Failure Factory or Baghdad at Sunrise

Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading Us to War

Author: Bill Gertz

The U.S. government is in crisis.

With America’s attention fixated on who will step into the Oval Office in 2009, no one has noticed where the real power has shifted—to a vast network of unelected officials whose authority has grown wildly out of control. In his latest blockbuster book, acclaimed defense and national security reporter Bill Gertz exposes these astonishingly powerful leaders and their enablers in the political class—and their devastating impact on America's national security.

Gertz shows how entrenched liberal activists have become dominant even under an ostensibly conservative administration. And he names names of those who actively subvert official U.S. policy—including not only liberal Democrats but also a number of so-called Republicans who have joined this insidious “Blame America First” crowd.

The Failure Factory reveals:

• The shocking, previously untold story of the partisan bureaucrats who completely undercut the U.S. position on Iran’s radical Islamist regime
• Barack Obama’s disastrous national security policies—and his stable of advisers who have already put America at risk
• The recent showdown in the Pentagon that laid bare the U.S. government’s ongoing failures to tackle the threat of Islamist extremism
• Flagrant cases of sabotage by top State Department officials that have emboldened dangerous states like Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Communist China
• Stunning new intelligence failures—including one that may have allowed a terrorist group to penetrate the FBI and CIA
• How even the Bush White Housewas overrun with Democrats and liberal Republicans
• The legions of “Clinton generals”—top military brass whose careers blossomed during the Clinton administration—who make the United States more vulnerable
• How Democrats are exploiting the antiwar movement for political gain, with little regard for the potentially devastating consequences
• How the defense secretary’s public defiance of official U.S. policy could have gotten him fired—but instead went unchallenged

Based on scores of exclusive interviews and displaying the groundbreaking reporting that has made Bill Gertz’s previous books smash bestsellers, The Failure Factory offers a chilling look at the threats to our national security that exist within our own government.

Table of Contents:

Introduction The Failure Factory 1

1 Three Blind Mice: The Untold Story of Bureaucratic Betrayal on Iran 11

2 Reaching Out to Terrorists 39

3 State Subversion 55

4 Intelligence Failure by Design 79

5 Liberal Power in the White House 103

6 The Pentagon Puzzle Palace 125

7 The Sellout of Former Officials 147

8 The China Syndrome 169

9 Enemy Allies 197

10 Political Surrender: Peace (And War) through Diversity, Multiculturalism, and Political Correctness 231

Conclusion: Ending the Failures 257

Appendix 267

Acknowledgments 283

Index 285

Read also

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq

Author: Peter R Mansoor

This compelling book presents an unparalleled record of what happened after U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003. Army Colonel Peter R. Mansoor, the on-the-ground commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division—the “Ready First Combat Team”—describes his brigade’s first year in Iraq, from the sweltering, chaotic summer after the Ba’athists’ defeat to the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government a year later. Uniquely positioned to observe, record, and assess the events of that fateful year, Mansoor now explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency of unexpected strength and tenacity.

 

Drawing not only on his own daily combat journal but also on observations by embedded reporters, news reports, combat logs, archived e-mails, and many other sources, Mansoor offers a contemporary record of the valor, motivations, and resolve of the 1st Brigade and its attachments during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet this book has a deeper significance than a personal memoir or unit history. Baghdad at Sunrise provides a detailed, nuanced analysis of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, and along with it critically important lessons for America’s military and political leaders of the twenty-first century.

 

The Washington Post -

Mansoor's unflinching new account, Baghdad at Sunrise,…is nearly unique, because his position was rare among military memoirists. An Army colonel is the highest-ranking officer many soldiers will ever meet. He is entrusted with their leadership—and their lives. (During his year-long tour, 24 of Mansoor's soldiers died, and he is careful to mention each.) But stripped of its martial dignity and veneer, Mansoor's account reveals the colonel's role as a middle manager. He tells the story of that fateful first year of the Iraq war from the point of view of one who saw decisions being made at the highest echelons, yet led soldiers in executing those orders day by day. This is a serious book for a serious audience.

Publishers Weekly

This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a U.S. brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless-and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with "command memoirs." Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences. He presents an eloquent critique of the armed forces' post-Vietnam neglect of counterinsurgency and makes a strong case for integrating military forces with civilian experts who can aid reconstruction in counterinsurgency operations. Above all, Mansoor reasserts the enduring impact of "fog and friction" on war. There is never an easy solution, he says-or an easy exit. Maps. (Sept.)

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Edwin B. Burgess - Library Journal

Colonel Mansoor was one of the officers who rewrote the counterinsurgency manual at Fort Leavenworth for General Petraeus, based in part on his experiences as a commander. His insights on this chapter of the war make up a crucial part of the history of the campaign. Important for any Iraq collection. [This reviewer oversees the library at Fort Leavenworth but did not undertake direct work for Mansoor and is not personally familiar with him.-Ed.]