The Iraq War has been the costliest U.S. conflict since the Vietnam War. To date, few official studies have been conducted to review what happened, why it happened, and what lessons should be drawn. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War is the Army's initial operational level analysis of this conflict, written in narrative format, with assessments and lessons embedded throughout the work. This study reviews the conflict from a Landpower perspective and includes the contributions of coalition allies, the U.S. Marine Corps, and special operations forces. Presented principally from the point of view of the commanders in Baghdad, the narrative examines the interaction of the operational and strategic levels, as well as the creation of theater level strategy and its implementation at the tactical level.
This volume, the second of two, begins with the realization by U.S. national leaders that
Multi-National Force-Iraq's (MNF-I) transition strategy had failed and a new plan of action was
required. The search for a new strategy eventually settled on what was coined "the surge," a
radically new approach that rebalanced the mission's ends, ways, and means. Five additional
brigade combat teams and two marine infantry battalions were ordered to Iraq. American forces
reversed course on the policies of the previous 2 years by vastly expanding the coalition footprint
and taking the lead at least temporarily, for establishing security.
This study was constructed over a span of 4 years and relied on nearly 30,000 pages of handpicked declassified documents, hundreds of hours of original interviews, and thousands of hours of previously unavailable interviews. Original interviews conducted by the team included President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Secretaries of Defense Leon Panetta and Robert Gates, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and every theater commander for the war, among many others. With its release, this publication, The U.S. Army in the Iraq War, represents the U.S. Government's longest and most detailed study of the Iraq conflict thus far.