No End in Sight: Iraq's Descent into Chaos

by Charles Ferguson

Overview

The first book of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule, criminality, and anarchy, No End In Sight is a shocking story of wholesale incompetence, recklessness, and venality.

Culled from over 200 hours of footage collected for the film, the book provides a candid and alarming retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials, Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts. Together, these voices reveal the principal errors of U.S. policy that largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today -- and what we could and should do about them now.

No End In Sight marks the first time Americans will be allowed inside the White House, Pentagon, and Baghdad's Green Zone to understand for themselves the disintegration of Iraq -- and how arrogance and ignorance turned a military victory into a seemingly endless and deepening nightmare of a war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780786732340
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	02/23/2009
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	672
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Charles Ferguson is director and producer of No End in Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq, which is his first film. A political scientist and strategic consultant, Ferguson co-founded one of the earliest Internet software companies, Vermeer Technologies, which he eventually sold to Microsoft. Ferguson is a visiting scholar of political science at MIT and UC Berkeley, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a director of the French-American Foundation. He is the author of three books on information technology.

Table of Contents

Preface     vii
Preparation and Invasion
War     3
Prewar Planning     24
Orha     71
The Looting     104
Occupation
Bremer Begins     141
One Fateful Decision: The Disbanding of the Iraqi Military     163
The Police, Crime, and the Security Vacuum     234
The Civilian Occupation and the CPA     266
Insurgency, Militias, and Sectarian Violence     312
The Military Occupation     370
Where do We Go from Here?
Consequences     409
Current and Future U.S. Policy in Iraq     463
Epilogue: Reflections     517
Acknowledgments     565
A Brief History of Iraq before the War     569
Timeline of the War in Iraq     577
Contributors and Key Actors     587
Statistical Graphs     615
Name Index     629
About the Author     641

Editorial Reviews

Now he has taken the material he collected from more than 50 interviews, expanded and updated it with additional interviews, and added his own interpolated commentary and a charming introduction, and produced a book also titled "No End In Sight" that, in its way, is as powerful as his movie, and equally heartbreaking.

New York Times Book Review

Charles Ferguson's 2007 documentary, "No End in Sight," was…a powerful and heartbreaking film. Ferguson introduced us to well-intentioned, intelligent people who took the White House at its word and went to Iraq to build a decent postwar society. He showed how they had their legs cut out from under them every step of the way by arrogant ideologues in Washington. Now he has taken the material he collected from more than 50 interviews, expanded and updated it with additional interviews, added his own interpolated commentary and a charming introduction, and produced a book also titled No End in Sight that, in its way, is as powerful as his movie, and equally heartbreaking…Ferguson is an expert interviewer—smart, attentive, persistent. He does his homework before he sits down with a subject so that he can ask the right questions. Most important, he is no partisan (he was an ambivalent supporter of the war). Ferguson is genuinely interested in getting at the truth. He wants to know exactly what went wrong.
—The New York Times

Barry Gewen

When the Bush administration launched a full-scale war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in 2003, it argued, among other things, that the removal of the Iraqi dictator would usher in a new democracy in that country. Iraq's democratization, in turn, would have a ripple effect throughout the Middle East. This prediction has not materialized, and Iraq today has degenerated into a country of dubious cohesion and monumental socioeconomic and political problems. Some commentators have blamed the Iraq War on the interventionist and militaristic thrust of Washington's foreign policy, while others have attributed Iraq's current problems to the failure of adequate planning and post-reconstruction endeavors. Ferguson, a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, here expands a documentary film of the same title that he wrote and directed, producing a highly informative and fascinating work. Most of those interviewed had not completely opposed the invasion of Iraq but are now critical of the war's conduct. Drawing on the film's footage and numerous additional interviews with high-level officials, journalists, and many others involved in the formulation and conduct of the war, Ferguson portrays a devastating picture of arrogance and incompetence that has led to Iraq's chaotic condition today. Recommended for academic and public libraries.
—Nader Entessar

Library Journal