Shock and Awe: Analyzing the war in Iraq

The Iraq War, by Williamson Murray and Robert Scales (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2003). 312 pp. $25.95.

Williamson Murray and Robert Scales' The Iraq War is the best available account of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It is an engaging book, one that not only chronicles the events of the war, but also gives the reader a good sense of the participants.

Both authors possess an intimate knowledge of the U.S. armed forces. Murray is a well-respected military historian who served as the principal author of the operations volume of the Gulf War Air Power Survey, the U.S. Air Force's official study of the 1991 Gulf War. Scales is a retired Army Major General who was the chief author of Certain Victory, the U.S. Army's official history of the same war. Murray is a former professor of strategy at the U.S. Naval War College; Scales is a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College.

It is likely that future historians will view the 2003 Iraq War as but one phase of a protracted conflict between the United States and its allies, on the one hand, and Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist government, on the other. The course of this conflict spans the 1991 Gulf War, a Cold War punctuated by military strikes in the years that followed, the 2003 Iraq War, and now an insurgency. It is misleading to view one phase of this protracted conflict in isolation, just as it would be impossible to understand World War II without reference to World War I and the interwar years. With that in mind, Murray and Scales devote the prologue and first chapter of The Iraq War to the 1991 Gulf War and the period of uneasy containment that followed.

The authors arrange their account of the 2003 Iraq War functionally, with chapters devoted to the U.S. ground campaign in southern Iraq, British operations in the south, the air war, and the end of the campaign. Throughout, the emphasis is on ground and air operations; the Navy's role in the war barely gets a mention and special forces, discussed at greater length below, also appear only on the margins. The focus is on the conduct of the war itself, as opposed to the planning and diplomacy that shaped the war and its aftermath. In recognition of the quest for "lessons learned," the authors conclude with a chapter examining the political and military implications of the war. Particularly valuable are a series of color maps and photos that accompany the text.

The historian seeking to chronicle the Iraq War faces three significant challenges. The first is the secrecy with which aspects of the war were fought. While the conflict featured the widespread use of embedded reporters, it also saw extensive use of special operations forces. However, because exceedingly little information on their activities has come to light, it is impossible to gauge accurately their contribution to the coalition's success. For example, while American, British, and Australian special operations forces were given responsibility for all of western Iraq, in effect commanding their own front, their activities receive only a single paragraph in The Iraq War. U.S. Navy SEALs played a vital role in securing Iraq's oil export infrastructure, the sabotage of which would have led to an ecological disaster and hampered the reconstruction of Iraq. However, the operation receives barely a mention.

A second challenge is the role of intelligence in the war. News accounts have hinted, for example, at extensive CIA efforts to get Iraqi army units to defect. The state and disposition of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the extent of the Iraqi regime's contacts with terrorist groups remain topics of controversy. While Scales and Murray touch on such issues, a more comprehensive assessment will only come in time.

Third, there is much about the Iraqi side of the war that we do...