How America Lost Iraq

Most news on the Iraq war has come from reporters embedded with military units. Aaron Glantz, a reporter for Pacifica Radio, was never embedded. Entering Iraq shortly after U.S. soldiers in 2003, Glantz found heartening and surprising support for the war. In exchange for removing Saddam Hussein, Iraqis were willing to put up with a lot. Then America frittered away that goodwill by failing to restore the power and water systems that were destroyed in the invasion and by harsh, indefinite detentions of ordinary citizens. Glantz shares the Iraqi dismay at U.S. missteps and believes we were irreversibly transformed from liberators to hated occupiers by the scorched-earth battles in Fallujah. The words of the Iraqis he interviewed in 2004 are convincing: The United States is no longer welcome there.