The Gamble

I recently picked up a copy of Thomas Ricks' The Gamble - General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008. I began reading The Gamble this week and found it very much an advantage to have read Fiasco, Ricks' previous book on the Iraq War. General David Petraeus being central to the book, I also have found it helpful to have read In the Company of Soldiers, Rick Atkinson's book about the 101st Airborne in Iraqi Freedom (Petraeus commanded the 101st during that time).

I'll have more to say on The Gamble after I finish reading it, but I found it interesting that Ricks relates a story of one Republican Senator breaking with the Bush line in Iraq after reading Keegan's history of World War I, which I have just finished re-reading. The Senator compared the BEF's General's repeated attacks into German trench defenses to the US Military's resistance to change in Iraq.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net