Word: petraeus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Defense Secretary Robert Gates's announcement Wednesday promoting General David Petraeus from his current post running the war in Iraq to head up U.S. Central Command triggered both political and military unease. That response may be inevitable, coming on the downside of an unpopular war and in the waning months of the tenure of the unpopular President who launched...
...While Republicans hailed the news that Petraeus - who implemented the "surge" of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Iraq, which is seen has having tamped down violence - was moving up the chain of command, Democrats were cooler. Opponents of the war fear that if the Democrat-led Senate approves Petraeus's promotion, it could be taken as a signal to "stay the course" in a war that has dragged on for more than five years and has killed more than 4,000 U.S. troops. Party activists will be paying close attention to how Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama vote...
...Democrats are unlikely to mount a campaign to block Petraeus' promotion. Yet Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the next CENTCOM commander must come with new plans for Iraq "if directed to by a new President." Petraeus hedged last month when asked what he would say if a new President were to order a withdrawal plan within 60 days of taking office. He verbally juggled risks and objectives before conceding, "We take orders and we follow them...
...impact of promoting Petraeus, however, may be even greater in the national security establishment than on Capitol Hill. It's a wake-up call to old-school Army officers and their vanishing dreams of massive tank battles and artillery skirmishes, some of whom privately call Petraeus "King David" for his high self-regard and chumminess with reporters. Gates has made clear that wants commanders able to carry out the messy, irregular kind of combat championed by Petraeus that the Defense Secretary envisages the U.S. fighting for years to come. The promotion reinforces the message he delivered to young Air Force...
Lesson Three: A good time for the insurgents to renew their bloody acts in Baghdad would be mid-August, when Petraeus and other American commanders will come to the end of what he called a 45-day "period of consolidation and evaluation" following the departure of the last surge troops in July. Hardcore jihadists like the fighters of al-Qaeda in Iraq want American forces to stay, not go. They enjoy the opportunity to confront them with guerrilla warfare and care little about what that does to Iraq. They want the fight to go on. Al-Qaeda in Iraq...