Petraeus to head CentCom

[mswas]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080423173955.lqkkmly3&show_article=1

General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, was tapped Wednesday to lead US forces in the Middle East in a major shift in the military command at a time of growing tensions with Iran.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Petraeus would be replaced in Iraq by his former number two, General Raymond Odierno, who commanded day-to-day operations during a "surge" of US troops that sharply reduced violence there.

"With the concurrence of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I have recommended and the president has accepted and will nominate General David Petraeus as the new commander of the Central Command," he said.

The position opened last month when Admiral William Fallon abruptly stepped down saying reports of differences with the White House on how to deal with Iran had become "a distraction."

The nomination, which must be approved by the Senate, puts Petraeus in charge of the US military's biggest challenges -- Iraq, an expanding military effort in Afghanistan, an Al-Qaeda revival in Pakistan, and challenges from Iran on various fronts.

[Czarcasm]

And the debate/your position is....?

[mswas]

And the debate/your position is....?

It's possible that this is evidence of a more hawkish position on Iran. Which is one of the arguments for the ouster of Fallon.

[Voyager]

It's possible that this is evidence of a more hawkish position on Iran. Which is one of the arguments for the ouster of Fallon.
They don't need a new general to be hawkish. Since the treat him like the reincarnations of Washington and Grant rolled into one, it's no surprise that they promoted him.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

Raymond Odierno is being tapped to replace Petraeus. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/24/odierno.profile/index.html)

I've been reading Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/0143038915/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209063880&sr=1-1) lately, and one thing that emerges is that in the view of the author (and of many political and military leaders), Odierno is a brute who thinks force will solve every problem. My copy of Fiasco is at home, so I can't throw in any quotes, but the message was while Petraeus' forces were actually making allies, Odierno's forces were doing nothing but making enemies through their brutal tactics and complete lack of understanding of counterinsurgency tactics. So, does Odierno's appointment put the last nail in the coffin of any hopes that might have remained for Iraq?

[BrainGlutton]

Raymond Odierno is being tapped to replace Petraeus. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/24/odierno.profile/index.html)

I've been reading Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/0143038915/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209063880&sr=1-1) lately, and one thing that emerges is that in the view of the author (and of many political and military leaders), Odierno is a brute who thinks force will solve every problem. My copy of Fiasco is at home, so I can't throw in any quotes, but the message was while Petraeus' forces were actually making allies, Odierno's forces were doing nothing but making enemies through their brutal tactics and complete lack of understanding of counterinsurgency tactics. So, does Odierno's appointment put the last nail in the coffin of any hopes that might have remained for Iraq?

Add to that, that Petraeus' avowed field of specialty is counterinsurgency -- which might have been helpful in the on-the-ground command in occupied territory, but is less clearly relevant to a theater command.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

Thank goodness for Amazon's Search Inside feature:

North of Baghdad, Odierno’s 4th Infantry Division operated in the northern part of the Sunni Triangle. His unit proved to be almost the opposite of Petraeus’s 101st Airborne. As the Marines had suspected when turning over the area north of Baghdad, Odierno and his division would take a combative posture in Iraq. “Odierno, he hammered everyone,” said Kellogg, the retired Army general who was at CPA. Odierno’s brigades and battalions earned a reputation for being overly aggressive. Again and again, internal Army reports and commanders in interviews said that this unit—a heavy armored division, despite its name—used ham-fisted approaches that may have appeared to pacify its area in the short term, but in the process alienated large parts of the population.

“The 4th ID was bad,” said one Army intelligence officer who worked with them. “These guys are looking for a fight,” he remembered thinking. “I saw so many instances of abuses of civilians, intimidating civilians, our jaws dropped.”

“Fourth ID fueled the insurgency,” added a Army psychological operations officer.

The thing is, Fiasco is a pretty even-handed book. The author, Thomas Ricks, has a lot of respect for the military, and thinks there were a lot of people in the military who knew what mistakes were being made in the planning and execution of the war and the occupation. But these people were ignored or silenced. IIRC, Ricks has no use for Odierno, though.

[bump]

IIRC, Ricks has no use for Odierno, though.


I wonder if in some sense, they're kicking Odierno upstairs in a sort of Peter Principle kind of way. If he's in a higher command, he's divorced somewhat from things relative to what he'd be as a Corps commander, so maybe the brutishness will be muted somewhat, in the same way that a psychopath Lieutenant would get a lot more opportunities to shoot Iraqis as a platoon commander than if they promoted him to Captain and put him on some battalion staff somewhere.

Just something to think about...

[Sophistry and Illusion]

I wonder if in some sense, they're kicking Odierno upstairs in a sort of Peter Principle kind of way. If he's in a higher command, he's divorced somewhat from things relative to what he'd be as a Corps commander, so maybe the brutishness will be muted somewhat, in the same way that a psychopath Lieutenant would get a lot more opportunities to shoot Iraqis as a platoon commander than if they promoted him to Captain and put him on some battalion staff somewhere.

Just something to think about...
I see what you're saying. But my impression is that Petraeus was successful as a ground commander, and took along with him the lessons he had learned on the ground when he was put in charge of the whole shebang, which is why things are slightly less of a clusterfuck now than they were previously. Now you replace Petraeus with someone who was a failure as a ground commander, and...what follows? Not success, I'm betting.

[duality72]

I wonder if in some sense, they're kicking Odierno upstairs in a sort of Peter Principle kind of way. If he's in a higher command, he's divorced somewhat from things relative to what he'd be as a Corps commander, so maybe the brutishness will be muted somewhat, in the same way that a psychopath Lieutenant would get a lot more opportunities to shoot Iraqis as a platoon commander than if they promoted him to Captain and put him on some battalion staff somewhere.

Sounds more like the Dilbert Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_Principle).

[mswas]

Sounds more like the Dilbert Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_Principle).

Yeah, the promotion of Petraeus is the Peter Principle.