Word: odierno
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...officials say the cease-fire was a major factor in lowering violence across Iraq, where an ongoing surge of U.S. forces is now focused primarily on fighting Sunni extremists. "I would say it probably caused us about a 15 or 20% decrease in attack levels," said Gen. Raymond Odierno, the ground commander for U.S. troops in Iraq...
...Sadr's move was less about helping the U.S. than about purging unruly elements from his 60,000-man militia. Another interpretation is that al-Sadr is simply waiting out the surge and that his fighters will return to the fray when U.S. troops have withdrawn. Whatever the reason, Odierno reckons that al-Sadr's cease-fire is responsible for a 15%-to-20% reduction in attacks on U.S. forces over the past year. U.S. military officers are now in touch with their counterparts at all levels of al-Sadr's operation, trying to persuade them to join the peaceful...
...surge's proponents say the main reason Iraq is quieter now than it was a year ago is that Odierno and Petraeus simply kept after the bad guys. "They went after about every safe haven at the same time," notes Kagan. "They followed up, they didn't give the enemy time to regroup and set up command-and-control centers." The strategy has been costly: 901 American troops died in Iraq in 2007, the deadliest year for U.S. forces since 2004. But Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence has dropped dramatically since the surge began, and U.S. fatalities decreased from...
...most striking changes of 2007 is the relative candor with which U.S. military officers now talk about Iraq. Unlike most of their starry-eyed predecessors, when asked, Petraeus and Odierno are quick to list what isn't working well. Iraqi security forces remain unable to mount operations without the logistical help of U.S. forces. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is on the run, but it has not been routed, and it still enjoys free rein in some parts of the country. Murder, death threats and kidnappings are still commonplace; more than 100,000 sections of concrete car-bomb barriers now snake...
...fact, that's already happening. Several thousand troops involved in the surge have quietly begun to pull out. For now, Petraeus and Odierno are sticking by their plan to draw down U.S. forces by roughly 4,000 troops a month through July. Left unchanged, that would return U.S. forces close to their pre-surge level. But both men caution that it could be halted if violence flares up. Petraeus says further withdrawals depend on a matrix of unknowns: military and economic conditions, and whether the Iraqis are showing signs of governing themselves...