Triumph Without Victory

U.S. News & World Report was founded in 1933, and has built a reputation for their thorough and evenhanded reporting. This book was compiled by the magazine's staff, drawing on their many resources, and is probably the most thorough treatment of the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that you are likely to find. The book traces the conflict from Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, through the diplomatic maneuvering between Iraq and the United States, and on to the final Iraqi surrender. I must say that I found this to be an excellent book on the Gulf War. The writers of the book go a long way towards being fair and evenhanded, reporting on Iraq's sponsorship of "some of the world's most deadly terrorist organizations..." and yet discussing America actions, including the attack on the "highway of death." Plus, I found the detailed information on the individual battles of the war made the war come alive in the reading. Overall, I have not read another book on the Gulf War that comes close to this book for overall detail and readability. This is my favorite book on that war, and I give it my highest recommendations!

Having read several of the many books about the Gulf War, I have discovered that all of them contain (as you would expect) elements that are biased by the author's viewpoint. This book is no exception, exhibiting the bias of the reporter's perspective that the military/politicians un-necessarily restricted access by the public (ie the press corp). However, by a lot hard work in utilizing the extensive resources widely available after the conflict, it does overcome this bias and thereby provide the broadest and most complete overall description of the origins, political manuervering, military planning, and actual execution of the initial defensive and subsequent offensive phases of the war, of any account I have read. And it does so in a very interesting and informative manner.I am especially impressed with the personalized style of the presentation of both the political and military events, and also with the excellent graphics and tactical/strategic analysis used to explain the overall context of those events. The combination of broad scope, professional graphics, and personal accounts of individual participants placed in the context of overall tactics/strategy really brings the "history to life".This book has become my "baseline" for understanding / interpreting the other very good (and not so good) accounts of the war. It provides the timeline and outsider "truthline" of the events of the war from which to put into perspective, and base my own opinions of, the accounts of the war by the various individuals with a more personal stake in their presentation. I do not take the "facts" presented in this book as "absolute", but feel they probably contain less "self interest" than other accounts by other authors with "reputations" to foster or protect.In that respect, this book has increased my "enjoyment" of the other books on the subject as I compare and contrast the "issues" of the war as described by each of the involved individuals who have a particular axe to grind concerning those issues: "a tactical versus a strategic air war campaign", "functional versus by service organization of the coalition forces", "who was responsible for establishing the 'left hook' strategy of the ground war", "did we start the ground war too soon and not give airpower a chance to 'win the war'", "was the progress of the VII Corps too slow ?", "was the progress of the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions too fast ?","who stopped the Khafji excursion (airpower, marines, or Saudis)", "did we learn and then utilize the right lessons from the Khafji fight", and - last but most importantly - the key question: "did we stop the war too soon and therefore fail to accomplish the goals established at the outset of the war ?"Buy this book to get a very interesting, readable, and definitive overview of the Persian Gulf War. Then sit back and form your own opinions of both the big and little issues from the accounts by Schwarzkopf, Powell, Horner, Franks, Boomer, et al(Bye the bye ... I

Triumph Without Victory is the best account and review of how the Gulf War happened. This book is filled with amazing details and facts that make it a true corner stone in the history of this War. From the international effort to restrict Iraqi weapons access to the planning room of Gen. Schwarzkopf, this book recordes what happened. Having been in the Gulf War I was truelly amazed at the amount and scope of information contained in this book. I read this book when it was first published and will never forget it. The true testament of this book is its recording of many of the important facts that some governments would like to forget. The authors obviously went to great lengths to research, corrolate, and record not only the most famous events but the small and possibly most important events. The secret effort to bomb Saddam Hussein, the US destroyed chemical weapons facility and its toxic cloud, and the CIA computer virus in the Iraqi radar system. The purpose of this book was to record history, it did just that and it did it well.