Achieving Victory in Iraq: Countering an Insurgency

Now that Gen. David Petraeus's troop surge has gained the U.S. much-needed breathing room in Iraq, what should come next? The answer, according to Iraq War combat veterans of the famed 101st Airborne Division Col. Dominic J. Caraccilo and Lt. Col. Andrea L. Thompson, is to turn the fight over to the Iraqis. In Achieving Victory in Iraq, Caraccilo and Thompson examine how the Iraq War has evolved since 2003 and carefully outline the way forward. They argue that a strategy for handing off the battle to the Iraqis existed from the beginning, even though the American-led coalition sometimes muddled its execution and at times did not even pursue it. A renewed effort to create an independent Iraqi security force capable of standing up against the insurgency, they believe, remains the U.S.'s best shot at victory--not winning over the Iraqi people, not crushing the enemy with American military might. Drawing on the authors' on-the-ground experiences training and conducting security operations with Iraqi soldiers, Achieving Victory in Iraq describes how this strategy has already succeeded in parts of Iraq and how it can be expanded in the wake of the surge to bring victory to the entire country.