4th Infantry begs to differ

4th Infantry Division officers at Fort Hood are rebutting, for the Houston Chronicle, WaPo military reporter Thomas Ricks’ new book Fiasco which blames their tactics in 2003 for boosting the Iraq insurgency.

"He charged that the division’s wholesale roundup of Iraqi men and boys in Saddam Hussein’s home province led to the crowding of Abu Ghraib prison and created a resistance mindset that fueled the insurgency. ‘The 4th Infantry was known for aggressive tactics that may have appeared to pacify the northern Sunni Triangle in the short term, but that … alienated large parts of the population,’ Ricks wrote.

"However, Bob Babcock, a former unit historian for the 4th Infantry Division who interviewed 500 of the division’s soldiers for his book on the unit’s 2003 deployment, A Year in the Sunni Triangle, said he was baffled by the conclusions."

Ricks is fairly baffling himself, saying in book-promoting interviews that he wants the troops to win the campaign in Iraq, yet he titles his book Fiasco, a close cousin to Quaqmire. So which is it? Win the war, or just sell books to Quaqmire’s constituency?

"The 4th Infantry, which has called Killeen [Fort Hood] home for more than a decade, was commanded by Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno in 2003. Odierno is now a three-star general scheduled to become the No. 2 commander of all U.S. forces in Iraq later this year. Ricks was particularly critical of Odierno, quoting fellow officers saying his approach was to bully Iraqis into submission.

"On Tuesday, Odierno said, ‘As far as I know he (Ricks) never spent one day in the field with us in 2003-04.’ He declined to further discuss the book.’"

Haven’t read the book myself, but have noted that Ricks is partial to the Marines and some of his 4th ID critics are Marine officers. Allegedly. Anonymous sources are just anonymous as far as I can tell. They could be anybody. 

UPDATE  What I get for jumping to conclusions. Ricks pours on the named sources, as here, in a book excerpt about the 4th ID, published by the Chron before the rebuttal story. It’s worth the read, and after my crack about unnamed sources, I would encourage a reading of it. But I’ll stick with my question about Ricks’ intent with the book’s title, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, which is awfully mocking for someone who says he wants us to help win the campaign.

MORE See the comments below where Ricks stops by–apparently Googling his notices across the ether–to say the Chron has agreed to run "a correction" to Odierno’s assertion above. Ricks contends he did spend time in the field with the 4th.