The Foreign Service Journal, November 2008

2000 and 2004. But he grew increasingly skeptical of the mixed motives behind the inva- sion of Iraq — especially the supposed tie between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, which he found elusive at best and highly “manufactured” at worst. In this work, he provides a nonpartisan assessment of Donald Rumsfeld’s tenure as secretary of Defense from 2001 to 2006, his involvement in shaping the Iraq war and his impact on the U.S. military establishment. Herspring highlights the relationship between Rumsfeld and the senior military leadership, and his relationship with other high-ranking officials, notably Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith — who, he argues, manipulated intelligence in order to imple- ment their own policies and often ignored military advice. His analysis of Rumsfeld’s actions, from abol- ishing the Iraqi army to refusing to see the value of a counterinsurgency plan, substantiate his thesis that the Defense Secretary’s “domineering leadership style and his trademark arrogance undermined his vision for both military transformation and Iraq.” The book is a significant addition to the growing lit- erature on the complex failures of the invasion of Iraq. Dale R. Herspring, a retired Foreign Service offi- cer, 32-year veteran of the Navy and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is University Distin- guished Professor at Kansas State University and the author of The Pentagon and the Presidency: Civil- Military Relations from FDR to George W. Bush (University Press of Kansas, 2006), among many other books. Dissent: Voices of Conscience Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon, Koa Books, 2008, $17.95, paperback, 296 pages. This book, with a foreword by Daniel Ellsberg, is a significant and timely reminder of the role dissent plays in a thriving demo- cracy. In December 2001, co-author Ann Wright volun- teered to be part of the team that reopened the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan. Six months later she was deputy chief of mission in Mongolia, but continued to follow the developments in Afghanistan closely. As the U.S. invasion of Iraq loomed closer, Wright became the third FSO to submit her resignation from the U.S. Foreign Service to Secretary of State Colin Powell. Ann Wright and Susan Dixon, a scholar, tell the stories of the several dozen men and women who “risked careers, reputations and even freedom out of loyalty to the law and their fellow citizens.” These brave dissenters include Lieutenant General (Ret.) Brent Scowcroft, who early on cautioned against the war on Iraq and Katherine Gun, a 28-year-old trans- lator for the British Government Communications Headquarters who leaked a secret e-mail revealing U.S. eavesdropping on U.N. Security Council mem- bers. Many more, from government insiders to active-duty military personnel spoke out, resigned, leaked documents or refused to deploy in defiance of a U.S. policy they deemed illegal. Ann Wright was educated at the University of Arkansas and the U.S. Naval War College. She spent 13 years in the U.S. Army and another 16 years in the Army Reserves. She joined the Foreign Service in 1987 and served as DCM in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. Susan Dixon was educated at Trinity College in Hartford and the University of Hawaii, where she is currently a doctoral candidate. She teaches the geography of peace and war as well as a course on political activism and nonviolence. The Next Phase of Jihad: A War with Islamic Narco-Terrorists Rafael Fermoselle, Trafford, 2007, $21.95, paperback, 268 pages. Following the historical pat- tern of other terrorist groups, members of the al-Qaida network stand a very good chance of undergoing a metamor- phosis from Islamic insurgents to gangsters, writes Rafael Fermoselle in a book that probes the future of the organization responsible for the events of 9/11. Just about every insurgency since World War II, regardless of political views, has engaged in criminal activity as a means of fundraising, and, as is now well known, drug trafficking has been one of the most lucra- tive of these criminal enterprises. There is no reason to believe that members of al- Qaida will not follow this pattern, the author argues. N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21