About the Book
Insurgents, informants, generals, soldiers, analysts, policymakers, and a nation on the brink of chaos—The Intelligence Wars puts you on the streets of Baghdad, in the middle of a war on the ground and in the midst of a raging battle within the military itself over how the war should be fought.
America has lost thousands of its warriors and spent more than $500 billion in Iraq. But as the battle at home over whether to stay the course or withdraw from the region continues, our troops are still on the ground. According to Steven O’Hern who served as a senior intelligence officer, the efforts in Iraq to protect troops and citizens and secure the region have been broadsided by bureaucratic turf battles and the notion that high-tech warfare is the key to winning. Easily smuggled explosive devices slice through the armor of our high-tech vehicles, and as O’Hern cogently points out, this is evidence of the deeply troubling posture of those in charge. By relying on gadgets and not on human intelligence gathering – spies to infiltrate insurgents – America prolongs the fight as casualties continue.
The Intelligence Wars is on the 2010 Intelligence Reading List published by the Director of Intelligence of the U.S. Marine Corps.
It is also recommended by Thomas Ricks, Washington Post national security reporter and author of Fiasco:The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005 in his Foreign Policy blog as essential reading for intelligence officers.
Praise for The Intelligence Wars
“O’Hern addresses a key subject -how to get the most out of HUMINT-human intelligence-in the irregular wars of today and those of the future. Grounded in experience and thoughtful, it provides a great primer on the problems facing our HUMINT community today and a set of practical recommendations to fix them.”
–Colonel T.X. Hammes, US Marine Corps (Ret.), author of The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century
“In a highly readable style, O’Hern is quick to introduce readers to an underlying issue that directly affects the counterintelligence efforts in Iraq: the unwillingness of the military leadership at that time to acknowledge and respond to Iran’s growing involvement. . . .
O’Hern has done a great service by providing the perspective of an intelligence officer recently returned from the field.”
“We constantly read in the media about the US military uncovering Iranian agents penetrating the borders into Iraq, but I believe The Intelligence Wars accurately reflects a nonbiased approach to revealing these reports. The book reads almost like a journal without revealing too much information that would compromise efforts abroad. Mr. O’Hern does an outstanding job of walking the tightrope between classified and unclassified while providing a tool to teach intelligence analysts of all disciplines and experience levels.”
–Garth Phoebus, Marine veteran of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom I and II, former senior intelligence analyst (Marine Expeditionary Unit), and executive editor of the Marine Corps Intelligence Association INTSUM Newsletter
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