Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib

Rating:
Summary: What journalism USED to be like...
Review: Having recently read this book after purchasing it at my local book store, I decided to log onto Amazon.com to see what other readers thought of it. At first I was a little surprised to see the rating so low, but I quickly ascertained the reason for this. [...]

In this book "Chain of Command" Seymore Hersh turns his intense journalistic eye on the workings of the post 9-11 terror prison network and proceeds to dissect virtually every development in the anti-terror Special Access Programs since the attacks on NYC and the Pentagon. While Hersh may have a political agenda and may be of a liberal bent, the fact that so many of the heros of his book are politicans (both liberal and conservative), soldiers, marines, contractors, and federal agents is telling. Instead of making sweeping generalizations or accepting administration statements at face value, he delicately probes each turn and development in the evolution of the SAP and anti-terror project. As such, when he makes statements such as his belief that elements within the Pentagon and the administration are directly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and in Afghanistan, he does so with the assurance that he is grounded in the facts of the case.

Contrary to what critics maintain, Hersh is not merely regurgitating slant (as so many conservatives would have us believe) but is merely reporting the facts as they surfaced. An example of this is Rumsfeldt's quotation that the Abu Ghraib scandal wouldn't hurt the administration and that he wasn't worried about it, coupled with Rumsfeldt's sudden about-face a few days later. Of course, conservative defenders of the administration might maintain that this is because Rumsfeldt was unaware of the situation, Hersh also points out that the Abu Ghraib investigations had been an open secret for months and that it is hard to believe that the upper levels of the administration knew nothing about it.

In short, this book is a fine and refreshing breath of something which has been clearly lacking in recent years: actual, investigative JOURNALISM which, while interested in obtaining as much information and as many views as possible, is not afraid to deploy a keen sense of critical thinking and analysis. In an era in which journalism and media coverage has become obsessed with an idea of articifial "neutrality" and as such has suspended judgement and disbelief in favor of merely repeating anything anyone says without question, Seymore Hersh has the courage to sit down and actually analise the various arguements he comes across with an open mind. As such, it can come as little surprise that the best conservative commentators (such as the ones below) can do is assasinate his character and accuse him of hating America and siding with the terrorists.

As to the assertion of the commentator below...
1) The Schlesinger panel did NOT absolve the army or higher ups and did not lay the blame at the feet of the small group of soldiers. Rather, it found (among other things) that Rumsfeld and his entourage was deliberatly responsible for confusion as to what was and was not permissible in terms of interrogation techniques, leading to abuses at Abu Ghraib. Accoring to the report "there is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels."
2) Getting wired, having electrodes placed on your genetalia, being covered in faeces, being bitten by attack dogs, being water boarded, being sodomized with a chem light, being forced to perform sex acts in public and against your will is NOT a "little college fraternity prank," it is a war crime. If you think that Abu Ghraib is a college dorm, you are way off.
3) Hersh's point is that the army and Sanchez specifically DID NOT act in Janurary, or at least, not in a manner that solved anything. Sure, Sanchez comissioned an investigation or two, but the fact of the matter is that these investigations went nowhere, their conclusions were ignored, and that nothing happened to correct the problem until the photos went public. Perhaps if you'd actually read the book and actually cared about thinking critically, you'd know this.

Rating:
Summary: Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib
Review: Based on previously published articles and supplemented by fresh revelations, this book by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Hersh, who writes for The New Yorker and has authored several books (The Dark Side of Camelot, etc.), charges the Bush administration with being propelled by ideology and hamstrung by incompetence in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas. One former intelligence official observes that the Bush administration staffers behaved ¿as if they were on a mission from God,¿ while another laments, ¿The guys at the top are as ignorant as they could be.¿ It¿s no surprise, then, that the dissenters want to talk or that the Hersh, who has a reputation for integrity and enviable inside access, ferrets them out, assembling critiques from diverse, mostly unidentified sources at home and abroad. According to Hersh, the dire conditions that ¿enemy combatants¿ suffered at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, presaged detainee abuses at Baghdad¿s Abu Ghraib prison. Hersh reveals the depravities purportedly occurring at Guantánamo and argues that Donald Rumsfeld wasn¿t the only one responsible for what happened at Abu Ghraib: ¿the President and Vice President had been in it, and with him, all the way.¿ The book also covers some familiar ground, exploring pre-9/11 intelligence oversights and the administration¿s misconception that Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Israel, Turkey and the Kurds would jump on the democracy bandwagon after the invasion of Iraq. But Hersh reserves his sharpest words for President Bush, suggesting the ¿terrifying possibility¿ that ¿words have no meaning for this President beyond the immediate moment, and so he believes that his mere utterance of the phrases makes them real.¿ Hersh¿s critics may dismiss these explosive, less than objective conclusions. For others, however, this sobering book is the closest anyone without a security clearance will get to operatives in the inner sanctums of America¿s intelligence, military, political and diplomatic worlds.

Rating:
Summary: The Weakest Link
Review: If I had to sum up how I feel about this book in one word it would be Drama. From the cover art and dust jacket description to the particular writing style of the author, it all adds up to a book that almost had pregnant pauses built into the chapters. I felt like in stead of reading a book I could have been just as easily in a dark bar with the author breathlessly telling me his story. He takes on big subjects so there is a built in level of seriousness, but he does tend to write the book to be a bit tense. He basically follows along the first term of the Bush 2 administration from the 9/11 attacks to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The author has always been know as someone who gets the good stories and has excellent connections within the military and this comes through in the book.

The author starts the book with a review of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and to be fair I do not think there were too many unreported items that he details. As a matter of fact with all the coverage over the summer of the scandal, the book coverage was more of a review. He then spends a good deal of time talking about the lack of coordinated intelligence and law enforcement issues that were taking place pre 9/11 that is part allowed the terrorists to succeed. With the 9/11 commission report covering this area in more detail, I felt this area again was more repeat then anything new. What I did find new was his coverage of the Afghanistan war and the current situation. He brought up a number of interesting issues and paints a very bleak picture for that part of the world in the next decade.

The author also gives the reader a lot of info on the Iraq war especially with the original war plan and how the Secretary of Defense was getting his hands dirty with the war planning process. The author has a straight talking way of presenting information so you know were he sits with each issue and person. With that said there are few if any people in the book that the author has less love for then the Secretary of Defense. Overall I found the book to be very informative, well written and enjoyable to read. The picture the author paints is not very pleasant and is backed up by any number of other books and news reporting. If you are interested in current events and you do not mind books critical of the current administration, then I would suggest this book.


Rating:
Summary: The Lies And Obsessions That Led America Into Iraq
Review: In this book the author, Seymour Hersh, presents a devastating portrait of an administration blinded by ideology and of a President whose decisions have made the world a more dangerous place for America. The author answers the question "How did America get from the morning when hijackers crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to a divisive war in Iraq that has little to do with what happened on 9/11?"



Rating:
Summary: Journalism At Its Finest
Review: It looks to me like the one star reviews are all from the same person. The wording is much the same, the dates of submission are much the same, and the bogus reviewer names are much the same. Filter out the 1's, and you've got a book with deservedly high ranking.

That being said, "Chain of Command" represents perhaps the best distillation of all of the evidence against George W. Bush and his imperialistic Administration. If you haven't got the time to read all of the other factual accounts of Bush's misdeeds, from Bob Woodward's numerous books to former CIA agent Robert Baer's "Sleeping With The Enemy," "Chain of Command" can serve as the Best (Worst) of Bush in one volume.

Again, ignore the rantings of the one star dimwits who are afraid of the truth.

Rating:
Summary: Damning indictment of the Bush Era
Review: Ladies and gentlemen, everything you think you know about the War on Terror is wrong. This book goes where no one else has.

Some might be quick to level charges of "Bush-bashing" against Seymour Hersh, the legendary reporter who uncovered the My Lai massacre and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandel. But Hersh is a reporter first. His skills are put to use in "Chain of Command", a collection of the "New Yorker" pieces that put him on the Bush Administration's enemies list. Naysayers be damned, this is likely to be the most accurate history we'll get on the post-9/11 era.

Hersh's scope is wide, from the oft-reported lies about WMDs and the passing of blame from on high to the lowly guards at Gitmo and Ghraib, but also including the Afghanistan campaign which may not have gone exactly the way Donald Rumsfeld and Fox News would have you believe. Throughout it all, Hersh paints a portrait of the Bush Administration as criminally inept and contradictory when the facts don't serve their purposes.

Many of the one-star reviews will accuse Hersh of a bias against Bush and his cronies, and there's some truth to that. But Hersh's righteous anger is triggered by the waste and horror unleashed by the Administration in Afghanistan (where an early victory over the Taliban is squandered when the focus turns to Iraq and the Taliban resurges in the provinces) and Iraq (where faulty intelligence serves the Hussein-hating fears of Cheney and the Pentagon).

There's too much in Hersh's accounts that cannot be explained away as "liberal bias" or "typical anti-Bush" fearmongering. Hersh backs up his stories with unnamed sources, unnamed not because they are untrustworthy but because they are in sensitive positions and risk their careers talking to Hersh. Snicker all you want that Hersh might be led down paths of disinformation, it's pretty hard to argue with his assessment that the Bush Administration bungled their mission and deliberately misled the American people to further their own goals. And of course, in this Age of Fear they were rewarded for it at the ballot box.

"Chain of Command" will shatter any illusions you have about the War on Terror, the Bush Administration, and the Middle East's reaction to our efforts there. If you want to know why our boys are continuing to come back in bodybags long after "Mission Accomplished" or why our policies have made more enemies than friends, this is the book to read. Be warned, though; you won't be able to ignore the truth behind the war after this. Hersh's anger is the anger we all should have towards Bush and his henchmen.

Rating:
Summary: The First Angry Man
Review: Over the last year I've read or become familiar with more than a dozen of the latest crop of books published to criticize or support the White House's policies, and Chain of Command is the best of the bunch. As would be expected, Seymour Hersh's writing is as always clean and angry and compelling. And the conclusions the investigative reporting icon draws are well thought out and more than a little frightening.

In short: if you can read only one book in this genre this year, you've found it.

A reader examining Mr. Hersh's work for the first time here may not realize how far ahead of the curve he has been in exposing scores of intelligence failures, poorly thought out national security initiatives, and the horrible Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Many of Mr. Hersh's points were treated with suspicion when they were made, only to be accepted as common wisdom when the full story became known (though the book's editors would have done well to make that clearer, but more on that in a moment).

His main point in Chain of Command is all these issues -- the selective evidence regarding weapons of mass destruction, the sidestepping of the federal bureaucracy and the diminished importance of Congress, the misuse of intelligence, the abuse of human rights abroad, foreign policy zealotry, and so on (I might add elections-related shenanigans from four years ago) -- amount to a kind of coup d'état, and it's hard to argue against his points.

Clearly, Mr. Hersh is outraged in Chain of Command, but what earns my respect the most if the fact that his anger is not partisan, but instead based on what he seems to see as a widening gulf between what is happening in the U.S. and because of the U.S. and what comes out of the mouths of senior government officials. Mr. Hersh is an old-fashioned muckraker and proud of it.

Now allow me to quibble for a moment.

The vast bulk of Chain of Command was distilled from around 20 articles Mr. Hersh wrote for the New Yorker, though editors updated a few subjects and juggled the order a bit, most obviously to emphasize new reporting regarding Abu Ghraib. I would have argued in favor of printing the original articles as they were published, in chronological order and with dates on them -- something that would have elegantly presented the material without begging the question of what was known when. The updated information could have easily been presented in a short epilogue to each chapter or to the whole book.

Additionally, Mr. Hersh on a few occasions threatens to undermine some of his credibility by relying on speculation on subjects like prison conditions at Guantánamo, and by making only passing references to minor evidence that could weaken his arguments, on subjects such as troop movements between Afghanistan and Iraq. But he never crosses the line in a way that has damned many of the other books out this political season, thanks in a large part to his solid reputation launched when he broke the story about the My Lai massacre in Vietnam 35 years ago.

But these points are very, very minor compared to the points this very important book makes. I rarely give five-star ratings to books, but I have no second thoughts in doing that here.

Rating:
Summary: Good, but not as earth-shattering as I expected
Review: The book is well-written, but not as interesting as I expected.
The book has 8 main chapters. The chapter on Abu Ghraib had good detail, but many of the chapters concerning 9/11 and the Iraq war did not add much insight. With 9/11 and the Iraq War I think "Plan of Attack," "Against All Enemies," and the 9/11 Commission Report give more interesting and thorough details. There are chapters on Afghanistan and Pakistan/Musharraf, but these topics are covered much better in "Imperial Hubris." The most interesting part of this book contains very thorough details concerning the infamous documents about the alleged uranium purchase in Nigeria.

Rating:
Summary: Scathing is an understatement!
Review: This book consists of 8 chapters, 7 of which focus on the war in Afghanistan or Iraq. Each chapter is written so that it stands on its own. The chapters are arranged in what seems to be a helter-skelter fashion, jumping from Abu Ghraib to September 11th to the build-up for war in Iraq and then to Afghanistan.

If you are a supporter of the current administration, you probably won't enjoy reading this book. And for the Blue State liberals, keep in mind that that part of what Hersh writes about are based on opinions of un-named sources.

The book opens with a re-written version of Hersh's articles on the torture fiasco at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Hersh was one of the journalists who exposed what was going on there. In this chapter though, he ties it to abuses at Guantanamo. It is directly tied to Guantanamo since General Geoffrey Miller, who ran the prison at Guantanamo, was sent to Iraq to review how the Army ran the prisons there. His main achievement was converting the system from one of detention to interrogation. For actually okaying torture, Hersh sees Rumsfeld as the main culprit (46).

The second chapter looks at America's intelligence failures leading up to September 11th. If you have followed any of the September 11th hearings, a lot of what is here is "old" news and not earthshaking any more.

A critical look at the Afghanistan war is in the third chapter. Hersh details the theatrics that went on during a raid in Afghanistan; details how the US let Pakistini intelligence officers evacuate (and probably Taliban leaders escaping with them) during the seige of Kunduz, and presents another version on what really happened in Operation Anaconda.

The road to the war with Iraq is detailed in "The Iraq Hawks." This chapter is a revised version of two of his articles that appeared in 2001 and 2002. The machinations of Ahmad Chalabi, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz are all detailed here. Perle's finances and business dealings are also presented
here-and as Hersh quickly notes, Perle has still yet to sue him.

The Niger uranium fiasco is detailed in Chapter 5. The spin control done by the White House is also examined. Another piece, controversial at the time, but accepted now is Chapter Six's overview of how Rumsfeld is essentially running the war in Iraq and Afghanistan on the cheap.

Hersh's analysis of the United States' relationship with Pakistan is provocative and thought-provoking. With Pakistan helping the North Koreans and Iranians with their nuclear programs, and their security services still supporting the Taliban, one has to wonder whose side they are really on.

The closing chapter looks at the Middle East after 9/11. The political and social problems in Saudi Arabia; the demonizing of Syria; and Iran's nuclear ambitions are all discussed. Even if exaggerated, the situation in that part of the world does not look good for the United States and Europe.

My main complaint with this book is documentation. Unlike Mann's book (Rise of the Vulcans) which is nicely referenced, there are too many "un-named sources" for my liking. Admittedly that is part and parcel for the topics he writes on; it will be interesting to see over the next few years, who his sources were and how right and wrong they were.


Rating:
Summary: Hard hitting critique of the Bush regime's short sightedness
Review: This book draws on many insider reports validating its assertions. From the systemic excess at Abu Ghraib, which Hersh characterizes as policy, to our initital failures in Afghanistan that were hailed as easy victories, he muckrakes through the garbage of Fox and CNN to create a narrative more synonmyous with the actual events. You will see how our troops and leadership have failed at times. These failures were ignored by the press and civillian leadership. He also discusses our troublesome relationship with Pakistan and an episode that should be considered for congressional investigation at Kunduz in which we let many high lever targets get away at the request of Mushareff. Anyone know that this guy seized power in a millitary coup becuase his predecessor was getting to close to Kashmiri terrorists?