in 2008.

Seth Moulton, title unknown (forthcoming). Moulton was a Marine LT who served in Iraq from March to September 2003, and July 2004 to October 2005.

Capt. Eric Navarro, USMCR, God Willing: My Wild Ride with the New Iraqi Army. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2008.

Captain Craig T. Olson, So This Is War: A 3rd U.S. Cavalry Intelligence Officer's Memoirs of the Triumphs, Sorrows, Laughter, and Tears During a Year in Iraq. Bloomington, Indiana: Authorhouse, 2007. vii, 197 pp. Olson went into Iraq in March 2005 as a squadron S-2 in the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. Went into Tal Afar late 2005. Names have been changed.

Ilario Pantano, with Malcolm McConnell, Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy. New York: Threshold Editions (Simon & Schuster), 2006. 405 pp. Paperback with new foreword and afterword published as Warlord: Broken by War, Saved by Grace. New York: Threshold Editions (Simon & Schuster), 2011. Pantano, a Marine lieutenant, was charged with murder for the shooting of two men he says were insurgents, in al Anbar province, 4/15/2004. Charges were dropped (see New York Times 5/27/05).

LTG David H. Petraeus, Interview, 11 December 2006. Ft. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 2005. 14 pp. Covers General Petraeus' tour in Iraq from June 2004 to September 2005, with responsibility for training Iraqi forces (General Schwitters, below, had previously been in charge of this).

Michael M. Phillips, The Gift of Valor: A War Story. Broadway, 2005. 256 pp. pb. Broadway, 2006. 256 pp. The story of Corporal Jason Dunham, of the 3/7 Marines, who died of wounds suffered in April 2004, throwing himself on an enemy grenade. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. Phillips, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was embedded in the unit. A lot on his medical care, reactions of relatives and neighbors.

Piers Platt, Combat and Other Shenanigans: Tales of the Absurd from a Deployment to Iraq. CreateSpace, 2014. 178 pp. Platt went to Iraq early in 2004 as a tank platoon leader in the 1-4 Cavalry, 1st Infantry Division.

Chris Plekenpol, Faith in the Fog of War. Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2006. 184 pp. Captain Plekenpol went to Iraq in 2004 as a tank company commander. He has since left the Army and is going into the ministry.

Pat Proctor, Task Force Patriot and the End of Combat Operations in Iraq. Lanham, MD: Government Institutes (Scarecrow Press [Rowman & Littlefield]), 2012. viii, 217 pp. Task Force Patriot (the 2-32 Field Artillery) had been preparing to go to Aghanistan as an artillery unit when a decision was made in 2009 that it would instead by going to Iraq as an infantry unit. Major Proctor was assigned as its operations officer (S3). It was sent to the area of Tikrit, Salah-al-Din province. This is an extremely interesting and informative book. Recommended.

J. Michael Raab, Every Day is Monday: U.S. Marine Snipers in Iraq. Pottstown, PA: Scout Writer Books, 2009.

Martha Raddatz, The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family. New York: Putnam, 2007. 310 pp. Battle in Sadr City that began April 4, 2004, in which the 1st Cavalry Division lost 8 men killed. The 2/5 Cavalry had just arrived in Baghdad, knowing little about Sadr City, not expecting trouble. Deals a lot with impact on families. Author an ABC correspondent.

Raymond James Raymond, Elite Souls: Portraits of Valor in Iraq and Afghanistan. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2022. 384 pp. Profiles of five West Point graduates who served, three leading ground units and two flying Kiowa helicopters, in Iraq (2007-9) and Afghanistan (2009-10). There is more space devoted to their backgrounds and training than to their actual time in combat.

Mark J. Reardon and Jeffrey A. Charlston, From Transformation to Combat: The First Stryker Brigade at War. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 2007. vi, 73 pp. The 3d Brigade of the 2d Infantry Division, in Iraq November 2003 to October 2004. Includes Najaf, Baghdad, Tall Afar, and Mosul.

Paul Rieckhoff, Chasing Ghosts: A Soldier's Fight for America from Baghdad to Washington. New York: NAL Caliber (Penguin), 2006. vi, 326 pp. Rieckhoff arrived in Iraq in April 2003, commanding a National Guard platoon: Third Platoon, Bravo Company, 3/124 Infantry, 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division. He spent most of a year in Baghdad; for part of that he was with the 1st Armored Division. Pretty negative.

William G. Robertson, ed., In Contact! Case Studies from the Long War, Volume 1. Ft. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007. v, 158 pp. Five combat incidents in Iraq (at least two of which were in Mosul) and two in Afghanistan, November 2004 to September 2005.

Steve Russell, We Got Him! A Memoir of the Hunt and Capture of Saddam Hussein. New York: Threshold Editions, 2011. xvi, 459 pp.

Stephen Russell, Troublemakers: The Greatest Dog and Pony Show in Iraq. Seattle, WA: Blue Ear Books, 2024. iv, 271 pp.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, with Donald T. Phillips, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's Story. New York: Harper, 2008. 512 pp. Sanchez was commander of Coalition ground forces in Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004.

Lt. Col. (Ret.) Nathan Sassaman, with Joe Layden, Warrior King: The Triumph and Betrayal of an American Commander in Iraq. New York: St. Martin's, 2008. 307 pp. Sassaman was the effective and highly regarded commander of the 1/8 Infantry, whose career was destroyed by an incident in which some of his men were charged with having murdered some Iraqi civilians in the area of Balad (NNE of Baghdad), on the night of January 3/4, 2004, and Sassaman was charged with having covered it up.

Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield. New York: Nation Books, 2013. xxiv, 642 pp. Three chapters, plus portions of two others, are devoted to US special operations in Iraq between 2003 and 2006.

Rob Schultheis, Waging Peace: A Special Operations Team's Battle to Rebuild Iraq. New York: Gotham Books (Penguin), 2005. xxxv, 188 pp. Schultheis arrived in Baghdad in February 2004 to be embedded in the 425th Civil Affairs Battalion. Initially he focused on its Public Health Team, then on Civil Affairs Team 13 of Alpha Company.

BG James Schwitters, Interview, 13 December 2006. Ft. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 2006. 10 pp. General Schwitters commanded the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team (CMATT) from June 2004 to June 2005.

Kalev Sepp, "From 'Shock and Awe' to 'Hearts and Minds': The Fall and Rise of US Counterinsurgency Capability in Iraq," Third World Quarterly 28:2, pp. 217-30.

Richard H. Shultz, Jr., The Marines Take Anbar: The Four-Year Fight Against Al Qaeda. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2013. xiii, 293 pp.

Chad C. Serena, A Revolution in Military Adaptation: The US Army in the Iraq War. Georgetown University Press, 2011. 224 pp.

Anna Simon, with Ann Hampton, Kimberly's Flight: The Story of Captain Kimberly Hampton, America's First Woman Combat Pilot Killed in Battle. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2012 (forthcoming). 304 pp. Captain Hampton, flying an OH-58D Kiowa, was shot down over Fallujah in January 2004.

Russell Snyder, Hearts and Mines: With the Marines in Al Anbar: A Story of Psychological Warfare in Iraq. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2012. 215 pp. Snyder served in the 9th PSYOP Battalion, in Anbar province from March to October 2005.

Sandy Storrie, "Talking to the 'enemy" - informal conflict termination in Iraq." British Army Review, Winter 2009/2010, pp. 13-26.

Peter C. Svoboda, Headhunter: 5-73 CAV and Their Fight for Iraq's Diyala River Valley. Philadelphia: Casemate, 2020. 228 pp. A fifteen-month deployment beginning July 2006. Based on extensive interviews with personnel of the unit.

Ian Thomas, "Pointing the way out: the utility of force and the Basra narrative January-August 2007." British Army Review, Winter 2009/2010, pp. 8-12.

Jonathan Trouern-Trend, Birding Babylon: A Soldier's Journal from Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. 80 pp. SFC Trouern-Trend, an avid birdwatcher, served in Iraq in a National Guard unit from early 2004 to early 2005. Camp Anaconda, Mosul.

Brian Turner, My Life as a Foreign Country. New York: Norton, 2014. 212 pp. Sergeant Turner arrived in Iraq in December 2003.

"J. B. Walker," Nightcap at Dawn: American Soldiers' Counterinsurgency in Iraq. New York: Skyhorse, 2012. Written by a group of American soldiers who served in Iraq.

Cherilyn A. Walley, "Psychological Operations in Baghdad." Veritas: Journal of Army Special Operations History 2 (2006), pp. 76-80.

James Scott Wheeler, The Big Red One: America's Legendary 1st Infantry Division: Centennial Edition, 1917-2017. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2017. xx, 682 pp.

Jason Whitely, Father of Money: Buying Peace in Baghdad. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2011. xi, 193 pp. Captain Whitely was a governance officer in the Al Dora District, in the southern part of Baghdad, 2004-2005.

Leonard Wong and Stephen Gerras, CU @ the FOB: How the Forward Operating Base is Changing the Life of Combat Soldiers. Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2006. v, 36 pp.

Donald P. Wright and Timothy R. Reese, On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign: The United States Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom, May 2003 – January 2005. Ft. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 2008. xviii, 696 pp. Also available in smaller, more manageable chunks, through a CSI web page.

Michael Zacchea and Ted Kemp, The Ragged Edge: A US Marine's Account of Leading the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2017. xviii, 380 pp. Zacchea arrived in Iraq in March 2004. The Foreword (pp. ix-xvi), by Major General Paul D. Eaton, is a very interesting short account of Eaton's involvement in the training of Irqai forces, which began in June 2003.

 

The Battles for Fallujah, 2004

John R. Ballard, Fighting for Fallujah: A New Dawn for Iraq. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006. xiii, 152 pp. Ballard commanded the USMC 4th Civil Affairs Group. He was in Iraq August 2004 to March 2005.

SSG David Bellavia, with John R. Bruning, House to House: An Epic Memoir of War. New York: Free Press, 2007. xi, 321 pp. Staff Sergeant Bellavia went into Fallujah in November 2004 leading a squad of 3rd Platoon, A company, Task Force 2/2. The book is apparently very gung ho, but also said to be pretty good. A few events "have been reordered or combined for narrative clarity."

Dick Camp, Operation Phantom Fury: The Assault and Capture of Fallujah, Iraq. Minneapolis, MN: Zenith Press (MBI Publishing), 2009. 320 pp. Covers both battles of Fallujah, not just Operation Phantom Fury (the second battle). Camp interviewed a lot of participants. Extensively illustrated.

James T. Cobb, "TF 2-2 in FSE AAR: Indirect Fires in the Battle of Fallujah" Field Artillery, March-April 2005, pp. 22-28.

James T. Cobb, "Indirect Fire Support in the Battle for Fallujah – An After Action Review." Journal of the Royal Artillery 132 (Autumn 2005), pp. 21-26.

Seth A. Conner, Boredom by Day, Death by Night: An Iraq War Journal. Tripping Light Press, 2007. 136 pp. Foreword by Bing West. Sergeant Conner, USMC, was apparently in both of the Battles of Fallujah in 2004.

Vincent L. Foulk, The Battle for Fallujah: Occupation, Resistance and Stalemate in the War in Iraq. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2007. vii, 232 pp. Foulk, a colonel in the Army reserves, was initially sent to Iraq in 2003 in a Civil Affairs unit. Later he was transferred to the CPA.

Kendall D. Gott, Breaking the Mold: Tanks in the Cities. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006. xii, 132 pp. Fallujah, November 2004, is one of the cases considered.

Kendall G. Gott [general editor], John McCool and Matt M. Matthews [interviewers], Eyewitness to War: The US Army in Operation AL FAJR: An Oral History. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: U.S. Army Combat Studies Institute, 2006. Volume I. viii, 319 pp. (Colonels to captains, including one USMC major.)   Volume II. viii, 322 pp. (Captains, senior noncoms, and CNN correspondent Jane Arraf.) The Second Battle of Fallujah, November 2004.
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Rebecca Grant, "The Fallujah Model". Air Force Magazine, 88:2 (February 2005), pp. 48-53.

Rebecca Grant, "Fallujah," Air Force Magazine 97:3 (March 2014).

William Head, "The Battles of Al-Fallujah: Urban Warfare and the Growth of Air Power," Air Power History, December 2013.

Nathaniel R. Helms, My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story. Meredith Books, 2007. 288 pp. pb Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2012. 288 pp. USMC First Sergeant Brad Kasal won the Navy Cross in Fallujah.

William Knarr and Robert Castro, with Dianne Fuller, The Battle for Falluajah: Al-Fajr--the Myth Buster. Alexandria, VA: Institute for Defense Analyses, 2010. x, 3, 95 pp. plus appendices paginated separately.

Gary Livingston, Fallujah, With Honor: First Battalion, Eighth Marine's Role in Operation Phantom Fury. North Topsail Beach, NC: Caisson, 2006. 260 pp. Expanded 2d edition: North Topsail Beach, NC: Caisson, (2006?).

Richard S. Lowry, New Dawn: The Battles for Fallujah. Savas Beatie, 2010. 312 pp.

Timothy S. McWilliams, The Campaign to Secure Fallujah, April-December 2004. Strategian Press, 2014. 224 pp.

Timothy S. McWilliams, U.S. Marines in Battle: Fallujah, November-December 2004. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 2014. 84 pp. Introduction by Nicholas J. Schlosser.
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Carter Malkasian, "Signaling Resolve, Democratization, and the First Battle of Fallujah." Journal of Strategic Studies 29:3 (June 2006), pp. 423-452.

Ahmed Mansour, Inside Fallujah: The Unembedded Story. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press (Interlink Publishing Group), 2009. xiii, 359 pp. Mansour, a reporter for al Jazeera, covered the first battle of Fallujah from inside the city. He also discusses the second battle, but did not witness it. Very critical of the Americans.

Matt M. Matthews, Operation AL FAJR: A Study in Army and Marine Corps Joint Operations. Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper 20. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2006. vii, 91 pp. The Second Battle of Fallujah, November 2004.

Patrick K. O'Donnell, We Were One: Shoulder to Shoulder with the Marines Who Took Fallujah. New York: Da Capo (Perseus Group), 2006. xviii, 244 pp. O'Donnell was embedded with 1st Platoon, L Company, 3/1 Marines, which suffered more than 2/3 casualties in the November 2004 battle.

John F. Sattler and Daniel H. Wilson, "Operation AL FAJR". Marine Corps Gazette, July 2005.

Alexander Saxby, Fallujah Memoirs: A Grunt's Eye View of the Second Battle of Fallujah. Self-published, 2021. 193 pp. Saxby was in B Company, 1-8 Marines.

Michael Scot Smith, RedCon 1: Memoirs of a Fallujah Marine. CreateSpace, 2014. 378 pp.

Coley D. Tyler, Ghosts of Fallujah. Atlanta, GA: Deeds Publishing, 2018. Tyler was an officer in the 2-7 Cavalry.

Bing West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah. New York: Bantam (Random House), 2005. xvi, 380 pp.

Michael Zacchea and Ted Kemp, The Ragged Edge: A US Marine's Account of Leading the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2017. xviii, 380 pp. Zacchea arrived in Iraq in March 2004. Part III (pp. 193-295) is on the Second Battle of Fallujah.

See also Weston above for an account by a State Department representative who was in Fallujah from late 2004 to early 2007.

 

The "Surge" and the "Awakening"

Al Anbar Awakening. Vol. 1: American Perspectives: U.S. Marines and Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2004-2009. Vol. 2: Iraqi Perspectives: From Insurgency to Counterinsurgency in Iraq, 2004-2009. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2009.
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Dale Andrade, Surging South of Baghdad: The 3d Infantry Division and Task Force Marne in Iraq, 2007-2008. Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, U.S. Army, 2010. xvii, 429 pp.

Bill Ardolino, Fallujah Awakens: Marines, Sheikhs, and the Battle Against Al Qaeda. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2013. ix, 320 pp. How the insurgents, who had bounced back after the famous battles of 2004, were defeated again a few years later. Based on interviews with both Americans and Iraqis.

Stephen Biddle, Jeffrey Friedman, and Jacob Shapiro, "Testing the Surge: Why Did Violence Decline in Iraq in 2007?" International Security 37:1 (Summer 2012), pp. 7-40.

Wilson C. Blythe, Jr., "III Corps During the Surge Campaign: Operational Art and Counterinsurgency Myths." Ph.D. dissertation, History, University of North Texas, 2022. 330 pp.

Thomas P. Daly, Rage Company: A Marine's Baptism by Fire. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2010. xvii, 366 pp. Foreword by Bing West. Marine 1LT Daly arrived in Ramadi, Anbar province, in November 2006. Gives a look at the early days of the cooperation between American forces and the Iraqis often referred to as the Awakening.

Ed Darack, The Warriors of Anbar: The Marines Who Defeated Al-Qaeda—The Greatest Untold Story of the Iraq War. Boston: Da Capo, 2019. x, 246 pp. The 2-3 Marines in the area of Haditha, in northern Anbar on the Euphrates River, from September 2006 onward. Darack, a journalist, was embedded in the unit.

William Doyle, A Soldier's Dream: Captain Travis Patriquin and the Awakening of Iraq. New York: NAL Caliber (Penguin), 2011. xii, 316 pp. Patriquin, an Arabic-speaking American officer, played a crucial role in creating the alliance between the U.S. and the "Anbar Awakening" in 2006.

David Finkel, The Good Soldiers. New York: Sarah Crichton Books (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), 2009. 287 pp. The 2-16 Infantry, in Baghdad April 2007 to April 2008 as part of the "surge." A very good account of American soldiers under very severe pressure; does not say much about the Iraqis.

Erica L. Gaston, Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. New York: Columbia University Press, 2024. xvii, 406 pp.

Daniel R. Green, "The Fallujah Awakening: A Case Study in Counter-insurgency," Small Wars & Insurgencies 21:4 (December 2010), pp. 591-609.

Daniel R. Green and William F. Mullen III, Fallujah Redux: The Anbar Awakening and the Struggle with al-Qaeda. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014. xix, 192 pp.

Kimberly Kagan, The Surge: A Military History. New York: Encounter Books, 2009. xv, 298 pp.

William Knarr, The 2005 Iraqi Sunni Awakening: The Role of the Desert Protectors Program. JSOU Report 15-4. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2015. xiii, 103 pp.

Austin Long, "The Anbar Awakening," Survival 50:2 (April/May 2008), pp. 67-94.

Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 208 pp. Recommended.

Peter R. Mansoor, Surge: My Journey with General David Petraeus and the Remaking of the Iraq War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. xxxvi, 341 pp. Foreword by David Petraeus. Colonel Mansoor was Petraeus' executive officer during the surge. Mark Kukis published an interesting review of this book in the Michigan War Studies Review.

Kevin P. Marsh, "The Intersection of War and Politics: The Iraq War Troop Surge and Bureaucratic Politics," Armed Forces & Society 38:3 (July 2012), pp. 413-437.

Nizar Mohamad, "A Coalition of Negatives: The Case of the Sons of Iraq and the US in Their Counterinsurgency Alliance," Journal of Military and Strategic Studies 18:4 (2018).

Charles W. Sasser, None Left Behind: The 10th Mountain Division and the Triangle of Death. New York: St. Martin's, 2009. 304 pp. The impression I get from the advance publicity for the book is that Sasser is looking mainly at one battalion, not at the whole division, 2007-2008.

Timothy Andrews Sayle, Jeffrey A. Engel, Hal Brands, and William Inboden, eds., The Last Card: Inside George W. Bush's Decision to Surge in Iraq. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019. viii, 408 pp. Based to a considerable extent on interviews with policymakers, from President Bush on down. Transcripts and audio of the interviews (except for Bush's) have been place online by Southern Methodist University in "The Last Card in the Deck": The Surge in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Michael E. Silverman, USA (ret.), Awakening Victory: How Iraqi Tribes and American Troops Reclaimed al Anbar Province and Defeated Al Qaeda in Iraq. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2011. The story of the 3-69 Armor, sent to Ramadi early in 2007.

Daniel A. Sjursen, Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. Lebanon, NH: ForeEdge (University Press of New England), 2015. 290 pp. Sjursen commanded 2nd Platoon, B Troop, 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry, which arrived in Iraq in October 2006, and was intially stationed at Salman Pak. Early in 2007, as part of the "Surge," it was shifted into the city of Baghdad.

Michael J. Totten, In the Wake of the Surge. Belmont Estate Books, 2011. 246 pp. Based on things Totten wrote as a journalist, at first on his own in Kurdistan, later embedded with U.S. units in Baghdad and elsewhere, between 2006 and 2009.

 

Post 2003: British Military

Johnson Beharry VC, with Nick Cook, Barefoot Soldier: The Amazing True Story of Courage Under Fire. London: Sphere (Little, Brown [Hachette]), 2006. 434 pp. Some identities have been changed. Slightly more than 100 pages deal with Iraq. Beharry won the Victoria Cross for actions in May and June 2004 with the 1st Battalion Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment in southern Iraq.

Nigel Cawthorne, On the Frontline: True Stories of Outstanding Bravery by British Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. London: John Blake Publishing, 2007. This deals mostly with Iraq, and I believe mostly with Royal Marines.

Tim Collins, Rules of Engagement: A Life in Conflict. London: Headline, 2005. 406 pp. pb London: Headline, 2006. x, 496 pp. Collins commanded the First Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment going into Iraq. An American civil affairs officer accused him of mistreating prisoners, but the British enquiry cleared him in September 2003.

Captain Tam Henderson and John Hunt, Warrior: A True Story of Bravery and Betrayal in the Iraq War. Mainstream Publishing, 2008. 224 pp. Henderson rose from the ranks to become a captain in the British Army. While a sergeant in the Black Watch, he was blamed for a friendly fire incident March 22, 2003, at Az Zubayr, which he says was caused by spectacular malfunctioning of a weapon--a chain gun--that fired of its own accord. He raised a ruckus, blaming the Ministry of Defense and international arms companies for the incident.

Richard Holmes, Dusty Warriors. London: Harper, 2006. pb London: Harper Perennial (HarperCollins), 2007. xxvii, 385 pp. The 1st Battalion Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment, sent to southern Iraq (especially Maysan province) in April 2004.

Chris Hunter, Eight Lives Down: The World's Most Dangerous Job in the World's Most Dangerous Place. (London?): Bantam, 2007. 368 pp. Eight Lives Down: The Story of the World's Most Dangerous Job in the World's Most Dangerous Place. New York: Delacorte Press (Random House), 2008. x, 351 pp. A senior British bomb disposal officer in Iraq.

Major Chris Hunter, Extreme Risk: A Life Fighting the Bombmakers. London: Corgi, 2011. An overall autobiography, adding context to the previous item.

The Iraq Inquiry. On November 24, 2009, a panel chaired by Sir John Chilcot began hearings on British policy toward the Iraq War both before and after the invasion of 2003. Although the hearings have been polite, they have probed more deeply and embarrassingly than Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have intended, when he set up the panel. Transcripts of testimony can be found online through the Evidence page of the inquiry's web site.

Kevin Ivison, Red One: The Memoirs of a Bomb Disposal Expert in Iraq. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2010 (forthcoming). 272 pp.

N. E. McKittrick, "The United Kingdom Decision to Intervene in Iraq (2003)," Ph.D. dissertation, Queen's University Belfast, 2013.

Steven McLaughlin, Squaddie: A Soldier's Story. Mainstream Publishing, 2006. 320 pp. Includes service in Iraq and Northern Ireland.

Sgt Dan Mills, Sniper One: The Blistering True Story of a British Battle Group Under Siege. London: Michael Joseph (Penguin), 2007. xxiii, 350 pp. Published in the United States as Sniper One: On Scope and Under Siege with a Sniper Team in Iraq. New York: St. Martin's, 2008. Mills arrived in Iraq in 2004 with 1st Battalion, The Princess of Wales' Royal Regiment.

Mark Nicol, The Last Round: The Battle of Majar al-Kabir. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005. 301 pp. pb The Last Round: The Red Caps, the Paras and the Battle of Majar. London: Cassell, 2006. 301 pp. In Majar al-Kabir, about 250 miles SE of Baghdad, 24 June 2003. Six British military policemen were killed by a mob angry over house searches by the Parachute Regiment. A patrol of the Parachute Regiment managed to escape the mob.

Mark Nicol, Condor Blues: British Soldiers at War. Mainstream Publishing, 2007. 320 pp. A rather negative look at two platoons of British troops at Camp Condor, in Maysan province, living with and training Iraqi Civil Defense Corps troops.

Richard North, Ministry of Defeat: The British War in Iraq 2003-2009. Continuum, 2009. 265 pp.

Ian Taylor, "Local Press Reporting of Opposition to the 2003 Iraq War in the UK and the Case for Reconceptualizing Notions of Legitimacy and Deviance," Journal of War and Culture Studies 7:1 (2014), pp. 36-53.

Mark Urban, Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the SAS and the Secret War in Iraq. London: Little, Brown, 2010. Published in the United States as Task Force Black: The Explosive True Story of the Secret Special Forces War in Iraq. New York: St Martin's, 2010. xviii, 299 pp.

Julian Whippy, Burning Horizon: British Veteran Accounts of the Iraq War 2003. Philadelphia: Casemate, 2023. vii, 233 pp.

Philip Woodhall, Iraq and Back. Trafford, 2006. 238 pp. Woodhall, a corporal in an engineer unit of the Territorial Army (British reserves), was mobilized in May 2003 to go to Iraq.

 

Interrogation, Prisons, and Prisoner Abuse

Matthew Alexander (pseud.), with John R. Bruning, How To Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, To Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq. New York: The Free Press, 2008. xiii, 288 pp. Alexander was sent into Iraq as an interrogator in 2006.

Janine A. Bower, "Thereby Become a Monster: Complex Organizations and the Torture at Abu Ghraib." Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, Western Michigan University, 2007. v, 154 pp.

CACI Premier Technology was a firm the US military used, under contract, to interrogate prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Three victims of torture sued the company, successfully, in 2024.

VADM A.T. Church, III, USN, Department of Defense Detention Operations and Detainee Interrogation Techniques. Office of the Secretary of Defense, March 7, 2005. 374 pp. Sanitized. "Operation IRAQI FREEDOM" is pp. 241-306; "The Role of Contractors in Department of Defense Interrogation Operations" is pp. 307-316.

Tim Collins, Rules of Engagement: A Life in Conflict. Headline, 2006. 512 pp. Collins commanded the First Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment going into Iraq. An American civil affairs officer accused him of mistreating prisoners, but the British enquiry cleared him in September 2003.

Thomas Crosbie, "Democratic Oversight and Military Autonomy: The U.S. Army's Management of American Journalism, 1939-2004." Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale, 2014. UMI 3582239. 212 pp. Compares military-media relations in World war II, Vietnam, and the Global War on Terror with particular focus on Abu Ghraib.

Mark Danner, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror. New York: New York Review Books, 2004. xiv, 580 pp. Pages 1-71 are articles Danner published in the New York Review of Books in 2003 and 2004. The remainder of the volume is documents, including many White House and DOD memos, and the Taguba, Schlesinger, Fay, and Jones reports (see below).

Mark Danner et al., Abu Ghraib: The Politics of Torture. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2004. viii, 144 pp.

Amanda Jean Davis, "Unveiling the Rhetoric of Torture: Abu Ghraib and American National Identity." Ph.D. dissertation, Communications Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 2008. xv, 267 pp. AAT 3311441.

Major Nicholas R. Dotti, "The Accidental Interrogator: A Case Study and Review of U.S. Army Special Forces Interrogations," in Interrogation: World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq (Washington, DC: National Defense Intelligence College, 2008), pp. 147-215.

William Edwards, Robert P. Walters, Jr., and Paul Zanon, Inside Abu Ghraib: Memoirs of Two U.S. Military Intelligence Officers. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2021. ix, 215 pp. Walters and Edwards were with the 165th Military Intelligence Battalion, which was sent to Abu Ghraib in November 2003, and was there when soldiers of the 800th Military Police Brigade were committing the famous prisoner abuse inside the prison. They say the 165th was responsible for perimeter security, but did not operate inside the prison and did not deal with prisoners. The interrogators working inside the prison belonged to the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion.

Enemy Prisoners of War, Retained Personnel, Civilian Internees and Other Detainees. Washington, D.C.: Headquarters, Departments of the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marine Corps, 1997. ii, 80 pp. To the Army this was one document in the Army Regulations series, AR 190-8. This was, in theory, the basic policy document defining how U.S. military personnel should treat detainees.

Richard Falk, Irene Gendzier, and Robert Jay Lifton, eds., Crimes of War: Iraq. New York: Nation Books, 2006. xviii, 478 pp. A lot of this is background on war crimes and international law; the section "U.S. Policy in Iraq" doesn't start until p. 183.

David P. Forsythe, The Politics of Prisoner Abuse: The United States and Enemy Prisoners after 9/11. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xvi, 315 pp.

James F. Gebhardt, The Road to Abu Ghraib: US Army Detainee Doctrine and Experience. Global War on Terrorism Occasional Paper #6. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005. vi, 143 pp.

Geneva Conventions of 1949. When people talk about international law in connection with the Iraq War, what they most often mean (or should mean) is the Geneva Conventions of 1949. There were four of these:

Deanna Germain, with Connie Lounsbury, Reaching Past the Wire: A Nurse at Abu Ghraib. St. Paul, Minnesota: Borealis Books, 2007. 224 pp. Lt. Col. Germain was a nursing supervisor, after the period of the famous abuse. She was mobilized in Feb 2003, sent to Kuwait in April. In April 2004, at the end of a one-year tour in Kuwait, she was within hours of flying back to the United States when informed that she was being extended for 120 days. She was sent to Iraq, assigned to Abu Ghraib.

Jack Goldsmith, The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration. New York: Norton, 2007. Goldsmith became in October 2003 the head of the Office of Legal Counsel, the office in the Justice Department responsible for deciding what was legal in the War on Terror.

Philip Gourevitch and Errol Morris, Standard Operating Procedure. New York: Penguin, 2008. 286 pp. Published in paperback as The Ballad of Abu Ghraib. New York: Penguin, 2009. 286 pp. Traces the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, and why it happened. Morris interviewed a lot of key participants for a documentary film of the same title.

Christopher Graveline and Michael Clemens, The Secrets of Abu Ghraib Revealed: American Soldiers on Trial. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010. xi, 321 pp. Graveline was an Army prosecutor, and Clemens a special investigator, in the team that prosecuted the soldiers involved in the Abu Ghraib affair.

Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel, eds., The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. xxxiv, 1249 pp.
DS 79.76 .T676 2005

W. Zach Griffith, Packed for the Wrong Trip: A New Look Inside Abu Ghraib and the Citizen-Soldiers Who Redeemed America's Honor. Arcade, 2016. 252 pp. The 152nd Field Artillery Battalion, Maine National Guard, became responsible for guarding Abu Ghraib Prison in February 2004, shortly after abuses by previous guards became publicly known.

Paul Holton, Saving Babylon: The Heart of an Army Interrogator in Iraq. Provo, UT: Perihelion Press, 2005. xiv, 239 pp. Holton was mobilized in February 2003 as part of a military intelligence battalion. He was at Camp Udairi, later Camp Bucca.

Human Rights Watch, Leadership failure: firsthand accounts of torture of Iraqi detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division. New York: Human Rights Watch, 2005. 28 pp.

Investigation of Intelligence Activities at Abu Ghraib. Arlington, VA: Department of Defense, 2004. 178 pp.

Col. (Ret.) Larry C. James, Ph.D., with Gregory A. Freeman, Fixing Hell: An Army Psychologist Confronts Abu Ghraib. New York and Boston: Grand Central Publishing, 2008. xvi, 286 pp. Some names, locations, and military unit identities have been changed. The Army sent Col. James to Abu Ghraib in June 2004. He had previously served five months at Guantanamo Bay.

General Janis Karpinski, with Steven Strasser, One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story. New York: Miramax Books, 2005. vii, 242 pp. pb New York: Miramax, 2006. 256 pp.

Tony Lagouranis and Allen Mikaelian, Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq. NAL, 2007. 272 pp.

Michael J. Martin, The Iraqi Prisoner Abuse Scandal. San Diego: Lucent Books, 2005. 112 pp. For juvenile readers.

Tara McKelvey, Monstering: Inside America's Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War. New York: Basic Books, 2008. 320 pp.

S.G. Mestrovic, The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor. Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm, 2007. xii, 233 pp.

Steven M. Miles, M.D., Oath Betrayed: Military Medicine and the War on Terror. New York: Random House, 2006. 240 pp.

Sjef Orbons, "Assessing Non-Lethal Weapons Use in Detainee Operations in Iraq: Benign Force or Necessary Evil?" Defense Studies 12:3 (2012), pp. 452-477.

Michael Otterman, American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. Pluto Press, 2007. 296 pp.

Lila Rajiva, The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005. 224 pp.

Lawrence Rockwood, Walking Away from Nuremberg: Just War and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007. 223 pp.

Patrick Robinson, Honor and Betrayal: The Untold Story of the Navy SEALs Who Captured the "Butcher of Fallujah"--and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2013. x, 356 pp. The story of three SEALs who were charged with abusing an important terrorist whom they had captured in 2009. They eventually were acquitted.

James R. Schlesinger et. al., "Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations." August 2004. 102 pp. plus appendices.

Senate Committee on Armed Services

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

William Spracher, ed., Interrogation: World War II, Vietnam, and Iraq. Washington, DC: National Defense Intelligence College, 2008. viii, 253 pp. The Iraq section is: Major Nicholas R. Dotti, "The Accidental Interrogator: A Case Study and Review of U.S. Army Special Forces Interrogations" (pp. 147-215). Critical of FM 2-22.3; says this manual, written in an effort to prevent abusive interrogation, creates situations in which Special Forces personnel find themselves forbidden to interrogate a prisoner at all, by any methods.

Steven Strasser, ed., The Abu Ghraib Investigations. New York: Public Affairs, 2004. xxiii, 175 pp. The texts of two official reports on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, outside Baghdad: James R. Schlesinger et. al., "Final Report of the Independent Panel to Review Department of Defense Detention Operations" and Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, "Investigation of the Abu Ghraib Detention Facility and 205th Military Intelligence Brigade" (see above for availability of both those reports online).

John F. Sullivan, Gatekeeper: Memoirs of a CIA Polygraph Examiner. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2007. xiii, 273 pp. Sullivan had no involvement in Abu Grhaib and no inside knowledge, but his chapter "Interrogation and Torture" (pp. 249-60), in which he places the information publicly available about Abu Ghraib and related events in the context of all he learned about interrograion in a 31-year career at CIA, is interesting.

LTC Wayne Sylvester, Interview, October 20, 2005. Ft. Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute, 2005. 24 pp. As commander of the 439th Military Police Detachment (mobilized November 2003, in Iraq January 2004 to January 2005), Sylvester was in charge of Camp Cropper, which held the high-value detainees, including Saddam Husain.

MG Antonio M. Taguba, "Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade."

Mary Ann Tetrault, "The Sexual Politics of Abu Ghraib: Hegemony, Spectacle, and the Global War on Terror," NWSA Journal, 18:3 (Fall 20006), pp. 33-50. (NWSA is the National Women's Studies Association.)

W. Frederick Zimmerman, ed., Basic Documents about the Treatment of the Detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Ann Arbor, MI: Nimble Books, 2004. vii, 336 pp.

 

Zarqawi, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Islamic State

Rania Abouzeid, No Turning Back: Life, Loss, and Hope in Wartime Syria. New York: Norton, 2018. 400 pp. Said to be very good on Syria 2011-2016, including extended discussion of the Islamic State.

Alexandre Adler, Le califat du sang. Paris: Grasset, 2014. 125 pp.

Mohammed M. A. Ahmed, How Shiites Won the Battle Against Islamic State: Kurds and Sunnis in Iraq. New York: Peter Lang, 2018. xviii, 287 pp.

Yonah Alexander, with Dean Alexander, The Islamic State: Combating the Caliphate Without Borders. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015. xxxiii 336 pp.

Carter Andress, with Malcolm McConnell, Victory Undone: The Defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Its Resurrection as ISIS. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2014. xvii, 348 pp.

Abdel Bari Atwan, Islamic State: The Digital Caliphate. London: Saqi Books, 2015. 256 pp.

Azad Cudi, Long Shot: The Inside Story of the Snipers Who Broke ISIS. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2019. 412 pp. Azad Cudi (name given on the cover just as Azad), a Kurd, fought ISIS as a sniper in the Yekineyen Parastina Gel (YPG). The main emphasis is on the fighting of late 2014 and early 2015 in the area of Kobani, in northern Syria very close to the Turkish border and a little east of the Euphrates River.

Stephane J. Baele, Katharine A. Boyd, and Travis G. Coan, eds., ISIS Propaganda: A Full-Spectrum Extremist Message. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. xii,287 pp.

Nada Bakos, with David Coburn, The Targeter: My Life in the CIA, Hunting Terrorists and Challenging the White House. New York: Little, Brown, 2019. viii, 354 pp. Bakos was involved in the hunt for Zarqawi.

Philippe Bannier, L'État Islamique et le bouleversement de l'ordre régional. Paris: Éditions du Cygne, 2015. 131 pp.

Andrea Beccaro, "Modern Irregular Warfare: The ISIS Case Study," Small Wars & Insurgencies 29:2 (2018), 207-28.

Glenn Beck, It IS About Islam: Exposing the Truth About ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran, and the Caliphate. Threshold, 2015. 272 pp.

Mindy Belz, They Say We are Infidels: On the Run from ISIS with Persecuted Christians in the Middle East. Carol Stream, IL Tyndale House, 2016. xix, 321 pp.

Phyllis Bennis, Understanding ISIS and the New Global War on Terror: A Primer. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch, 2015. vii, 215 pp.

Christopher M. Blanchard, Carla E. Humud, Kenneth Katzman, and Matthew C. Weed, The "Islamic State" Crisis and U.S. Policy. Congressional Research Service, June 11, 2015. 41 pp. For previous versions with a different primary author, see below under Katzman.

Christopher M. Blanchard and Carla E. Humud, The Islamic State and U.S. Policy. Congressional Research Service, June 27, 2016. 30 pp.

Christopher M. Blanchard and Carla E. Humud, The Islamic State and U.S. Policy. Congressional Research Service, February 2, 2017. 32 pp.

Mia Bloom and John Horgan, Small Arms, Children and Terrorism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2019. 248 pp.

Elizabeth A. Bodine-Baron, Examining ISIS Support and Opposition Networks on Twitter. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2016.

Brig. Gen. Jason Q. Bohm, USMC, From the Cold War to ISIL: One Marine's Journey. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2019. 280 pp.

Mark Bourrie, The Killing Game: Martyrdom, Murder and the Lure of ISIS. Toronto, CA: Patrick Crean (HarperCollins), 2016. xii, 273 pp.

Jean-Charles Brisard, Zarqawi: The New Face of Al-Qaeda. New York: Other Press, 2005. xvi, 283 pp. (French original Zarkaoui, le nouveau visage d'Al Qaida.)

Marc Brzustowski and Gilles Falavigna, Daesh et Hamas, led deux visages du califat. Paris: Dualpha, 2015. 261 pp.

Cole Bunzel, From Paper State to Caliphate: The Ideology of the Islamic State. Washington, DC: Center for Middle East Policy, The Brookings Institution, 2015. 45 pp.

Daniel Byman, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xii, 284 pp.

Rukmini Callimachi, "The ISIS Files," New York Times, published online April 4, 2018, looks as if it might appear in the Sunday Magazine April 8. A look at the way ISIS administered Mosul, as shown by documents found in that city.

Ash Carter, Inside the Five-Sided Box: Lessons from a Lifetime of Leadership in the Pentagon. New York: Dutton, 2019. xiii, 466 pp. Chapter 9, "Clarity of Purpose: Defeating ISIS" (pp. 226-57), covers the period when Carter was secretary of defense, February 2015 to January 2017.

Norman Cigar, Al-Qaida, the Tribes, and the Government: Lessons and Prospects for Iraq's Unstable Triangle. Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press, 2011. xvi, 207 pp.

Colin P. Clarke, After the Caliphate: The Islamic State and the Future of the Terrorist Diaspora. Cambridge, UK, and Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2019. xii, 224 pp.

Patrick Cockburn, The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising. New York and London: OR Books, 2014. 144 pp. This very short book looked good to me, but it got astonishingly little distribution in the United States.

Patrick Cockburn, The Rise of Islamic State: ISIS and the New Sunni Revolution. London and New York: Verso, 2015. xx, 172 pp. I believe this is an expanded version of the preceding work.

Patrick Cockburn, The Age of Jihad: Islamic State and the Great War for the Middle East. London: Verso, 2016. 449 pp. Also published as Chaos & Caliphate: Jihadis and the West in the Struggle for the Middle East [title on cover and publisher's web site]; Chaos and Caliphate: The Jihadi Struggle for the Middle East [title on title page]. New York O/R Books, 2016. 426 pp. Mostly this deals with Iraq (1990 onward), Syria, and the Islamic State, but sections of it also deal with the Arab Spring in Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain, and with Afghanistan.

Patrick Cockburn, War in the Age of Trump: The Defeat of ISIS, the Fall of the Kurds, the Conflict with Iran. New York and London: O/R Books, 2020. vi, 311 pp.

Jared Cohen, "Digital Counterinsurgency: How to Marginalize the Islamic State Online," Foreign Affairs 94:6 (November/December 2015).

Margaret Coker, The Spymaster of Baghdad: A True Story of Bravery, Family, and Patriotism in the Battle Against ISIS. New York: Dey St. (HarperCollins), 2021. xv, 309 pp. The story of Abu Ali al-Basri, who was picked by Prime Minister Maliki in 2006 to head an intelligence unit targeting Al Qaeda in Iraq. The unit was quite effective for many years.

Brandon Colas, "What Does Dabiq Do? ISIS Hermeneutics and Organizational Fractures within Dabiq Magazine," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 40:3 (2017), pp. 173-90.

Simon Cottee, ISIS and the Pornography of Violence. London and New York: Anthem Press, 2019. 171 pp.

Jack Covarrubias, Tom Lansford, and Robert J. Pauly, Jr., eds., The New Islamic State: Ideology, Religion and Violent Extremism in the 21st Century. Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2016.

R. Kim Cragin, "A Recent History of al-Qa'ida", The Historical Journal 67:3 (September 2014), pp. 803-824. See also review of this article by Melanie W. Sisson.

Father Patrick Desbois and Costel Nastasie, The Terrorist Factory: ISIS, the Yazidi Genocide, and Exporting Terror. New York: Arcade Publishing, 2018. 272 pp. Translated from the French by Shelley Temchin.

S. C. Dhiman, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria: Reconciliation, Democracy and Terror. Delhi: Neha Publishers & Distributors, 2015. 160 pp.

Patricia Dias et al., Strike from the air: The first 100 days of the campaign against ISIL. Barton, ACT: Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 2014. 66 pp.

Toby Dodge and Emile Hokayem, Middle Eastern security, the US pivot and the rise of ISIS. Abingdon, Oxon : Published by Routledge for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2014. 256 pp. I believe only a small part of this is specifically about ISIS: most is about the Syrian and international context.

Fredrik Doeser, "Historical Experiences, Strategic Culture, and Strategic Behavior: Polandin the Anti-ISIS Coalition," Defense Studies 18:4 (2018), 454-73.

Fredrik Doeser, "Using Strategic Culture to Understand Participation in Expeditionary Operations: Australia, Poland, and the Coalition against the Islamic State," Contemporary Security Policy 40:1 (2019), 4-29.

Charles H. Dyer and Mark Tobey, The Isis Crisis: What You Really Need to Know. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2015. 144 pp. Title preveously announced as The Isis Crisis: What Every Christian Needs to Know.

Anna Erelle, Dans la peau d'une djihadiste: Enquête au coeur des filières de recrutement de l'État islamique. Paris: Robert Laffont, 2015. 262 pp. English translation In the skin of a jihadist: A young journalist enters the ISIS recruitment network. New York: Harper, 2015. 240 pp.

Dina Esfandiari and Ariane Tabatabai, "Iran's ISIS Policy," International Affairs 91:1 (January 2015), pp. 1-15.

Gérard Fellous, Daech—"État islamique": cancer d'un monde arabo-musulman en recomposition: un conflit international long et incertain. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2015. 269 pp.

Jean-Pierre Filiu, From Deep State to Islamic State: The Arab Counter-Revolution and its Jihadi Legacy. London: Hurst, 2015. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015. xvi, 311 pp.

Dexter Filkins, "The Fight of Their Lives," New Yorker, September 29, 2014, pp. 42-55. On the Kurds' response to the crisis posed by the Islamic State.

Olivia Flasch, "The Legality of the Air Strikes against ISIL in Syria: New Insights on the Extraterritorial Use of Force against Non-State Actors," Journal on the Use of Force and International Law 3:1 (2016), pp. 37-69.

Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn with Michael Ledeen, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. New York: St. Martin's, 2016. 160 pp. I have not seen the book, but the negative review by Jason U. Manosevitz in the CIA journal Studies in Intelligence, 60:4 (December 2016), pp. 25-27, looked convincing to me.

Liam Freeman, ed., Islamic State & ISIS Crisis: An Examination. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2014.

Christine Fuller, ed., The Rise of ISIS: Background and Perspective from the UK and U.S. Nova Science Publishers, 2015. 183 pp.

Christopher J. Fuller, See It/Shoot It: The Secret History of the the CIA's Lethal Drone Program. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. xiv, 352 pp.

Erica L. Gaston, Illusions of Control: Dilemmas in Managing U.S. Proxy Forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. New York: Columbia University Press, 2024. xvii, 406 pp.

Fawaz A. Gerges, ISIS: A History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016. xiii, 368 pp. Paperback with a new preface by the author: Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017. xix, 368 pp.

Mike Giglio, Shatter the Nations: ISIS and the War for the Caliphate. New York: PublicAffairs, 2019. xiii, 303 pp. A micro rather than a macro study; looks at the experiences of a wide variety of individuals on the ground, mostly(?) up to May 2017.

Charles Glass, Syria Burning: ISIS and the Death of the Arab Spring. New York and London: OR Books, 2015. 150 pp.

Michael R. Gordon, Degrade and Destroy: The Inside Story of the War against the Islamic State from Barack Obama to Donald Trump. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2022. xvi, 475 pp.

Henrik Gratrud, "Islamic State Nasheeds As Messaging Tools," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 39:12 (2016), pp. 1050-70.

Michael Griffin, Islamic State: Rewriting History. London: Pluto Press, 2015. 200 pp.

Michael M. Gunter, "Iraq, Syria, Isis and the Kurds: Geostrategic Concerns for the U.S. and Turkey," Middle East Policy, Vol. 22, Issue 1 (Spring 2015), pp. 102-111.

Benjamin Hall, Inside ISIS: The Brutal Rise of a Terrorist Army. New York: Center Street, 2015. 278 pp.

Olivier Hanne, L'état islamique: anatomie du nouveau califat. Paris: Giovanangeli, 2014. 173 pp.

Shri V. P. Haran, "The Islamic State and Civil War in Syria," USI Journal of India 612 (April-June 2018), pp. 208-16.

James Harkin, Hunting Season: James Foley, ISIS, and the Kidnapping Campaign that Started a War. New York: Hachette, 2015. 245 pp. ISIS captured American journalist James Foley in Syria in November 2012, and beheaded him in August 2014.

William Harris, Quicksilver War: Iraq, Syria and the Spiral of Conflict. Oxford University Press, 2018. xxii, 230 pp. Covers the period 2011 to 2017.

Nicolas Hénin, Jihad Academy: The Rise of Islamic State. New Delhi: Bloomsbury, 2015. 150 pp. Translated from the French by Martin Makinson. French Original Jihad academy: nos erreurs face à l'état islamique. Paris: Fayard, 2015. Hénin, a journalist, was a prisoner of the Islamic State from June 2013 to April 2014.

Joseph Hokayem, Communication, guerre psychologique et terrorisme: l'example de Daech. Beyrouth: Independently published, 2018. 88 pp.

Jack Holland, Selling War and Peace: Syria and the Anglosphere. Cambridge University Press, 2020. 302 pp.

John Holland-McCowan, "From the Siege of Sinjar to the Battle for Baghuz: The PYD, the YPG, and their Global Coalition-backed Campaign against ISIS," Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 2021. uk.bl.ethos846530

Andrew Hosken, Empire of Fear: Inside the Islamic State. London: Oneworld, 2015. 321 pp.

House Committee on Armed services

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

Russell D. Howard, Marc D. Elliott, and Jonathan R. Prohow, IS and Cultural Genocide: Antiquities Trafficking in the Terrorist State. JSOU Report 16-11. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016. xi, 97 pp.

Human Rights Watch

Azeem Ibrahim, The resurgence of al-Qaeda in Syria and Iraq. Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2014. ix, 67 pp.

Haroro J. Ingram, "The strategic logic of Islamic State information operations," Australian Journal of International Affairs 69:6 (October 2015), pp. 729- .

Haroro J. Ingram, "The Challenge of Outcommunicating the Islamic State," in Andrew J. Dew, Marc A. Genest, and S. C. M. Paine, eds., From Quills to Tweets: How America Communicates about War and Revolution. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2019.

Raphael Israeli, The Internationalization of ISIS: The Muslim State in Iraq and Syria. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2016. x, 277 pp,

Jinan, with Thierry Oberlé, Esclave de Daech. Paris: Fayard, 2015. 252 pp. Jinan, a Yezidi woman, was captured by Islamic State forces in August 2014 and escaped after three months.

Daniel Johnson, #O.I.R.-Black Hearts, Top Guns, and Going Viral at War (title on cover is #Inherent Resolve: Top Guns, Black Hearts, and Going Viral at War in Iraq). Chapel Hill, NC: [appears to be self-published], 2021. 265 pp. 1LT Johnson, a public affairs officer, went to Iraq in 2016 with elements of the 2nd BCT, 101st Airborne Division.

Patrick B. Johnston et al., Foundations of the Islamic State: Management, Money, and Terror in Iraq, 2005-2010. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016. xxx, 317 pp.

Jeffrey Kaplan and Christopher P. Costa, "The Islamic State and the New Tribalism," Terrorism and Political Violence 27:5 (2015), pp. 926-69.

Sophie Kasiki, Dans la nuit de Daech: confession d'une repentie. Paris: Laffont, 2016. 235 pp.

Brian Katulis, Siwar al-Assad, and William Morris, "One Year Later: Assessing the Coalition Campaign against ISIS," Middle East Policy 22:4 (Winter 2015), pp. 1-21.

Samuel M. Katz, No Shadows in the Desert: Murder, Vengeance, and Espionage in the War against ISIS. New York: Hanover Square Press, 2020. 368 pp. The focus is on the role of Jordan in the struggle against ISIS.

Kenneth Katzman, Al Qaeda in Iraq: Assessment and Outside LinksRL 32217. Congressional Research Service, February 5, 2004. 18 pp.

Kenneth Katzman, et al., The "Islamic State" Crisis and U.S. Policy. Congressional Research Service 7-5700 R43612. Has been issued in several revisions. Sometimes when a new version comes out, people put it at the URL for an old version, instead of creating a new URL. So I cannot guarantee that all the links for older versions, below, will actually take you to those older versions.

Isaac Kfir, "Society Identity Group and Human (In)Security: The Case of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 38, Issue 4 (2015), pp. 233-252.

Farida Khalaf, The Girl Who Escaped ISIS: This Is My Story. New York: Atria, 2016. xiii, 224 pp. Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch. Khalaf, a Yazidi woman captured and enslaved by ISIS in northern Iraq in 2014, later escaped.

David Kilcullen, Blood Year: The Unraveling of Western Counterterrorism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. 288 pp. Places the emergence of ISIS as a major threat in 2014 in a broad context.

Paul Kingery, Yezidi Sunset: The Genocide by ISIS in Iraq. Published electronically by Amazon Digital Services, 2016. 301 pp. Amazon indicates this is intended for juvenile readers.

Michel Korinman, ed., Daech: meance sur les civilisations. Paris: L'Esprit du Temps, 2015. 372 pp.

Michael Krona and Rosemary Pennington, eds., The Media World of ISIS. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019. viii, 277 pp.

M. Laghmari, "Analysis and Assessment of Islamic State's Military Strategy in Iraq (2011-2015)," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Exeter, 2020, DA 28132053.

Benjamin S. Lambeth, Airpower in the War Against ISIS. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2021. xxiii, 305 pp. Argues that in confronting ISIS from 2014 onward, the US underestimated ISIS and therefore imposed overly restrictive rules of engagement on the use of air power.

Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall The Future of Terrorism: ISIS, Al-Qaeda, and the Alt-Right. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2018. 272 pp. The table of contents suggests that this deals much more with the relatively distant past, before World War II, than with the recent activities of ISIS and Al Qaeda, or with the future.

Leiden Journal of International Law published, in September 2016, a "Symposium on the Fight against ISIL and International Law"

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice. New York: Penguin, 2021. 288 pp. A female Kurding militia fighting ISIS in northeastern Syria.

Ido Levy, Soldiers of End-Times: Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State. Washington, DC: Washington Institute for New-East Policy, 2021. x, 273 pp.

Charles Lister, Profiling the Islamic State. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2014. 50 pp.

Charles Lister, Islamic State Senior Leadership: Who's Who. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2014.

Charles R. Lister, The Islamic State: A Brief Introduction. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2015. 110 pp.

Charles R. Lister, The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency. Oxford University Press, 2016 (forthcoming). 368 pp.

Pierre-Jean Luizard, Pe piège Daech: L'état islamique ou le retour de l'Histoire. Paris: La Découverte, 2015. 180 pp.

Haytham Manna, Daech: l'état de la barbarie. Paris: Les points sur les i, 2014. 160 pp. Preface by Georges Malbrunot. Translanted (I presume from Arabic) by René Naba. Manna is a Syrian human rights activist who has been in exile in Europe since long before the rise of the Islamic State.

William McCants, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State. New York: St. Martin's, 2015. 256 pp.

General Stanley McChrystal, with Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone, Leaders: Myth and Reality. New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2018. One chapter (pp. 177-195) deals with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Kathleen J. McInnis, The Addition of Trainers to Iraq: Background for Congress. Congressional Research Service, June 16, 2015. 5 pp. The detailed map and timeline, showing key events in 2014, is useful.

Carter Malkasian, Illusions of Victory: The Anbar Awakening and the Rise of the Islamic State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. 208 pp.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi, "ISIS's Projection of Landpower in Iraq," in Jason W. Warren, ed., Landpower in the Long War: Projecting Force After 9/11 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2019).

Marco Marsili, "The Islamic State: A Clash within the Muslim Civilization for the New Caliphate," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 39:2 (2016), pp. 85-105.

Ephraim Mattos and Scott McEwen, City of Death: Humanitarian Warriors in the Battle of Mosul. New York: Center Street (Hachette), 2018. Mattos, a former Navy SEAL, participated in the fight to retake Mosul from the Islamic State as a civilian medic in a humanitarian organization called the Free Burma Rangers. "Some Names and details have been altered for security reasons."

Éric Mauger, ed., Les artilleurs français en Irak. Paris: Economica, 2019. 110 pp. A French artillery unit in the fight against ISIS, 2014-2017.

Hisham Melhem, "Keeping Up With the Caliphate: An Islamic State for the Internet Age" (review essay), Foreign Affairs 94:6 (November/December 2015).

Tomas Mendoza, ed., Authorization for Use of Military Force against the Islamic State: Issues and Proposals. New York: Nova, 2015. vii, 125 pp.

George Michael, "The Legend and Legacy of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi." Defense Studies 7 (September 2007), pp. 338-357.

Tal Mimran, "From Apology to Functionalism: A Retrospective Look at the Military Campaign against the Self-Declared Islamic State," Israel Law Review 53:3 (2020), pp. 355-91.

Sami Moubayed, Under the Black Flag: At the Frontier of the New Jihad. London: I.B. Tauris, 2015. xv, 240 pp.

Andrew Mumford, The West's War Against Islamic State: Operation Inherent Resolve in Syria and Iraq. I.B. Tauris, 2021. 192 pp.

Loretta Napoleoni, Insurgent Iraq: Al Zarqawi and the New Generation. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005. 281 pp.

Loretta Napoleoni, The Islamist Phoenix: The Islamic State and the Redrawing of the Middle East. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2014. xxii, 136 pp.

Malcolm Nance, Defeating ISIS: Who They Are, How They Fight, What They Believe. New York: Skyhorse, 2016. xx, 505 pp. Foreword by Richard Engel.

Malcolm Nance and Chris Sampson, Hacking ISIS: How to Destroy the Cyber Jihad. New York: Skyhorse, 2017. vii, 305 pp.

David H. Naylor, ed., Al Qaeda in Iraq. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2009. ix, 118 pp.

Judit Neurink, Slaves wives and brides: women under the rule of ISIS. Translated from the Dutch by Pamela Williams. Independently published, 2018.

Marco Nilsson, "Mental Strategies for Fighting the IS: A Field Study of the Peshmerga Soldiers in Northern Iraq," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 39:11 (2016), pp. 1007-18.

Celine Marie I. Novenario, "Differentiating Al Qaeda and the Islamic State Through Strategies Publicized in Jihadist Magazines," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 39:11 (2016), pp. 953-967.

Laurie O'Connor, "Legality of the Use of Force in Syria against Islamic State and the Khorasan Group," Journal on the Use of Force and International Law 3:1 (2016), pp. 70-96.

Hanne Olivier and Thomas Flichy de la Neuville, L'état islamique: Anatomie du nouveau Califat. Bernard Giovanangeli éditeur, 2014. 178 pp.

Bronislav Ostransky, The Jihadis Preachers of the End Times: ISIS Apocalyptic Propaganda. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019,. xiii, 301 pp.

Cathy Otten, With Ash on Their Faces: Yezidi Women and the Islamic State. New York and London: O/R Books, 2017. 256 pp.

Till "Baz" Paasche, John Foxx, and Shaun Murray, America's War in Syria: Fighting with Kurdish Anti-ISIS Forces. Havertown, PA and Oxford, UK: Casemate, 2022. 240 pp. The authors, German, American, and Irish respectively, all participated in the struggle in Syria.

Shrikant Paranjpe, ed., ISIS: The Challenge and the Response. New Delhi: Kalinga, 2015. xx, 114 pp.

Dave Philipps, "The Gunners Who Came Home Damaged," New York Times, November 5, 2023, p. 1. US artillerymen sent to Syria in 2016 and 2017 to fight the Islamic State fired very large numbers of rounds per man in a fairly short period because the US was using artillery a lot but trying to minimize the number of US personnel in Syria. Many of them apparently suffered serious organic brain damage, of a previously unknown type, inflicted by the shock waves from their own weapons. This article looks important to me. A version of it incorporating a lot of photos and short video clips, titled "A Secret War, Strange New Wounds, and Silence from the Pentagon" was published online.

David L. Phillips, "The ISIS Crisis," American Foreign Policy Interests, Vol.36, No.6 (January 2015), pp. 351-360.

Dana J. H. Pittard and Wes J. Bryant, Hunting the Caliphate: America's War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell. Post Hill Press, 2019.

Major Riley Post and Jeffrey D. Peterson, Ph.D, Unconventional Economics: Operational Economics in Unconventional Warfare. JSOU Report 16-5. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016. x, 87 pp. Chapter 4 (pp. 53-71) deals with the Islamic State.

Chris Quillen, "The Islamic State's Evolving Chemical Arsenal," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 39:11 (2016), pp. 1019-30.

Kamal Redouani, Inside Daech: dix ans d'inquête au coeur du djihad. Paris: Arthaud, 2016. 219 pp.

Glenn E. Robinson, Global Jihad: A Brief History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020. xi, 246 pp.

Linda Robinson, Assessment of the Politico-Military Campaign to Counter ISIL and Options for Adaptation. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2016. xi, 79 pp.

Olivier Roy, Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of Islamic State. London: Hurst, 2017. 136 pp. Translated from the French by Cynthia Schoch.

Laura Ryan, "Al-Qaida and ISIS Use Twitter Differently. Here's How and Why." National Journal, October 9, 2014.

Michael W. S. Ryan, ISIS: The Terrorist Group That Would Be a State. Newport, RI: Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups, U.S. Naval War College, 2020. 74 pp.

Philippe-Joseph Salazar, Words are Weapons: Inside ISIS's Rhetoric of Terror. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017. viii, 242 pp. Translated by Dorna Khazeni from Paroles armées: comprendre et combattre la propagance terroriste. Paris: Lemieux, 2015. 262 pp.

Samer, edited by Mike Thompson, The Raqqa Diaries: Escape from "Islamic State." London: Hutchinson, 2017. 106 pp.

Johannes Scherling, "A Tale of Two Cities: A Comparative Study of Media Narratives of the Battles for Aleppo and Mosul," Media, War & Conflict 14:2 (June 2021), pp. 191-220,

Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Exile: The Stunning Inside Story of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Flight. New York and London: Bloomsbury, 2017. xx, 619 pp. Included considerable discussion of Zarqawi

Glen Segell, The Islamic State Delusion. London: The London Institute of Security Policy, 2016. 99 pp.

Jay Sekulow, with Jordan Sekulow, Robert W. Ash, and David French, Rise of ISIS: A Threat We Can't Ignore. New York: Howard Books (Simon & Schuster), 2014. 128 pp. The title is misleading; judging from the table of contents, I get the impression that the authors are more interested in Israel's struggle against Hamas than in ISIS.

Senate Armed Services Committee

Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Susan Shand, Sinjar: 14 Days that Saved the Yazidis from Islamic State. Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2018. xiii, 240 pp.

Andrew Sharp, The Rise of Isis: The West's New Crusade. CreateSpace, 2014. 152 pp.

Richard Shultz, Ph.D., Military Innovation in War: It Takes a Learning Organization: A Case Study of Task Force 714 in Iraq. JSOU Report 16-6. MacDill AFB, Florida: Joint Special Operations University Press, 2016. x, 91 pp. Describes how a counterterrorism task force that was not very successful in the early stages of the American occupation of Iraq became highly effective against al Qaida in Iraq from 2006 to 2009.

Richard H. Shultz Jr., Transforming Intelligence for Irregular Warfare: Task Force 714 in Iraq. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2020. xvii, 287 pp.

Daniel Silander, Don Wallace, and John Janzekovic, eds., International Organizations and the Rise of ISIL: Global Responsed to Human Security Threats. New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2017. viii, 218 pp.

Mark Silinsky, Jihad and the West: Black Flag over Babylon. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2016. xviii, 258 pp.

Captain Clark Smith, "Cyber Maneuver Can Stop ISIL," Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute 142:11 (November 2016), p. 12.

Patrick Sookhdeo, Unmasking Islamic State: Revealing Their Motivation, Theology and End Time Predictions. Isaac Publishing, 2015. 200 pp.

Ali Soufan, Anatomy of Terror: From the Death of Bin Laden to the Rise of the Islamic State. New York: Norton, 2017. xxii, 359 pp.

Anne Speckhard and Ahmet S. Yayla, ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate. McLean, VA: Advances Press, 2016. 372 pp.

Robert Spencer, The Complete Infidel's Guide to ISIS. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2015. xxvi, 357 pp.

Simon Staffell and Akil Awan, eds., Jihadism Transformed: Al-Qaeda and Islamic State's Global Battle of Ideas. Oxford University Press, 2016. xv, 273 pp.

Erick Stakelbeck, ISIS Exposed: Beheadings, Slavery, and the Hellish Reality of Radical Islam. Washington, DC: Regnery, 2015. 288 pp.

Brian L. Steed, ISIS: An Introduction and Guide to the Islamic State. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2016. xvi, 197 pp.

Brian L. Steed, ISIS: The Essential Reference Guide. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2019. xlix, 307 pp.

Aaron Stein, The US War Against ISIS: How American and its Allies Defeated the Caliphate. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2022.

Christophe Stener, La chute du califat islamique de Daech: Une victoire sans la paix. Books on Demand, 2019. 466 pp.

Jessica Stern and J. M. Berger, ISIS: The State of Terror. New York: Ecco (HarperCollins), 2015. xxiii, 385 pp. Devotes a lot of attention to the way ISIS puts out its message online.

Meredith Tax, A Road Unforeseen: Women Fight the Islamic State. Bellevue Literary Press, 2016. 336 pp. Argues that a female Kurdish militia has been one of the most effective forces fighting the Islamic State in Syria. Has considerable discussion of the internal politics of the Kurdish movements in Syria and Turkey. I have not seen the book, but I have read a review stating that it is not an eyewitness account, and that it is unclear where the author got her information.

Rod Thornton, "Problems with the Kurds as proxies against Islamic State: insights from the siege of Kobane," Small Wars & Insurgencies 26:6 (2015), pp. 865-85.

Jürgen Todenhöfer, Ten Days in the Islamic State: My Journey into the Heart of Terror. Greystone Books, 2016. 288 pp. Translated from the German by A.O. May. Todenhöfer, a Geman journalist, entered the Islamic State's territory from Turkey, and visited Raqqa and Mosul, in December 2014.

John Turner, "Strategic differences: Al Qaeda's Split with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham," Small Wars & Insurgencies, Vol. 26, Issue 2 (2015), pp. 208-225.

Kasun Ubayasiri, "Islamic State's quest for legitimacy: An analysis of IS media frames in Dabiq magazine," Media, War & Conflict 14:2 (June 2021), pp. 133-49,

U.S. House of Representatives Joint Task Force on U.S. Central Command Intelligence Analysis. This task force was established December 11, 2015, by the chairmen of the House Armed Services Committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense to investigate allegations that beginning in 2014, procedures in the intelligence system at U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) had been modified in ways that led to unrealistically optmistic evaluations of the struggle against ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The preliminary report of this all-Republican task force seemed reasonably convincing, not blatantly partisan, and the response by Democratic members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence did not find much with which to disagree.

James Verini, They Will Have to Die Now: Mosul and the Fall of the Caliphate. New York: Norton, 2019. 304 pp.

Michael G. Vickers, By All Means Available: Memoirs of a Life in Intelligence, Special Operations, and Strategy. New York: Knopf, 2023. xiii, 559 pp.

Stephen M. Walt, "ISIS as Revolutionary State: New Twist on an Old Story," Foreign Affairs 94:6 (November/December 2015).

Barbara F. Walter, "The Extremist's Advantage in Civil Wars," International Security 42:2 (Fall 2017), pp. 7-39.

Joby Warrick, Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS. New York: Doubleday, 2015. xix, 344 pp.

Matthew C. Weed, A New Authorization for Use of Military Force Against the Islamic State: Issues and Current Proposals, Congressional Research Service report 7-5700, R43760, February 21, 2017. 34 pp.

Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror. New York: Regan Arts, 2015. xvi, 270 pp. Revised & updated edition: New York: Regan Arts, 2016. xviii, 411 pp.

Graeme Wood, The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State. New York: Random House, 2017. 352 pp.

Lawrence Wright, The Terror Years: From Al-Qaeda to the Islamic State. New York: Knopf, 2016. 384 pp. A collection of articles previously published in the New Yorker. They deal more with Al Qaeda than with the Islamic State.

See also above under The "Surge" and the "Awakening"

 

Post 2014

Most works on the post-2014 period are listed in the section immediately above, Zarqawi, Al Qaeda in Iraq, and the Islamic State

Adel Bakawan, "In Iraq, the Hashd Calls the Shots," Le Monde diplomatique English edition, October 2023.

Akram Belkaïd, "The Enigma of Muqtada al-Sadr," Le Monde diplomatique English edition, October 2023.

Mark T. Esper, A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense during Extraordinary Times. New York: William Morrow, 2022. x, 735 pp. Esper was secretary of defense 2019-20. Not a lot about Iraq.

Mike Pompeo, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. Broadside Books, 2023. Pompeo was director of the CIA 2017-18, and secretary of state 2018-21.

 

Women

Nadje Sadig Al-Ali, Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present. London: Zed Books, 2007. 292 pp.

Nadje Al-Ali & Nicola Pratt, What Kind of Liberation? Women and the Occupation of Iraq. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. xviii, 221 pp.

Christina Asquith, Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family, and Survival in the New Iraq. New York: Random House, 2009. 224 pp. Two Iraqi and two American (one of them Palistinian-American) women.

Jerri Bell and Tracy Crow, eds., It's My Country Too: Women's Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan. Lincoln, Nebraska: Potomac Books (University of Nebraska Press), 2017. xxxi, 330 pp. Desert Storm is pp. 237-261. Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom are pp. 262-310.

Helen Benedict, The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq. Beacon Books, 2009. Looks at five women who served between 2003 and 2006.

Jane Blair, Hesitation Kills: A Female Marine Officer's Combat Experience in Iraq. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011. 296 pp. Blair, a relatively new second lieutenant, went into Iraq in the 2003 invasion, with the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Squadron of the 3d Marine Air Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Lisa Bowden and Shannon Cain, eds., Powder: Writing by Women in the Ranks, from Vietnam to Iraq. Kore Press, 2008. 147 pp.

Rick Bragg, I Am a Soldier Too: The Jessica Lynch Story. Knopf, 2003. A PFC in the U.S. Army's 507th Maintenance Company, she was captured by Iraqi forces in An-Nasiriyah on March 23, 2003, and later rescued. See also congressional committee hearing, and book by Shoshana Johnson.

Cynthia Enloe, Nimo's War, Emma's War: Making Feminist Sense of the Iraq War. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 336 pp.

Teresa Fazio, Fidelis: A Memoir. Lincoln, NE: Potomac Books, 2020. 214 pp. Fazio, a USMC lieutenant, was a communications officer at Camp Taqaddum, in the eastern part of Anbar province, around 2005. Names and some identifying details have been changed.

Claire Habenstreit, et al., "Latent classes of PTSD symptoms in Iraq and Afghanistan female veterans," Journal of Affective Disorders, September 2014.

Kirsten Holmstedt, Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq. Stackpole, 2007. 384 pp.

Kirsten Holmstedt, The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War In Iraq. Stackpole, 2009. 325 pp.

Jacqueline S. Ismael, "Iraqi Women in Conditions of War and Occupation," Arab Studies Quarterly, 36:3 (Summer 2014), pp. 260-67 A review essay dealing with works written in Arabic by Iraqi women.

Isabel G. Jacobson et al., "Longitudinal Assessment of Gender Differences in the Development of PTSD Among US Military Personnel Deployed in Support of the Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan," Journal of Psychiatric Research, June 2015.

Shoshana Johnson with M. L. Doyle, I'm Still Standing: From Captive U.S. Soldier to Free Citizen--My Journey Home. New York: Touchstone (Simon & Schuster), 2010. Shoshana Johnson, a black female soldier, was wounded and captured by Iraqis in An-Nasiriyah in March 2003. See also Rick Bragg's book about Jessica Lynch, another female soldier captured in the same incident.

Isabel Kaiser, The Kurdish Women's Freedom Movement: Gender, Body Politics and Militant Femininities. Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Sana Al-Khayyat, Honour and Shame: Women in Modern Iraq. London: Saqi Books, 1990.

Brooke King, War Flower: My Life After Iraq. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2019. xv, 255 pp. King served in Iraq as a wheeled-vehicle mechanic, 2006-7.

Rachel Kutz-Flamenbaum, "Cycles of Protest: Impact of the Contemporary Anti-War Movement on the U.S. Women's Movement." Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, SUNY at Stony Brook, 2008. UMI 3338222. viii, 241 pp.

Shira Maguen, et al., "Gender Differences in Suicide and Suicide Attempts among US Army Soldiers," Psychiatry Research, February 2015.

Sarah Masters and Caroline Simpson, eds., Iraq: Women's Rights Under Attack: Occupation, Constitution and Fundamentalisms. WLUML Occasional Paper 15. London: Women Living Under Muslim Law, December 2006. x, 36 pp.

Lynne O'Donnell, High Tea in Mosul: The true story of two Englishwomen in war-torn Iraq. London: Cyan Books, 2007. ix, 213 pp. Two women who in England in the 1970s fell in love with Iraqi men who were there for higher education, married them, and then went with them to Iraq to live. About half the book deals with the US invasion of 2003, and its aftermath. The author, a journalist, met them in Mosul in April 2003.

Kelly Oliver, Women as Weapons of War: Iraq, Sex, and the Media. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 208 pp.

Riverbend, Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq. Foreword by Ahdaf Soueif. Introduction by James Ridgeway. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005. xxiii, 286 pp.

Cheryl Lynn Ruff, Ruff's War: A Navy Nurse on the Frontline in Iraq. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. xii, 209 pp.

Anna Simon, with Ann Hampton, Kimberly's Flight: The Story of Captain Kimberly Hampton, America's First Woman Combat Pilot Killed in Battle. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2012. 240 pp. Haverton was killed when her OH-58 helicopter was shot down over Fallujah on January 2, 2004.

Katherine M. Skiba, Sister in the Band of Brothers: Embedded with the 101st Airborne in Iraq. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2005. xvi, 257 pp. Skiba, a reporter and photographer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, went into Iraq in March 2003 with the 159th Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division.

Amber Smith, Danger Close: My Epic Journey as a Combat Helicopter Pilot in Iraq and Afghanistan. Atria Books, 2016. 288 pp.

Commander Sheri Snively, D.Min., CHC, USNR, Heaven in the Midst of Hell: A Quaker Chaplain's View of the War in Iraq. San Diego: Raven Oaks Press, 2010. 269 pp. Snively served at a hospital and morgue at Al Taqqadum, between Ramadi and Fallujah in Anbar province. Many photographs.

Ali Elizabeth Turner, Ballad for Baghdad: An Ex-Hippie Chick Viet Nam War Protester's Three Years in Iraq. Morgan James Publishing, 2008. Ms. Turner worked 2004-2007 in Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Centers in Baghdad.

Kayla Williams, with Michael E. Staub, Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army. New York: Norton, 2005. 290 pp. Sergeant Williams, who had been trained in Arabic at the Defense Language Institute, went into Iraq March 22, 2003, with 3rd Platoon, Delta Company, 311th Military Intelligence Battalion, attached to the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.

Thura al-Windawi, Thura's Diary: My Life in Wartime Iraq. New York: Viking (Penguin), 2004. 244 pp. The diary of a young woman in Baghdad, from just before the beginning of the war in 2003, up through the early stages of the occupation. For juvenile readers.

James E. Wise, Jr. and Scott Baron, Women at War: Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Conflicts. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006. xvii, 234 pp. I have also seen the title listed as Women at War: World War II to Iraqi Freedom

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, ed., "Developed by John Ross," IraqiGirl: Diary of a Teenage Girl in Iraq. Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2009. 208 pp. Based on a blog written from 2004 onward by a young woman growing up in Mosul.

Haifa Zangana, City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007. 169 pp. Daughter of a Kurdish father and an Arab mother, she spent some time in Syria in the late 1960s, providing medical services to Palestinians. She became a member of the Central Leadership (CL) faction of the Iraqi Communist Party; she was arrested in 1972 and imprisoned for six months. Bitterly hostile to both the Baath and the US occupation of Iraq.

See also Sara Daniel under General and Miscellaneous; Ditmars and Sgrena under Post 2003; Germanin and Karpinski under Prisons and Prisoner Abuse; Morgan under Contractors and Contracting; Garrels and Spinner under Media; and Kraft, Lonsdale, and Luz under Medical and Stress Issues.

 

Post-2003: Contractors and Contracting

Carter Andress, Contractor Combatants: Tales of an Imbedded Capitalist. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007. v, 305 pp. A former U.S. Army officer, Andress first went to Iraq to work for Custer Battles, later was one of the founders of American-Iraqi Solutions Group (AISG).

James Ashcroft, Making a Killing: The Explosive Story of a Hired Gun in Iraq. London: Virgin Books, 2006. xiv, 241 pp. Ashcroft, a former British Army captain, arrived in Iraq September 2003, stayed 18 months.

James Ashcroft, Escape from Baghdad: First Time was for the Money, This Time It's Personal. London: Virgin Books, 2009. 320 pp. Ashcroft returned to Iraq to rescue his interpreter.

Daniel Bergner, "The Other Army," New York Times Sunday magazine, 8/14/2005, pp. 28- . A long article on Triple Canopy, one of the largest security contractors in Iraq.

Tom Bowman, "No U.S. Troops, But An Army of Contractors in Iraq," NPR "Morning Edition," December 27, 2011.

Gary Brandon, Kiwi Under Fire: Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq or Kiwi Under Fire in Iraq [maybe one title on the cover and another on the title page?]. Christchurch, New Zealand: Willson Scott Publishing, 2007. 172 pp.

Thomas C. Bruneau, Patriots for Profit: Contractors and the Military in US National Security. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. 270 pp. My impression is that this is not specifically focused on Iraq.

CACI Premier Technology was a firm the US military used, under contract, to interrogate prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Three victims of torture sued the company, successfully, in 2024. See under Interrogation, Prisons, and Prisoner Abuse.

James Jay Carafano, Private Sector, Public Wars: Contractors in Combat – Afghanistan, Iraq, and Future Conflicts. Praeger, 2008. 252 pp.

Pratap Chatterjee, Iraq, Inc.: A Profitable Occupation. Seven Stories Press, 2004. 280 pp.

Pratap Chatterjee, Halliburton's Army: How a Well-Connected Texas Oil Company Revolutionized the Way America Makes War. New York: Nation Books, 2009. 304 pp.

Simon Chesterman and Chia Lehnardt, eds., From Mercenaries to Market: The Rise and Regulation of Private Military Companies. Oxford and New YorK: Oxford University Press, 2007. 275 pp.

Jeremy Cloward, "An examination of the top private military firms in the United States war with Iraq (2003--2008) and their impact on democratic government." Ph.D. dissertation, Political Science, Claremont, 2009. 298 pp. AAT 3351212.

The Commission on Wartime Contractors and Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan was a bipartisan commission established by the U.S. Congress in 2008, chaired by Michael J. Thibault (Democrat) and Christopher Shays (Republican). After it ceased functioning in 2011, its web pages were archived by the University of North Texas Library. These include:

Congressional Research Service. Some research publications have been placed online by the Federation of American Scientists and other organizations.

Sarah K. Cotton, Ulrich Petersohn, Molly Dunigan, Q. Burkhart, Megan Zander-Cotugno, Edward O'Connell, and Michael Webber, Hired Guns: Views About Armed Contractors in Operation Iraqi Freedom. MG-987. Santa Monica: RAND, 2010. xxvi, 115 pp.

Molly Dunigan, Carrie M. Farmer, Rachel M. Burns, Alison Hawks, and Claude Messan Setodji, Out of the Shadows: The Health and Well-Being of Private Contractors Working in Conflict Environments. RR-420. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2013. xxiii, 115 pp. Looks at PTSD and other mental health issues among people who have worked as contractors in conflict zones, including by not limited to Iraq.

Steve Fainaru, Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq. New York: Da Capo (Perseus), 2008. xvii, 254 pp. Fainaru, a reporter for the Washington Post, embedded with contractors of the Crescent Security Group.

Scott Fitzsimmons, "Wheeled Warriors: Explaining Variations in the Use of Violence by Private Security Contractors in Iraq," Security Studies 22:4 (2013), pp. 707-39.

Scott Fitzsimmons, Private Security Companies during the Iraq War: Military performance and the use of deadly force. Routledge, 2016. 252 pp.

Scott Fitzsimmons, "Contracting Blowback?: The Use of Violence by Private Security Companies and Insurgents during the Iraq War," Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 47:1 (2024), pp. 78-97.

Richard Fontaine, "Contracting in Combat Zones: Who are Our Subcontractors?". Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2010. 21 pp. Statement presented to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, June 29, 2010.

Richard Fontaine and John Nagl, Contracting in Conflicts: The Path to Reform. Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, 2010. 59 pp.

Frank Gallagher with John M. Del Vecchio, The Bremer Detail: Protecting the Most Threatened Man in the World. Danbury, CT: Charlie Foxtrot Books, 2014. 285 pp. Gallagher, working for Blackwater, was in charge of security for Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, from a point probably in the third quarter of 2003 up to Bremer's departure from Iraq in 2004.

John Geddes, Highway to Hell: An ex-SAS soldier's account of the extraordinary private army hired to fight in Iraq. London: Century, 2006. 230 pp. Vague on dates and organizational identities.

James Glasse, with Andrew Rawson, Baghdad Operators: Ex Special Forces in Iraq. Barnsley, South Yorkshire, UK: Pen and Sword, 2013. 240 pp.

Thomas X. Hammes, "Private Contractors in Conflict Zones: The Good, the Bad, and the Strategic Impact." Strategic Forum, no. 260 (November 2010). 15 pp.

John Heron, A Security Advisor in Iraq. Central Milton Keynes, UK: AuthorHouse UK, 2010. x, 265 pp. Heron, formerly a soldier in the British Army, went to Iraq in 2003 as a security contractor.

House Committee on Armed Services

House Committee on Government Reform/House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

House Committee on the Judiciary

Cynthia M. Iris, "Armed contractors on the battlefield: Coordination issues in Iraq between the U.S. military and private security contractors." Master of Liberal Arts thesis, Harvard University, 2009. ix, 119 pp. AAT 1469383.

David Isenberg, Shadow Force: Private Security Contractors in Iraq. Praeger, 2009. 264 pp.

James L. Jones et al., eds., Security in Iraq. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2010. viii, 183 pp.

Deborah C. Kidwell, Public War, Private Fight? The United States and Private Military Companies. Global War on Terrorism Occasional Papers #12. Ft. Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2005. viii, 79 pp.

Christopher Kinsey, Private Contractors and the Reconstruction of Iraq: Transforming Military Logistics. Routledge, 2009. 191 pp.

Morgan Lerette, Guns, Girls, and Greed: I was a Blackwater Mercenary in Iraq. New York and Nashville: Knox Press (Permuted Press), 2024. 304 pp. Lerette began working for Blackwater in Iraq in July 2004.

George C. Lovewine, Outsourcing the global war on terrorism: private military companies and American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 244 pp.

Simon Low, The Boys from Baghdad: From the Foreign Legion to the Killing Fields of Iraq. Mainstream Publishing, 2007. 272 pp. Low, a former member of the French Foreign Legion, went to Iraq as a contractor, guarding convoys on the roads south of Baghdad. Looks a bit comic-book.

A.G. Matheny, Baghdad FTU: The True Story of a Contractor on the Battlefield. Omaha, Nebraska: Concierge Publishing, 2009. 289 pp. The book does not discuss Matheny's previous career in U.S. Army Special Forces; it deals with his work from 2001 onward for BAE Systems, a company that builds and supports military communications systems. Most of the book is on his work in Iraq, 2003 onward, but there is some discussion of work in Jordan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Kuwait, 2001-2003.

T. Christian Miller, Blood Money: Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq. New York: Little, Brown (Hachette), 2006. xviii, 333 pp. Miller is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times.

J. T. Mlinarcik, "Private Militray Contractors & Justice: A Look at the Industry, Blackwater, & the Fallujah Incident," Regent Journal of International Law, 2006, no. 1, pp. 129- .

Christopher E. Moore, ed., Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan: Background and Issues. Hauppage, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2010. x, 171 pp.

Cynthia I. Morgan, Cindy in Iraq: A Civilian's Year in the War Zone. New York: Free Press (Simon & Schuster), 2006. 256 pp. Ms. Morgan, an experienced truck driver in the United States, spent a year, September 2003 to August 2004, as a truck driver in Iraq, sometimes convoy commander, for KBR. The book is shorter than it looks; not a lot of words to the page.

C. Osakwe, "Private War Contractors, War Crimes and International Humanitarian Law," Scientia Militaria: South African Journal of Military Studies 42:1 (2014), pp. 64-79.

Heidi M. Peters, Moshe Schwartz, and Lawrence Kapp, Department of Defense Contractor and Troop Levels in Iraq and Afghanistan: 2007–2016. Congressional Research Service, August 15, 2016. 10 pp. The figures for Iraq, Fiscal Years 2007 to 2016, and not complete. Figures are given by quarter for numbers of US military personnel, total contractors, US national contractors, total private security contractors, and US national private security contractors in Iraq, but there is not a figure for every category in every quarter.

Erik Prince, Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror. Portfolio, 2013. 416 pp.

Dina Rasor and Robert Bauman, Betraying Our Troops: The Destructive Results of Privatizing War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (St. Martin's), 2007. xiii, 274 pp. Both logistical and combat contractors.

Jacqueline R. Robinson and Francis Miller, eds., Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan: Controlling Costs and Reducing Risks. Nova, 2012.

Jeremy Scahill, Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. New York: Nation Books (Avalon), 2007. xxvii, 452 pp.

Colonel Gerald Schumacher, United States Army Special Forces (ret.), A Bloody Business: America's War Zone Contractors and the Occupation of Iraq. St. Paul, Minnesota: Zenith Press (MBI), 2006. 304 pp. Library has.

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Bob Shepherd, The Circuit. London: Pan Books, 2009. 352 pp. Shepherd had a diversified career in the private security business after leaving the SAS. Some, but probably not much, of this book deals with Iraq.

Wyman E. Shuler, III, "Generals in three-piece suits--contractors in camouflage: A critical assessment of contractors in Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Old Dominion University, 2008. 359 pp. AAT 3312652. Compares cases in which there was or was not a military contract administrator.

Ben R. Simms and Curtis D. Taylor, "The Battle for Salem Street." Army History, No. 65 (Fall 2007), pp. 5-15. A US armored unit, D Company, 2/8 Infantry, in Diwaniyah (the capital of Qadisiyah province), October 2006.

Suzanne Simons, Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War. Collins, 2009. 288 pp.

P. W. Singer, Can't Win With 'Em, CAn't Go to War Without 'Em: Private Military Contractors and Counterinsurgency. Policy Paper no. 4. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2007. viii, 21 pp.

Christopher Spearin, "A justified heaping of blame? An assessment of privately supplied security sector training and reform in Iraq--2003-2005 and beyond," in Donald Stoker, ed., Military Advising and Assistance: From Mercenaries to Privatization, 1815-2007 (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 224-238.

Allison Stanger, One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. 256 pp.

Bruce E. Stanley, Outsourcing Security: Private Military Contractors and U.S. Foreign Policy. Lincoln, Nebraska: Potomac Books, 2015. xiv, 221 pp. The US-Iraq Wars of 1991 and 2003- are two of the four major case studies in this book.

Lewis Steiner, Trunk Monkeys: The Life of a Contract Soldier in Iraq. Fonthill, 2014. 208 pp

Sheryl Elam Tappan, Shock and Awe in Fort Worth: How the U. S. Army Rigged the Free and Open Competition to Replace Halliburton's Sole-Source Oil Field Contract in Iraq. Pourquoi Press, 2004. 152 pp.

Kevin J. A. Thomas Contract Workers, Risk, and the War in Iraq: Sierra Leonean Labor Migrants at US Military Bases. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2017. viii, 243 pp.

Hannah Tonkin, State Control over Private Military and Security Companies in Armed Conflict. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. xxiv, 310 pp.

James A. Tyner, The Business of War: Workers, Warriors and Hostages in Occupied Iraq. Aldershot, Hampshire, U.K. and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. viii, 152 pp. Looks at foreign labor in Iraq, especially from the Philippines.

Nikolaos Tzifakis & Asteris Huliaras, "The perils of outsourcing post-conflict reconstruction: donor countries, international NGOs and private military and security companies," Conflict, Security & Development Volume 15, Issue 1 (2015), pp. 51-73.

U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General, Acquisition: Contracts Awarded for the Coalition Provisional Authority by the Defense Contracting Command - Washington (D-2004-057). March 18, 2004. iv, 60 pp.

Jade Wu, Flash Points: Lessons Learned and Not Learned in Malawi, Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Albany, NY: Excelsior Editions (State University of New York Press), 2017. xviii, 302 pp. Part III (pp. 121-77) covers Wu's employment through a private contractor teaching Business English to Iraqi government employees in Baghdad for part of 2010. Very much a personal story, one woman's experiences.

 

The Second U.S. - Iraq War: Media

Azadeh Aalai, "Media Depictions of the Vietnam and Iraq Wars." Ph.D. dissertation, Applied Social Psychology, Loyola University of Chicago, 2008. AAT 3340150. xii, 224 pp. Looks at The New York Times and Time magazine, 1964-68 and 2003-7. After a brief skim, my reaction was negative, but the analytic approach is different enough from the ones to which I am accustomed that I cannot be sure my negative reaction was justified.

Stuart Allan and Barbie Zelizer, eds., Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime. London and New York: Rougledge (Taylor & Francis), 2004. x, 374 pp. Part 3, "Reporting the Iraq war":

Col. Kenneth Allard, USA (ret.), Warheads: Cable News and the Fog of War. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006. x, 156 pp. Allard, who had joined the Army in 1969 and retired in 1997, became a military-affairs pundit for various broadcast organizations. This is partly memoir, partly his thoughts about the issues.

Ahmed K. Al-Rawi, Media Practice in Iraq. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. Has one chapter on the early history of the Iraqi media, but the main focus is on the period since 2003, especially how the Iraqi media covered the election of 2010.

John Lee Anderson, The Fall of Baghdad. New York: Penguin, 2004. x, 389 pp.

Gérald Arboit, Michel Mathien, et al., La guerre en Iraq: les médias et les conflits armés. Bruxelles: Bruylant, 2006. 330 pp.

Peter Arnett, Interview broadcast on Iraqi TV March 30, 2003. Arnett, who had done a very good job reporting from Baghdad in 1991, even when closely supervised by Iraqi censors, was in Baghdad again in 2003. He seriously embarrassed himself in this interview, particularly with his statement that "Now, America is reapprasing the battlefield, delaying the war, maybe a week, and, and rewriting the war plan. The first war plan has failed, because of Iraqi resistance." The American news organizations for which he had been working, NBC News, MSNBC, and National Geographic Explorer, immediately fired him.

Seth Ashley, "Making the case for war: A comparative analysis of CNN and BBC coverage of Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council," Media, War and Conflict 8:1 (April 2015), pp. 120-140.

Chris Ayres, War Reporting for Cowards. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005. 280 pp. Ayres, a reporter for The Times of London, was not an appropriate choice to be embedded in a Marine unit going into Iraq in 2003.

Matthew A. Baum and Tim J. Groeling, War Stories: The Causes and Consequences of Public Views of War. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010.

Sara Beck and Malcolm Downing, eds., The Battle for Iraq: BBC News Correspondents on the War Against Saddam. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. 215 pp.

Bennett, W. Lance, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston, When the Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Katrina. University of Chicago Press, 2007. xiii, 263 pp.

Kevin J. Brogan, "Defense policy: An approach for exploring the military-media tension." Ph.D. dissertation, Public Administration and Policy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 2006. viii, 191 pp. AAT 3207956. Covers World War II, Vietnam, and the two US-Iraq Wars. Short, poorly documented, and based too much on what other authors say was in the media, not enough on looking for himself at what appeared in the media.

Jean-Marie Charon and Arnaud Mercier, Armes de communication massive: Informations de guerre en Irak: 1991-2003. CNRS Communication, 2004.

Torie Clarke, Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game. New York: Free Press, 2006. xii, 254 pp. Victoria Clarke was assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, in other words, Rumsfeld's press spokesperson, during the early part of the US war in Iraq.

David J.G. Clifton, "Weapons of Mass Destruction, Terrorism and Regime Change: Political Linguistics and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Joint Graduate Program in Communication and Culture, York University and Ryerson University, 2008. x, 353 pp. Compares television coverage of the Bush administation's case for war by Fox News, CNN, ABC, and PBS in the United States, with that by CBC and CTV in Canada.

Thomas Conroy and Jarice Hanson, eds., Constructing America's War Culture: Iraq, Media, and Images at Home. Lexington Books, 2007. 171 pp.

David A. Copeland, general editor, The Greenwood Library of American War Reporting. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2005. 8 vols.

Colin Coulter et al., "'These people protesting might not be so strident if their own jobs were on the line': Representations of the 'Economic Consequences' of Oppsition to the Iraq War in the Irish National Press," Media, War & Conflict 9:2 (August 2016), pp. 113-136.

The Daily Telegraph, War on Saddam: The Complete Story of the Iraq Campaign 2003. London: Robinson, 2003. 191 pp. Introduction by John Keegan; narrative by Ben Rooney; special reports by Michael Smith and Kim Fletcher.

Richard Engel, A Fist in the Hornet's Nest: On the Ground in Baghdad Before, During, and After the War. New York: Hyperion, 2004. 256 pp.

Richard Engel, War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008. 392 pp. An NBC Correspondent for part of the time he was in Iraq.

Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, Baghdad Bound: An Interpreter's Chronicles of the Iraq War. (Victoria, British Columbia? Bloomington, Indiana?): Trafford, 2004. 199 pp. Fahmy, an Egyptian, went to work for the Los Angeles Times as a translator in 2003. The main focus of the book is March and April 2003.

Mark Louis Finney, "And knowing is half the battle: How endorsements for war were hidden in CNN's coverage of the conflict with Iraq." Ph.D. dissertation, Journalism, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2007. vii, 265 pp. AAT 3273673.

Howard Friel and Richard Falk, The Record of the Paper: How the New York Times Misreports US Foreign Policy. London: Verso, 2004. x, 304 pp. The bulk of the book criticizes the New York Times for its support of the Iraq War, but there is one Vietnam chapter, with considerable discussion of Tonkin Gulf.

Micah Garen and Marie-Hélène Carleton, American Hostage: A Memoir of a Journalist Kidnapped in Iraq and the Remarkable Battle to Win His Release. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005. xii, 273 pp.

Anne Garrels, Naked in Baghdad: The Iraq War and the Aftermath as Seen by NPR's Correspondent. New York: Picador (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), 2004. x, 246 pp.

Ashley Gilbertson, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: A Photographer's Chronicle of the Iraq War. Introduction by Dexter Filkins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. 260 pp. Gilbertson, an Australian photojournalist, was in Kurdistan when the war broke out in 2003. He went south with Kurdish troops to Mosul. The photos in this book also cover the next several years, including the Battle of Fallujah.

Kendall D. Gott, ed., The US Army and the Media in Wartime: Historical Perspectives. Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2010. vi, 296 pp. The Proceedings of the Combat Studies Institute 2009 Military History Symposium. Includes transcripts of the question-and-answer sessions that followed each presentation.

Louann Haarman and Linda Lombardo, eds., Evaluation and Stance in War News: A Linguistic Analysis of American, British and Italian Television News Reporting of the 2003 Iraqi War. Continuum, 2009. 256 pp.

Michael Hastings, I Lost My Love in Baghdad: A Modern War Story. New York: Scribner, 2008. ix, 276 pp. Hastings was a Newsweek correspondent in Baghdad from 2005 to 2007. Some names have been changed.

Joseph R. Hayden, A Dubya in the Headlights: President George W. Bush and the Media. Lexington Books, 2009. 294 pp.

Mike Hoyt, Reporting Iraq: An Oral History of the War by the Journalists Who Covered It. Hoboken, New Jersey: Melville House, 2007. 187 pp.

Chris Hughes, Road Trip to Hell: Tabloid Tales of Saddam, Iraq and a Bloody War. (London?): Monday Books, 2006. xii, 260 pp. Hughes was a correspondent for the London Daily Mirror. The detailed account of his investigation of the shooting in Fallujah [4/28/03] looks important. (But he refers to US Marines; I thought it was 82d Airborne?) He was present at the second shooting incident, two days later.

Inside Iraq. A blog written by Iraqi journlists employed by the McClatchy Newspapers.

Deborah L. Jaramillo, Ugly War, Pretty Package: How CNN and Fox News Made the Invasion of Iraq High Concept. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. 272 pp.

Charles Jones, Red, White, or Yellow? The Media and the Military at War in Iraq. Stackpole, 2008. 255 pp.

Journalism.org. Web site of the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Yahya R. Kamalipour and Nancy Snow, eds., War, Media, and Propaganda: A Global Perspective. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004. xv, 261 pp.
P96.W352 W37 2004

Michael Kamber, Photojournalists on War: The Untold Stories from Iraq. Austin: university of Texas Press, 2013. 300 pp. Foreword by Dexter Filkins.

Bill Katovsky and Timothy Carlson, eds., Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq, an Oral History. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press (Globe Pequot Press), copyright 2003, Lyons Press edition 2004. xx, 422 pp.

Erika G. King, Obama, the Media, and Framing the U.S. Exit from Iraq and Afghanistan. Farnham, Surrey, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. 226 pp.

Phillip Knightley, The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth Maker From Crimea to Iraq. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. xiii, 594 pp. One chapter (pp 483-500) deals with Desert Shield/Storm. The last chapter (pp. 527- ) is "No More Heroes March-April, 2003". This is the third edition of a work originally published in 1975, which of course did not include the Iraq wars. [Alternate third edition? The information I have found on this one is confusing]: The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagandist, and Myth Maker from the Crimea to Iraq. London: André Deutsch, 2003. The last chapter is titled "No More Heroes: March-May 2003."

Olfa Lamloum, ed., Irak: Les medias en guerre. Paris: Sindbad/Actes Sud, 2003. 238 pp. Studies of the way the media in various countries covered the Iraq war of 2003. Pierre Vanrie on the Turkish press, Olfa Lamloum on al-Jazira, Henri Maler on the French press, . . .

Joris Luyendijk, People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East. New York: Soft Skull Press, 2009. 244 pp. Also published as Fit to Print: Misrepresenting the Middle East Scribe Publications, 2009. Dutch original was Het zijn net mensen. Netherlands: Uitgeerij Podium, 2006. Luyendijk, a Dutch reporter fluent in Arabic, says that the western media distort stories so as to support the conventional wisdom in the West. Includes Iraq, but that is not the main emphasis.

Justin Lewis, Rod Brookes, Nick Mosdell, and Terry Threadgold, Shoot First and Ask Questions Later: media coverage of the 2003 Iraq War. New York: Peter Lang, 2006. 224 pp.

Marc Lynch, Voices of the New Arab Public: Iraq, Al-Jazeera, and Middle East Politics Today. New York: Columbia University Press, 2006. xiv, 293 pp.

Paul McGeough, In Baghdad: A Reporter's War. Crow's Nest, NSW, Australia: Allen & Unwin, 2003. x, 292 pp. McGeough, a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, arrived in Baghdad well before the beginning of the war in 2003.

Kazuhiro Maeshima, "Japanese and U.S. Media Coverage of the Iraq War: A Comparative Analysis." Ph.D. dissertation, Government and Politics, University of Maryland, College Park, 2007. vii, 286 pp. AAT 3277408.

Sarah Maltby, Military Media Management: Negotiating the 'front' line in mediatized war. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2012. vii, 132 pp.

Ahmed Mansour, Inside Fallujah: The Unembedded Story. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press (Interlink Publishing Group), 2009. xiii, 359 pp. Mansour, a reporter for al Jazeera, covered the first battle of Fallujah from inside the city. He also discusses the second battle, but did not witness it. Very critical of the Americans.

Michael Massing, Now They Tell Us: The American Press and Iraq. New York: New York Review Books, 2004. xviii, 91 pp. Preface by Orville Schell. The bulk of the book is three articles (one of them somewhat modified) originally published in the New York Review of Books in 2003 and 2004.

Peter Millership and Reuters Staff(?), Under Fire: Untold Stories from the Front Line of the Iraq War. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003 or 2004.

Greg Mitchell, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits—and the President—Failed in Iraq. Foreword by Joseph E. Galloway. New York: Union Square Press, 2008. 320 pp.

Paul L. Moorcraft and Philip M. Taylor, Shooting the Messenger: The Political Impact of War Reporting. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2008.

John Morley and Paul Bayley, eds., Corpus-Assisted Discourse Studies on the Iraq War: Wording the War. Routledge (Taylor & Francis), 2009. 334 pp.

NBC News; Marc Kusnetz, William M. Arkin, General Montgomery Meigs, and Neal Shapiro, Operation Iraqi Freedom: 22 Days in Words and Pictures. Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2003. xvii, 238 pp., plus a DVD.

Robert D. Novak, The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington. Crown Forum, 2007. 662 pp.

Lt. Col. Michael J. Oehl, Embedded Media: Failed Test or the Future of Military/Media Relations? Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2004. vi, 16 pp. Military-media relations from Vietnam to the 2003 Iraq War.

Chester Pach, "From Vietnam to Iraq: The First Television War and Its Legacies," in Lawrence Sondhaus and A. James Fuller, eds., America, War and Power: Defining the State, 1775-2005 (Routledge, 2009).

Katy Parry, "The first 'Clean' war? Visually framing civilian casualties in the British Press during the 2003 Iraq invasion," Journal of War & Culture Studies 5:2 (October 2012), pp. 173-87.

Michael Pasquarett et al., eds., Perspectives on Embedded Media: Selected Papers from U.S. Army War College Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, (2004?). vi, 106 pp.

Chris Paterson, War Reporters under Threat: The United States and Media Freedom. London: Pluto Press, 2014. 216 pp.

Lila Rajiva, The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American Media. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005. 224 pp.

Dan Rather and the Reporters of CBS News, America at War: The Battle for Iraq: A View from the Frontlines. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. xiv, 162 pp. plus a DVD of CBS News coverage. Goes up through May of 2003.

Thomas Rid, War and Media Operations: The US Military and the Press from Vietnam to Iraq. Routledge, 2007. 226 pp. (Cass Military Studies).

Piers Robinson, Peter Goddard, Katy Parry, Craig Murray, and Philip M. Taylor, Pockets of Resistance: British News Media, War and Theory in the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Manchester University Press, 2010.

James Rodgers, "Capturing Saddam Hussein: How the full story got away, and what conflict journalism can learn from it," Journal of War & Culture Studies 4:2 (September 2011), pp. 179-91.

Trudy Rubin, Willful Blindness: The Bush Administration and Iraq. Philadelphia: The Philadelphis Inquirer, 2004. xvii, 330, XIII pp. A collection of columns published between July 2002 and July 2004, by a foreign affairs columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Josh Rushing, with Sean Elder, Mission Al Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. x, 233 pp. Rushing, as a U.S. Marine, was a media liaison. After leaving the corps, he was hired by Al-Jazeera.

Lee Salter, "Problems of news culture and truth: The BBC's representation of the invasion of Iraq," Journal of War & Culture Studies 4:2 (September 2011), pp. 161-77.

Danny Schechter, When News Lies: Media Complicity and the Iraq War. SelectBooks, 2006. 176 pp.

Angela Smith and Michael Higgins, "Strategy, evasion and performance in the live two-way: Kate Adie reporting from Iraq for the BBC," Journal of War & Culture Studies 5:2 (October 2012), pp. 203-18.

Jackie Spinner, with Jenny Spinner, Tell Them I Didn't Cry: A Young Journalist's Story of Joy, Loss, and Survival in Iraq. New York: Scribner, 2006. xviii, 265 pp. Jackie spinner arrived in Iraq in May 2004 as a junior reporter for the Washington Post; she and stayed nine months.

Julian Stallabrass, Killing for Show: Photography, War, and the Media in Vietnam and Iraq. Lanham, MD and London: Rowmand & Littlefield, 2020. xxv, 325 pp.

Colonel Glenn T. Starnes, USMC, "Leveraging the Media: the Embedded Media Program in Operation Iraqi Freedom." Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 2004. v, 20 pp. A revised version of this paper was published in Marine Corps Gazette, February 2005, pp. 51- .

Bruno Stevens, Baghdad: Truth Lies Within. Texts by Jon Lee Anderson (of the New Yorker), Monica Garcia Prieto (of El Mundo), and John G. Morris (of the New York Times). Ghent: Ludion, 2004. 239 pp. A photo book.

Ann Marie Strahm, "Prestige Press Reporting of War and Occupation: Enemy Combatants or a Coalition of the Willing?" Ph.D. dissertation, Sociology, University of Oregon, 2007. xvi, 241 pp. AAT 3259284. Looks at the way the New York Times and the Washington Post covered the occupation of Iraq, May 2003 through June 2004. Argues that these newspapers were generally supportive of U.S. government policy.

Steve Tatham, Losing Arab Hearts and Minds: The Coalition, Al Jazeera and Muslim Public Opinion. London: C. Hurst, 2006. 239 pp. Tatham was a British press spokesman in Iraq. He is critical of U.S. policy, particularly the U.S. handling of the Arab media.

Ian Taylor, "Local press reporting of opposition to the 2003 Iraq War in the UK and the case for reconceptualizing notions of legitimacy and deviance," Journal of War & Culture Studies 7:1 (February 2014), pp. 36-53.

"Scott Thomas" (pseudonym; real name Scott Thomas Beauchamp). Early in 2007, The New Republic began publishing occasional articles under this name, written by an American soldier currently serving in Iraq. The articles reflected poorly on the U.S. military. In July 2007, The Weekly Standard raised doubts about the truthfulness of the articles and the identity of the author.

Marilyn Thomsen, "The Education of War: How Covering War Impacts Journalists' Understanding of Their Mission." Ph.D. dissertation, Claremont Graduate University, 2007. x, 231 pp. AAT 3254344. Based primarily on interviews with seventeen American journalists who had covered the U.S. war in Iraq since March 2003.

Howard Tumber and Jerry Palmer, Media at War: The Iraq Crisis. Sage, 2004.

John Walcott, "Why the Press Failed on Iraq—And How One Team of Reporters Got It Right," Foreign Affairs, 3/19/2023. Walcott was DC bureau chief for Knight-Ridder at the time of September 11, and handled national security coverage. His bureau quickly became sceptical of the Bush administraion's case for war against Iraq.

Denice Corinne Walker, "Form and Ideology: Human Interest Journalism and the U.S. Print Media's Coverage of U.S. Military Deaths in the Iraq War, 2003-2007." Ph.D. dissertation, Journalism, University of Colorado at Boulder, 2010. DA 3419519.

Martin Walker, ed., The Iraq War, As Witnessed by the Correspondents and Photographers of United Press International. Washington, D.C.: Brassey's, 2004. xvi, 224 pp., plus unpaginated color plates at the end.

Gina Wilkinson, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sky: Domesticity, Danger and Deadlines – Confessions of a Foreign Correspondent in Iraq. East Street Publications, 2007. 368 pp.

 

The Second U.S. - Iraq War: Medical and Stress Issues

SPC Michael Anthony, Mass Casualties: A Young Medic's True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq. Avon, Massachusetts: Adams Media, 2009. xv, 234 pp. Names and some other details have been changed, and I was unable to find, in a brief skim, any indication of the dates Anthony served in Iraq.

Bridget C. Cantrell, Down Range: To Iraq and Back. Foreword by Lt. Col. (Ret.) Dave Grossman. WordSmith, 2005. PTSD and related issues.

Christopher P. Coppola (compiled by Meredith Coppola), Made a Difference for That One: A Surgeon's Letters Home from Iraq. New York: iUniverse, 2005. xiv, 132 pp.

Holly Doyne, Kuwait Diary: Email from the Desert Camps. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2006. 523 pp. Doyne was command surgeon at ARCENT-Kuwait, at Camp Doha, Kuwait, beginning in the spring of 2003.

Lisa H. Farber-Silk, Giving My Heart: Love in a Military Family. Ann Arbor, MI: Modern History Press, 2008. 106 pp. Ms. Farber-Silk was married to a soldier who served in both of the US-Iraq wars. He returned from the second US-Iraq War with PTSD that destroyed the marriage.

Erin P. Finley, Fields of Combat: Understanding PTSD among Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ithca, NY: ILR Press, 2011. xiii, 221 pp.

Deanna Germain, with Connie Lounsbury, Reaching Past the Wire: A Nurse at Abu Ghraib. St. Paul, Minnesota: Borealis Books, 2007. 224 pp. Lt. Col. Germain was a nursing supervisor, after the period of the famous abuse. She was mobilized in Feb 2003, sent to Kuwait in April. In April 2004, at the end of a one-year tour in Kuwait, she was within hours of flying back to the United States when informed that she was being extended for 120 days. She was sent to Iraq, assigned to Abu Ghraib.

Robert Gray, Remember Me. Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2005. 406 pp. Gray, an officer, served in an ambulance unit.

Claire Habenstreit, et al., "Latent classes of PTSD symptoms in Iraq and Afghanistan female veterans," Journal of Affective Disorders, September 2014.

Dr. Dave Hnida, Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010. 304 pp. Dr. Hnida served two tours in Iraq, the first beginning in 2004.

Michael C. Hodges, M.D., A Doctor Looks at War: My Year in Iraq. Tate, 2006. 198 pp. Hodges was in Iraq 2003 to 2004.

Charles W. Hoge, MD, Colonel, U.S. Army (Ret.), Once a Warrior Always a Warrior: Navigating the Transition from Combat to Home, Including Combat Stress, PTSD, and mTBI. Globe Pequot Press, 2010.

Charles W. Hoge, et. al., "Combat Duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mental Health Problems, and Barriers to Care." New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 351, no. 1 (July 1, 2004), pp. 23-32. Soldiers returning from Iraq had higher rates of combat exposure, and higher rates of PTSD, than soldiers returning from Afghanistan. An editorial by Matthew J. Friedman, "Acknowledging the Psychiatric Cost of War," on pp. 75-77 of the same issue, comments on the article.

Allan C. Horwitz, PTSD: A Short History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018. xv, 238 pp.

House Committee on Armed Services

House Committee on Foreign Affairs

House Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Isabel G. Jacobson et al., "Longitudinal Assessment of Gender Differences in the Development of PTSD Among US Military Personnel Deployed in Support of the Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan," Journal of Psychiatric Research, June 2015.

Cdr. Richard Jadick, with Thomas Hayden, On Call in Hell: A Doctor's Iraq War Story. New York: NAL Caliber (Penguin), 2007. 275 pp. As battalion surgeon with the 1/8 Marines May 2004 to January 2005, Jadick did surgery much farther forward than was normal, during the battle for Fallujah.

Carrie H. Kennedy and Eric A. Zillmer, eds., Military Psychology: Clinical and Operational Applications, 2d. ed. New York: Guilford Press, 2012. xviii, 409 pp.

Heidi Squier Kraft, Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital. Boston: Little, Brown, 2007. x, 243 pp. Navy Lt. Commander/Dr. Kraft, a clinical psychologist, was sent to Iraq early in 2004 to work in a combat hospital at Al Asad Air Base. Names have been changed.

Elissa M. Lonsdale, Blood, Tears, and IV's: Memoirs of a U.S. Army Medic in Operation Iraqi Freedom. PublishAmerica, 2005. 107 pp. Sergeant Lonsdale, serving with the 173d Airborne Brigade, arrived in Iraq in July 2003.

Susan Luz, with Marcus Brotherton, The Nightingale of Mosul: A Nurse's Journey of Service, Struggle, and War. Kaplan Publishing, 2010. 256 pp. Luz, an Army nurse, was sent to Iraq in 2006.

Shira Maguen, et al., "Gender Differences in Suicide and Suicide Attempts among US Army Soldiers," Psychiatry Research, February 2015.

Thomas A. Middleton, Saber's Edge: A Combat Medic in Ramadi, Iraq. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2009. 248 pp. A Vermont fireman mobilized and sent to Iraq with a National Guard unit in 2004.

Bret A. Moore and Walter E. Penk, eds., Treating PTSD in Military Personnel: A Clinical Handbook. New York: Guilford Press, 2011.

David J. Morris, The Evil Hours: A Biography of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 352 pp.

Occupational and environmental health surveillance of deployed forces: tracking toxic casualties. Hearing before the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations of the Committee on Government Reform, House of Representatives, July 19, 2005. iii, 214 pp.
Y 4.G 74/7:OC 1/15

Elizabeth R. Packnett, "Temporal Trends in the Epidemiology of Disabilities Related to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps from 2005-2010," Journal of Traumatic Stress 25:5 (December 2012), pp. 485-493.

Daryl S. Paulson, "An investigation into the psychological effects of the U.S. occupation of Iraq on American troops." Ph.D. dissertation, Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, 2008. 157 pp. AAT 3304167. Based on twelve veterans in Bozeman, Montana, who were suffering PTSD after service as reservists in Iraq. Paulson, who had previously worked with Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD, says the Iraq veterans show different symptoms; he believes this is because the trauma is so much more recent.

Daryl S. Paulson and Stanley Krippner, Haunted by Combat: Understanding PTSD in War Veterans Including Women, Reservists, and Those Coming Back from Iraq. Praeger, 2007. 177 pp.

Dave Philipps, "The Gunners Who Came Home Damaged," New York Times, November 5, 2023, p. 1. US artillerymen sent to Syria in 2016 and 2017 to fight the Islamic State fired very large numbers of rounds per man in a fairly short period because the US was using artillery a lot but trying to minimize the number of US personnel in Syria. Many of them apparently suffered serious organic brain damage, of a previously unknown type, inflicted by the shock waves from their own weapons. This article looks important to me. A version of it incorporating a lot of photos and short video clips, titled "A Secret War, Strange New Wounds, and Silence from the Pentagon" was published online.

Joseph R. Phillips, ed., Hidden wounds: traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder in service members. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2011. viii, 153 pp.

Mark A. Reger, et al., "Risk of Suicide Among US Military Service Members Following Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom Deployment and Separation From the US Military", JAMA Psychiatry, April 1, 2015. A study of suicide rates among people who had served in the U.S. military between 2001 and 2007. Found that the suicide rate was not higher among those who had been deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan, but was higher among those who had left the military, especially those who had left after less than four years of service, or with a less than honorable discharge.

Commander Sheri Snively, D.Min., CHC, USNR, Heaven in the Midst of Hell: A Quaker Chaplain's View of the War in Iraq. San Diego: Raven Oaks Press, 2010. 269 pp. Snively served at a hospital and morgue at Al Taqqadum, between Ramadi and Fallujah in Anbar province. Many photographs.

Jayakanth Srinivasan and Christopher Ivany, Helping Soldiers Heal: How the US Army Created a Learning Mental Health Care System. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2021. viii, 198 pp.

Celia Straus, Hidden Battles on Unseen Fronts: Stories of American Soldiers with Traumatic Brain Injury and PTSD. Havertown, PA: Casemate, 2009. 275 pp.

Robert F. Worth, "What if PTSD Is More Physical Than Psychological?" New York Times Magazine, 6/12/2016. The title is a bit misleading. The article is an extremely interesting look at recent research on the damage done by explosive blasts to the human brain. It suggests that symptoms actually caused by physical damage to the brain often have been mistakenly blamed on the emotional damage of PTSD, but it treats these as distinct problems.

 

Fiction

Sinan Antoon is an Iraqi novelist, poet, and scholar of Arabic literature who immigrated to the United States after operation Desert Storm, but returned briefly to Iraq in 2003. He has written several novels, most of which deal in whole or in part with the period of the American occupation.

Michael L. Burgoyne and Albert J. Marckwardt, The Defense of Jisr al-Doreaa, with E.D. Swinton's The Defense of Duffer's Drift. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. 178 pp. This is fiction, but supposedly a very good representation of the nature of combat in Iraq.

Stacey Peebles, Welcome to the Suck: Narrating the American Soldier's Experience in Iraq. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011. Looks at the way the was had been portrayed in memoirs, novels, and films.

Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad. New York: Penguin, 2018. 288 pp. A bizarre fantasy, set in Baghdad during the American occupation.

 

Writing a Term Paper in Military History.

Vietnam War Bibliography (this is better than the Iraq Wars Bibliography you are reading right now; I am much more expert on the Vietnam War).

Edwin Moïse Home Page.

U.S. Army Foreign Military Studies Office Analytical Products web page. A diverse online collection of articles and documents, most of them previously published somewhere.

 

Opinions expressed in this page are my own. They could not very well be the opinions of Clemson University, which does not have opinions on the subjects involved. And they may be wrong in some cases; please bear in mind that I am not a genuine expert on Iraq or the Middle East.
Edwin E. Moïse 

Copyright © 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, Edwin E. Moise. This document may be reproduced only by permission. Revised January 19, 2025.