Two long essays that, taken together along with Michael Isikoff and David Corn‘s book, Hubris, and Frank Rich‘s The Greatest Story Ever Sold, are essential to understanding the history of our misadventure in Iraq.
The first, Mark Danner’s “Iraq: The War of Imagination,” comes courtesy of The New York Review of Books. Danner has been one of the most important reporters writing on the war, a war in which the best writing has taken place away from the news pages and in opinion journals and on the editorial and op-ed pages. It is a long essay, as I said, even by NYRB standards, but read it anyway.
The second, Nir Rosen’s disection of the descent into civil war — “Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq’s descent into chaos” — ran in The Boston Review and is one of the few dispatches from the war zone that avoids the trap of partisanism or sentimentality. It is a hard-headed piece that should make everyone feel just a little discomfort.
Read them and weep. Literally.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 
There are good points in the articles. I would like to supplement them with some information:I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armements”http://www.rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.comThe Pentagon is a giant,incredibly complex establishment,budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Adminisitrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the Sec. Def. to be – Mr. Gates- understand such complexity, particulary if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?Answer- he can’t. Therefor he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups. From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results. This situation is unfortunate but it is ablsolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen unitil it hits a brick wall at high speed. We will then have to run a Volkswagon instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.