The Iraq War: One Year Later

With the benefit of hindsight, the History Channel's The Iraq War: One Year Later tries to clear some of the smoke and sand from the events of the first few weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom in an attempt to assess what the U.S. and the "coalition of the willing" did right and wrong in the desert. Completely sidestepping any discussion of the prewar controversies (a highly questionable decision), the program instead focuses on the first month's skirmishes, battles, and overall strategy, revealing that far more action occurred out of view of the "embedded" reporters than most Americans realized. Although the coalition was able to use high-tech weapons, speed, flexibility, and "jointness" (military speak for “integrating military commands”) in a lightning campaign to move on Baghdad to remove the leadership while minimizing casualties, the campaign was never the cakewalk some predicted. Units were faced with a motley but deadly array of Republican Guard troops, Baath Party loyalists, "Saddam Fedayeen," foreign terrorists, and irregulars, many wearing civilian clothes and using improvised weapons and tactics (not to mention the sandstorms and supply problems that would also test the "down home grit" of U.S. troops). The program's last chapter recapitulates the all too familiar problems now plaguing the coalition since the fall of Hussein: looting, criminals and militants with access to huge weapons caches, hostilities between Iraq's religious and ethnic factions, and now suicide bombers. Avoiding any comments as to whether or not the war was justified, or how America can find an exit strategy, this detailed documentary features numerous interviews with battle-seasoned veterans, but it's a far from complete view of the conflict, not to mention one increasingly outdated by recent events. Likely to be of primary interest to military historians for the source material, this is a marginal purchase for public and academic collections. Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)