The New York Times Magazine
Major John Nagl was a leading military scholar on how to fight a resistance. But could he make his ideas work on the ground in Iraq?
January 11, 2004
Maj. John Nagl approaches war pragmatically and philosophically, as a soldier and a scholar. He graduated ...
Category: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan
The Ground They Fight On
War: USA, Afghanistan, Iraq
January 2004
The following essay was published in the book “War: USA, Afghanistan, Iraq,” which features the work of photographers from the VII photo agency.
Wars, like people, have many expressions. The Iraq conflict involved a diplomatic war at the United Nations ...
Enemy Combatants
The New York Times Magazine
Ideas of 2002
December 15, 2002
Should an American who is suspected of having links to Al Qaeda have the right to a lawyer and the right to not answer questions about coming attacks? The U.S. government has been holding two Americans incommunicado at military ...
Thunder Run
The New York Times Magazine
December 14, 2003
A convention of military strategy is that you do not rush tanks into the center of a hostile city unless you wish to lose them. In 1994 the Russians learned this fatal lesson when they sent an armored column into Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, ...
Project Eyes
The New York Times Magazine
New tools for an occupation.
December 14, 2003
During the invasion of Iraq, the American military displayed amazing technological superiority, firing missiles that flew nearly 1,000 miles before hitting their targets precisely, with a margin of error of ...
The Race to Baghdad
Outside Magazine
This spring, a quarter of a million Americans took a trip. It was noisy, hot, and violent. Accommodations were poor. Some of them didn’t come back.
July 2003
I do not know the value of life. In every war zone that I find myself in, I routinely fail to establish ...
Meet the New Boss
The New York Times Magazine
Dathar Khashab had what it took to maneuver his way up through the ranks in Saddam Hussein’s oil bureaucracy. When his new managers showed up wearing U.S.-issue fatigues, he didn’t miss a step.
June 8, 2003
There are two types of people who do ...
Salam Pax Is Real
Slate
How do I know Baghdad’s famous blogger exists? He worked for me.
June 2, 2003
Baghdad was hectic when two blogging friends e-mailed me to suggest that I track down “Salam Pax.” I had no idea who or what they were talking about. I could have handed over the job ...
Trying to Rebuild Iraq, While Watching Their Backs
The New York Times
May 11, 2003
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The news conference was held in splendid isolation. Splendid, that is, if you enjoy being walled off from the rest of Baghdad by tanks, armored Humvees, barbed wire and a small army of soldiers bearing M-16 assault rifles and .50-caliber machine guns.
The ...
Back-Room Theocrat
The New York Times Magazine
Moqtadah al-Sadr wants an Iraq run by God’s laws. But first he has to outsmart his rivals, outmaneuver the Americans and get Iraq’s millions of Shiites behind him.
May 11, 2003
Najaf is one of the great spiritual centers of the world’s 120 million ...