Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and continuing to today, the US military and its analysts have emphasized the new role of culture in contemporary wars. What the military and analysts have chosen to use as the frameworks for understanding culture is the national character studies that typified cultural anthropology of the 1940s and 1950s, long abandoned by the discipline because they did not adequately address cultural change and history. However, these frameworks have been embraced by the US military and political analysts because they are simple. In essence, national character studies allow them to interpret Iraqi behavior not as products of current contexts or historical situations, but to the inherent characteristics of a national group. And thus, the diversity and history of contemporary Iraqi culture and society is reduced to one shared national culture taught to soldiers and marines in a 45 minute powerpoint presentation or a sixteen panel, folding laminated "Iraq Culture Smart Card". This research is based on 100 interviews with US servicemen and women and Iraqis, and a large collection of cultural training material produced by the US military and its contractors. I argue that this perspective and pedagogical methods neither reflect accurately the diversity of Iraq (and human behavior), nor do the US servicemen and women find this information useful. I describe and analyze within current debates about counterinsurgency, some of the consequences of producing analyses and cultural training material based on this type of cultural knowledge on the interactions between US soldiers and marines and Iraqis, and their perspectives on each other's cultures.