The Army Knew Iraq … About 60 Years Ago

A War Department handbook published in 1943 stressed that respect for a people and their culture was a key to victory.

...the people who wrote the 1943 booklet—and by extension the government behind them—wanted two things: they wanted to win the war and they wanted to do it honorably. That is, they did not want to sacrifice or shortcut American values, and if we thought we were better than the Nazis, we had to prove it to our allies.

“It is almost impossible,” Nagl writes, “when reading this guide, not to slap oneself on the forehead in despair that the Army knew so much of Arabic culture and customs, and of the importance of that knowledge for achieving military success in Iraq, six decades ago—and forgot almost all of those lessons in the intervening years.”

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