Word: petraeus
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...have to achieve very rapid progress to show people your intentions are good," Lieut. General David Petraeus told the Philadelphia Inquirer in October 2003, explaining how he and the 101st Airborne Division had brought peace and civility to the city of Mosul. It was one of the few early success stories of the war in Iraq--and then, within a year after Petraeus left, it all fell apart. What happened in Mosul, despite the best efforts of an enlightened U.S. general, is particularly instructive now that Petraeus has been given the far more difficult job of securing Baghdad...
...Petraeus did move rapidly in Mosul. With 20,000 troops at his disposal, he was able to establish an overwhelming presence in the streets. U.S. soldiers walked beats like police officers and were stationed in local patrol bases, the equivalent of precinct houses. They were instructed to treat the Iraqis with respect. Knocking down doors was replaced by knocking on doors. When force was used, the Inquirer reported, "A task force is sent into a neighborhood to clean up and take claims for any damages ...'Will this take more bad guys off the streets than it creates...
...within weeks after he arrived, Petraeus staged elections for a city council and began to disburse funds to clean schools, reopen factories, fix potholes and establish recreation programs. He was, in effect, the mayor of Mosul. The tactics Petraeus used were well known to a tiny cadre of military intellectuals in the Pentagon: they were classic counterinsurgency methods, and they were scorned by most of the brass (and by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld), who thought that nation building was a job for social workers, not soldiers. Even though counterinsurgency seemed to be working in Mosul, the Pentagon wasn...
...Fallon was a surprise, few were taken aback by the news that Army Lieut. General David Petraeus will take over Gen. George Casey's job as the on-scene commander in Iraq. Petraeus served in Iraq twice, has a Ph.D in international relations, and comes loaded with the optimism the job requires, not to mention support for the surge option Bush favors. Some Marine officers were pulling for one of their own: Lt. Gen. James Mattis, one of the military's most seasoned combat veterans (he led the complex but successful invasion into Afghanistan and then took the 1st Marine...
...Petraeus - whom critics call "King David" for his often sophisticated self-promotion skills - will be in charge of day-to-day fighting in Iraq, while Fallon will oversee the entire Middle East and Southwest Asia, which are under CENTCOM's purview. The admiral will also be tasked with trying to convince Middle Eastern countries to lend the U.S. a hand in redeveloping Iraq's flagging economy...