Quote Originally Posted by Cavguy View Post
Got my copy of Tom Ricks' The Gamble from Amazon today. Read halfway through so far, it's a fascinating read.
I recommend the read thus far.
Just finished it on the plane home. Made me wonder whether we could have done more back in 04. I vividly remember a conversation with my boss shortly before AL FAJR as we ducked outside for a smoke and he posed the big "what can we do better" question. Being an Aussie it was pretty easy to be flippant when dealing with the big US machine but after a couple of Marlborough's (although he smoked a pipe which was kinda weird) we'd come to the conclusion that greatest single asset the US had in the Iraq fight was money ... we were spending heaps but it was all just horribly directed. Based on that (and several other conversations) he actually fired up the line a proposal to just buy our way to success by paying every swinging dick to get them employed and give them something to do ... sort of where the SOI plan got to. Coming so close to the nightmare that Fallujah had turned into following the 'hands off secure yourselves' approach it never got past his boss.

The Gamble is also a really interesting discussion for the ethics classes I'm currently embroiled in at Staff College. At what point can I as an officer just disregard an order, particularly after already injecting an opposing POV and being told to get on with it? It appears, based on the book that it is exactly the decision Odierno took with regard to the security presence. If it’s correct, the title of the book maybe the largest understatement in the whole publication.