Bing West

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Francis J. "Bing" West "served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs in the Reagan administration. A graduate of Georgetown and Princeton Universities, he served in Marine infantry in Vietnam. His books have won the Marine Corps Heritage Prize, the Colby Award for Military History and appeared on the Commandant's Reading List. West appears regularly on The [PBS Online] News Hour and Fox News. He is a member of St. Crispin's Order of the Infantry and the Council on Foreign Relations. He lives in Newport, RI." [1]

West "has also been Vice President of the Hudson Institute, Dean of Research at the Naval War College and an analyst at The RAND Corporation. ... He is president of the GAMA Corporation, which designs war games and combat decision-making simulations." [2]

On August 12, 2008, Bing West published an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal declaring, "The war I witnessed for more than five years in Iraq is over. In July, there were five American fatalities in Iraq, the lowest since the war began in March 2003. In Mosul recently, I chatted with shopkeepers on the same corner where last January a Humvee was blown apart in front of me. In the Baghdad district of Ghazilia -- where last January snipers controlled streets awash in human waste -- I saw clean streets and soccer games. In Basra, the local British colonel was dining at a restaurant in the center of the bustling city. ... Yet the progress in Iraq is most threatened by a political promise in the U.S. to remove all American combat brigades, against the advice of our military commanders." [3]

No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah

In "Iraq War: Fodder for a New Movie," Dilshad D. Ali wrote February 7, 2005, for Islam Online: "Though war movies usually follow the tradition of appearing years after the actual war is concluded, a new film being developed from Universal Pictures in California will take on the war in Iraq and the battle for Falluja as combat continues.

"Weeks ago, the studio announced that veteran Hollywood actor Harrison Ford (of the famed Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies) is ready to portray US Major General James Mattis in a new film. This film will tackle the story of how the US Marine commander led an assault on Falluja following the murder and mutilation of four American contractors in March 2004. ...

"Double Features, a Universal Pictures production company optioned the rights to No True Glory, a book written by Marine veteran Bing West and his son Owen that is due out in May from Random House Publishing. Owen West, also a Marine, is a rifleman in Iraq. Bing West, a former US assistant defense secretary, is now covering the war as a foreign correspondent, according to studio literature."

Published Works by Bing West

  • "No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah", Random House, Inc./Bantam Books (Hardcover), September 2005, ISBN 9780553-804027/ISBN 0553804022; Bantam Trade Paperback, September 2006, ISBN 9780553383195/ISBN 0553383191.
  • "The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the United States Marines", Random House/Bantam Trade Paperback, October 2004, ISBN 9780553382693/ISBN 0553382691.
  • With Ray L. Smith, "The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division", Bantam Books (Hardcover), September 2003, ISBN 9780553803761/ISBN 055380376X.

Articles by Bing West

Contact Information

Website: http://www.westwrite.com/

Related SourceWatch Resources

External links

Profiles

Articles & Commentary

2003

2004

  • Laurie Mylroie, "FJ Bing West, The Iraq Insurgency, WSJ, & Iraq News note," August 2, 2004. Posting of West's August 2, 2004, Wall Street Journal "Iraqification, Part II".
  • Tucker Foehl, "Hollywood Entering the Iraq War," Mother Jones/MoJo Blog, December 22, 2004: "More disturbing, though, is the fact that a book by former assistant Secretary of Defense Bing West -- an unabashed promoter of all things Marine Corps related -- is being used as the template for the film. ... How many people will turn out to see a film hyping the U.S. military and the battle in Falluja if soldiers and Iraqi civilians are still dying in Iraq? And how can you put a Hollywood ending on such an awful situation? Those seem bigger problems than even Indiana Jones can solve."

2005

2006

  • Advisory Board, Vets for Freedom, accessed May 8, 2011.