notes to pages 273‒277 413
Memoir of Two Iraq Wars (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009). Because
few documents about the Iraq War have been declassifi ed to date, analysts
have relied heavily on several fi ne works by journalists as well as a number
of memoirs by former members of the Bush administration. Both should
be regarded with caution. Many insiders who speak to reporters seek
favorable treatment in their books, while memoirs often have a
self-exculpatory purpose, especially when the authors have become the
target of criticism. Besides Gordon and Trainor, see Th omas E. Ricks,
Fiasco: Th e American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin
Books, 2006, 2007) ; Th omas E. Ricks, Th e Gamble: General David
Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 (New
York: Penguin, 2009) ; Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon
and Schuster, 2002, 2003) ; Bob Woodward, State of Denial: Bush at War,
Part III (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006) ; Bob Woodward, Th e War
Within: A Secret White House History, 2006–2008 (New York: Simon and
Schuster, 2008).
- For a detailed account of the diplomatic and military preparations that
culminated in the Gulf War, see Gary R. Hess, Presidential Decisions for
War: Korea, Vietnam, and the Persian Gulf (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2001), chap. 5.
- Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II , 12.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , 202, 205–6.
- Th e Guard’s successful escape owed to several factors. One was the so-
called fog of battle: American commanders believed they had engaged
and destroyed a signifi cant portion of the Republican Guard in Kuwait.
Leaders in Washington also worried that ongoing attacks on retreating
Iraqi troops would generate images of senseless slaughter of fl eeing soldiers.
- Hess, Presidential Decisions for War , chap. 6; Ricks, Fiasco , 4–6.
- Th e belief that the dictator had retained WMD extended to members
of his inner circle, who were later dismayed to learn on the eve of the
American invasion in 2003 that no such weapons existed. Gordon and
Trainor, Cobra II , 118.
- Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II , 55.
- Gideon Rose, How Wars End: Why We Always Fight the Last Battle (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 2010), 241.
- Ricks, Fiasco , 18–19; Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II , 13, 26.
- Ricks, Fiasco , 15.
- Gary R. Hess, Presidential Decisions for War: Korea, Vietnam, the Persian
Gulf, and Iraq , 2nd ed. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
2009), 225–26 ; Dina Badie, “Groupthink, Iraq, and the War on Terror:
Explaining US Policy Shift toward Iraq,” Foreign Policy Analysis 6 (2010):
277–96, at 282.
- Gordon and Trainor, Cobra II , 12–13.
- Rose, How Wars End , 241–42.
