All In: The Education of General David Petraeus

Petraeus urged to quit over Afghan drawdown

What I found most interesting in this advance copy book review is the following:

She describes how Petraeus' first act was to lift McChrystal's restrictions on the use of force - especially on airstrikes - if civilians were nearby. "There is no question about our commitment to reducing civilian loss of life," Petraeus told his staff. There was, however, "a clear moral imperative to make sure we are fully supporting our troops in combat." Broadwell adds that the problem, according to Petraeus, was less McChrystal's order than how it was even more strictly re-interpreted by lower commanders.

A new national security team

Here are some quick comments on the national security moves:

It appears clear to me that Ryan Crocker will be an upgrade over Karl Eikenberry as ambassador to Afghanistan.

As to the other moves, in my mind, Secretary Gates is the finest Secretary of Defense in our history. Mr. Panetta, although talented, probably won't come close to Secretary Gates. Secretary Gates has been fighting the DoD bureaucracy since the beginning of his tenure asking for budget cuts and to spend money on "stuff" we need now, not 20 years from now; he was a visionary. Mr. Panetta, a Washington insider, is not a visionary.

With regards to the GEN Petraeus move, it seems like a lateral move that just allows him to collect his Army retirement check and a paycheck for being CIA Director, while keeping him in the United States with his family (most of the time). This move also keeps him off the ballot, an added benefit to career politicians that view him as a potential threat.

Finally, Lt. Gen. Allen will do a fine job in Afghanistan if his work in Iraq's MNF-W is any indicator.



Here is an excerpt from the article:

Perhaps the greatest risk of the reshuffle comes in Afghanistan, where the departure of Gen. Petraeus will remove America’s most skilled military commander from a campaign that appears to be teetering between success and failure. Lt. Gen. Allen, however, was a key contributor to the successful turnaround of the war in Iraq; and Mr. Crocker offers a major improvement over his predecessor, Karl Eikenberry, who contributed substantially to the souring of U.S. relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

GEN Petraeus to CIA Director?

I don't quite understand this one... if GEN Petraeus ultimately wants the job of Secretary of Defense, why not just give it to him it when Secretary Gates (pbuh) resigns? Maybe his peer flag officers wouldn't like that? Boo hoo hoo.

Demise of Iraqi water park illustrates limitations, abuse of U.S. funding program

It's fun to kill Taliban

Good luck General Mattis.

General Amos?

This article is right on in suggesting that Amos was chosen to kill the EFV. Sec. Gates (pbuh)!!! However, there is more to this story than meets the eye... plenty is not talked about in the article. ADM Mullen needs to be replaced soon... wouldn't it be nice to have a Chairman with actual ground combat experience relaying the service chiefs' views to the president and making recommendations? That could mean Mattis or Petraeus. This article suggests that Obama is terrified of Petraeus as a potential 2012 opponent - which I think is a rumor created solely by misinformed staffers that think Petraeus is a GOPper because he is a career military officer. Perhaps the president is terrified of him... as... dare I say it, an intellectual peer who is smarter than him? DADT doesn't play a part in this - let bozos like Odierno think that the administration actually cares about DADT... if they did Obama would have signed an executive order on January 20, 2009, ending it.

Afghan Bombs Grow, Forcing Troops to Adapt

The key to the chart above is how many NATO troops are alerted to IED locations by local Afghans. Unfortunately, that number is still very low. The US can spend billions more on armor for vehicles, but it will not do any good; roads that can handle gargantuan, indestructible troop transports are not available... unless Robert Moses rises from the dead this Easter to build a road network to traverse the rough terrain of Afghanistan. Remember, the Soviet Army was an armor heavy force and they were still defeated. NATO needs to gain the trust of the local tribes, but I'm sure all of the ivory tower counterinsurgency "expert" bloggers have said this already.

Odierno speaks in a full sentence...

A svelte Ray modeling the new Army Service Uniform. He is still a leg...

...and requests more combat forces in Iraq past the deadline. As you can tell from previous posts, I'm not a huge fan of GEN Odierno. However, at least he is speaking up. I do question the timing of this though...

On another note, I love how after GEN Casey recommended to take it slowly on the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," GEN Odierno immediately piped up and said, "Oh, I favor repealing it." GEN Odierno is undoubtedly positioning himself to replace GEN Casey as Army Chief of Staff, which he most likely will get when GEN Casey finally retires. My crystal ball also predicts a GEN Petraeus nomination for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, once Admiral Mullen finally retires.

Meanwhile back in Iraq...and my A-TEAM

LTG Jacoby, MNC-I Commander

LTG Austin has relinquished command of MNC-I to LTG Jacoby, an officer with no experience in Iraq and is famous for being the Bush administration's Afghanistan cover-up general while serving as ADC-M & ADC-S in Afghanistan from July 2002 to February 2005. Hooah! Doesn't the Army have a (competent & scandal-free) three-star general that has served in Iraq to command MNC-I? At this point, you would think so...

On another note... ...when are we going to give BG MacFarland, BG Shields, and COL(P) McMaster divisions to command and put in our A-TEAM? In my mind, they do not need to spend any time in an ADC slot - their brigade commands in Iraq proved they are ready to command a division, but, alas, the Army is still into box checks for officer career paths. These three officers should be given division commands immediately in either theater. Despite being Armor Officers, MacFarland was responsible for the "Sunni Awakening" in MND-W, and McMaster saved Tal-Afar using counterinsurgency techniques in MND-NW / MND-W. Meanwhile, Shields led his 172nd SBCT through a 16 month tour in Iraq in which he commanded troops in MND-W, MND-N, and MND-B. Having served under him, I know that he "gets" counterinsurgency. His published counterinsurgency reading list for officers/NCOs was extensive and he, good God, had an uncanny ability to remember everything about his troop leaders - even the name of a lowly lieutenant frustrated with how the war was going. Combined, McMaster, MacFarland, and Shields, set the stage for the surge's tactical "success." They took their own initiative (like MG Petraeus under LTG Sanchez in OIF-I) without any guidance from the incompetent MNF-I commander they were serving under, GEN Casey. Their units made limited gains in Iraq in 2005-2006 despite media reports only showing casualties and politicians claiming that the war was already lost. These three brigade commanders "saved" Iraq and saved Casey's pathetic career; they even got him a promotion to Army Chief of Staff.

Anyhow, hopefully we can get these three officers back into the fight soon - they have been sitting on the bench too long. They truly are the A-TEAM...

MacFarland can be Hannibal and lead his troops with his "unorthodox" counterinsurgency techniques and cigar chomping...

Hannibal

Meanwhile, McMaster can change the R to an M and play H.M. Murdock. H.R. McMaster's Ph.D. jives well with Murdock's encyclopedic knowledge of random facts. Also, his escape from Army Officer career abyss, partially caused by penning a book that was critical of Army leadership, was similar to how Murdock escaped the psychiatric ward.

Murdock

Finally, Shields, being in the best (hockey) shape of the three, can be B.A. Baracus aka Mr. T. Being a big Notre Dame fan might mean that he has a gold crucifix as big as Mr. T's, although highly doubtful...

B.A. Baracus (on right)

Soon to be GEN McChrystal

Abu M beat me to the punch here. Here are his thoughts on LTG McChrystal: McKiernan Out, McChrystal In

As I have stated earlier, LTG McChrystal is more than qualified for combat command. I also stated that implementing a counterinsurgency strategy fell to GEN McKiernan, not GEN Petraeus, and questioned how he and the Obama administration could save Afghanistan. Thankfully, the Obama administration acted swiftly and replaced GEN McKiernan quickly. They fired a general that wasn't getting the job done - holy $h!7!!! Bravo, Obama administration! Bravo, Secretary Gates (pbuh)!

Who Won and Who Lost in the Defense Budget?

My big question now is, when is ADM Mullen getting sacked as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? Notice how the vice-chairman was present for Gates' announcement... not the chairman. This was not by coincidence. Flying in the face of ADM Mullen's statements that defense spending should never fall below 4 percent of GDP, Gates announced that defense spending would be slashed to less than 4 percent of GDP. Can anyone say Chairman Petraeus? Share

Fox Fallon

Admiral (R) Fox Fallon

The neoconservatives were apparently thirsting for some action with China when Admiral Fallon was the commander of USPACOM in 2005. Here is an excerpt:

"There were people who warned me that you'd better get ready for the shoot 'em up here, because sooner or later we're going be at war with China," recalled the commander, William Fallon, a retired navy admiral. "I don't think that's where we want to go. And so I set about challenging all the assumptions."

In his first extensive interview since resigning from the navy this year, Fallon said that the United States desperately needed to come up with a strategy for dealing peacefully with a rising China.

Fallon if you remember, went on to become CENTCOM commander after serving as PACOM commander - an oddity within the senior officer corps. It was as CENTCOM commander that Fallon continued to challenge the Bush administration and some reports state that he had trouble containing his subordinate, then MNF-I commander GEN David Petraeus, whose influence on the White House was growing by the minute. In this piece, Fallon also stated that, the war in Iraq "is essentially over."

"We have some combat activity still ongoing occasionally up in the Mosul area, but other than that it's pretty much over and been over," he said.

But the war in Afghanistan, though showing some progress in recent months as a result of increased cooperation with neighboring Pakistan, is "probably a bigger challenge than Iraq," Fallon said.

The Counterinsurgent

I have not read this book, but below is an excerpt from a New York Times book review of Linda Robinson's Tell Me How This Ends:

Robinson makes it clear that this simply isn’t so. She describes in exacting detail the tactics used by field officers in some of the most terrifying battlegrounds of Iraq. When the First Battalion, Fifth Cavalry Regiment of the First Cavalry Division was assigned in late 2006 to Ameriya, in western Baghdad, the commander, Lt. Col. Dale Kuehl, moved his headquarters out of the base camp and into a local police station. He and his staff officers had read up on “battalion-led counterinsurgency,” and were eager to put its precepts into effect. Kuehl began building contacts with local sheiks, and spreading money around by paying for trash pickup and road repair. Then he began “clearing” operations against insurgents. The cost was high: 14 deaths in May alone.

Robinson lingers on the heroic self-­discipline of officers who denied their men the catharsis of revenge, knowing that they were fighting for the sympathies of civilians. And finally, that discipline paid off. In late May, a local sheik called Kuehl to say that his tribesmen would be going after an Al Qaeda cell. When the sheik called back in a panic to ask for help, Kuehl joined the fight. His men weren’t sure which Iraqis to shoot at, but the battle went well, and later Kuehl reached an understanding with the commander of the tribal force: he promised to pay the Sunnis, many of them former insurgents, if they submitted to fingerprinting and agreed to work with the Iraqi Army. When Petraeus learned of the deal, his only advice was, “Do not let our Army stop you,” and “Do not let the Iraqi government stop you.”

Counterinsurgency theory holds that military action can only be a precondition for political success. And Robinson readily concedes that President Maliki and other Iraqi national leaders have so far refused to pursue compromise. Indeed, journalists and policy analysts have been reporting that Maliki has reneged on promises to induct Awakening members into the Iraqi Army and police, threatening a return to the Hobbesian violence of 2006. Robinson holds out hope that coming elections will produce a more legitimate government. She supports Petraeus’s preference for a gradual draw-down of forces as the Iraqi Army assumes control of ground-level operations. And she argues that a swifter withdrawal would jeopardize the fragile gains of the last year.

Afghanistan Is in Its Worst Shape Since 2001, European Diplomat Says

From The New York Times:

One of the most experienced Western envoys in Afghanistan said Sunday that conditions there had become the worst since 2001. He urged a concerted American and foreign response, even before a new American administration took office, to avoid “a very hot winter for all of us.”

Mr. Vendrell said that nevertheless it was time not to abandon Afghanistan but to redouble efforts there, both military efforts and those to build up civilian institutions and ensure that elections are held next year. In particular, he said, the United States must develop clear standards to govern the detention of hundreds of Afghans it holds without trial.

“This is not the time to leave; we are not destined to fail, but we are far from succeeding,” he concluded.

How exactly is GEN Petraeus going to fix Afghanistan? It is a trick question. Petraeus' tactical warfighting days are now over... implementing an effective counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan falls to NATO/ISAF commander, GEN David McKiernan. Petraeus can only help influence the efforts of the commanders in theater. Since he is now exclusively at the strategic level, GEN Petraeus must focus on the big picture.

First, he must focus on the destruction of the jihadist logistics supply chain across CENTCOM's area of responsibility. This chain includes the drug trade and the money from it that goes towards purchasing weapons in addition to the movement of fighters to the conflict areas. He needs to follow the money. Disruption requires a tweak of the human intelligence targeting system at the strategic level by issuing guidance refocusing tactical units' priority intelligence requirements from the whereabouts of terrorist leaders to the whereabouts of the movers and shakers (e.g. Taliban members who speak Russian, Farsi, Arabic, French, or Chinese, and Iraqis that speak Farsi, Pashto, Russian, French, or Chinese - all of whom undoubtedly play a role as messengers or in securing weapons - yet seem to be low level jihadists, well-educated engineers who undoubtedly help teach the popular "IED Construction 101" at Helmand Community College or Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib University of Najaf - now with an extension center in Sadr City!). Killing or capturing the movers and shakers will disturb the links the Taliban needs to sustain itself and help erode the power of its well known leaders. The Taliban's strength, its ability to operate in a decentralized manner, is also its weakness in this aspect.

Second, Petraeus must be a diplomat and a military advisor. He must throw a lump of clay onto his potter's wheel and form the base needed for stability in the region for years to come... the next CENTCOM commander and president will hopefully then be able to add a few coils of clay and continue to mold the regional sculpture. One of his first acts as CENTCOM commander should be to petition outgoing President George W. Bush and whoever the incoming president is to make guarantees to the Pakistani government that we will not withdraw prematurely leaving them with the problem of the Taliban. Given that they have an inexperienced president,Asif Ali Zardari, these assurances are needed. Also, it will go a long way towards convincing Army Chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, that, since U.S. premature withdrawal is off the table, he needs to ensure that the ISI shares actionable intelligence on the Taliban to its infantry units and NATO/ISAF, rather than allowing the Taliban to operate in Pakistan for fear of retaliation upon U.S. withdrawal. This will also pave the way for U.S. cross border raids into Pakistani territories to eradicate the Taliban.

Third, Petraeus must also ensure that a farmer subsidy program is begun in Afghanistan by petitioning the defense secretary and president for more money so that the opium eradication is accomplished not by crop spraying, but by paying poor farmers not to grow opium, which funds the Taliban.

Finally, he must ensure that the lights are turned on across the CENTCOM area of responsibilities and that infrastructure is built linking the countries like Iraq and Afghanistan to other countries... a task more easily said than done. These are just a few things that should be on Petraeus' to-do list, but I am confident that he is already tracking.

See also:
Willing To Win in Afghanistan?

Odierno takes charge

General Odierno propaganda art
[courtesy of the The Weekly Standard]

From The Guardian today:

The physically imposing Odierno, who will be promoted to four-star general, was a relative latecomer to the hearts and minds techniques of Petraeus. During his first stint in Iraq in 2003, when he commanded the 4th Infantry Division, Odierno was responsible for an area north of Baghdad known as the Sunni triangle, which included Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town.

Few US military commanders or soldiers have much good to say about Odierno's aggressive tactics. His division's mistreatment of Iraqis and the heavy use of artillery appalled others within the country's armed forces.

Army reporters and commanders said Odierno's unit - a heavy armoured division, despite its name – used an iron-fist strategy that may have appeared to pacify the area in the short term, but alienated large parts of the population. Some argue that the behaviour of the 4th Infantry Division helped create the insurgency.

"Fourth ID fuelled the insurgency," an army psychological operations officer told Thomas Ricks in his book on the Iraq war, Fiasco. An unnamed general said bluntly: "The 4th ID – what they did was a crime."

Odierno defended his troops' conduct by saying his men faced a population more hostile than in the rest of Iraq and had to act accordingly. The capture of Saddam in an underground bunker in December 2003 by Odierno's soldiers did little to dispel their cowboy image.

The division's tactics contrasted with those of Petraeus, whose troops complemented searches of ex-Baathists' homes with meetings with tribal chiefs and community projects such as rebuilding schools and painting over old murals of Saddam. Petraeus went on to rewrite the US military's counter-insurgency manual and then took overall command in Iraq.

Odierno was slow in recognising the strength of the insurgency at the start of 2004. At the time, he told reporters that the insurgents had been "brought to their knees". He was not alone in his overconfidence. A few months later, violence erupted and US forces all but ceded control of places such as Fallujah to the rebels...

Odierno is now a convert to the Petraeus approach, telling troops it is their job to protect the population and that counter-insurgency takes time.

From Al Jazeera today:

General Ray Odierno, a US military commander known for his aggressive tactics, has taken command of US-led forces in Iraq, replacing General David Petraeus.... [the 4ID] used a heavy-handed strategy that has been accused of devastating large parts of the Iraqi population. It was Odierno's soldiers who captured Saddam in December 2003. <>But later, he appeared to have adopted Petraeus's approach... He has argued consistently against sharp cutbacks in troop levels in Iraq, which is negotiating a controversial security pact with Washington to determine troop levels that will remain in Iraq after a UN mandate expires at the end of the year.

Here is a copy of General Petraeus' farewell letter to the troops:

Finally, a picture from the change of command ceremony:

Is Odierno ready?

GEN Raymond Odierno, new MNF-I commander, contemplating
OPERATION KIBBLES 'N BITS

I have maintained from the beginning that the only reasons GEN Raymond Odierno, a career artillery officer, continues to be promoted is because his wife runs a great officers' wives club, his son was badly injured in Iraq, and he is a yes man [see Nomination of LTG Odierno for MNF-I commander]. As a major general in command of the 4th Infantry Division (4ID), Odierno overflooded Abu Gharib and did not even know what counterinsurgency was. Meanwhile, his peer, then MG David Petraeus, referred to as "King David" by Iraqi tribal leaders and mocked as a "perfumed prince" by fellow officers who thought his tactics were ridiculous, followed a much different course. Petraeus, the "pied piper of Northern Iraq" in NBC parlance, was constantly preaching about "winning hearts and minds" in Mosul and was billed "Iraq's Repairman" by Newsweek; clearly he got it from the beginning. In striking comparison, the only nickname Odierno, a New Jersey native, earned was "Tony Soprano." Odierno shunned Petraeus' tactics and instead followed the limited guidance given to him in the sermons of his boss, LTG Ricky Sanchez, who also happened to be Petraeus' boss. Odierno killed or captured the Iraqi "bandits" while denying that there was an insurgency, all tenets of the Sanchez Doctrine. Here is an Odierno quote from a June 18, 2003, USA Today article:

"Although major combat operations have concluded, our soldiers are involved in almost daily contact with noncompliant forces, former regime members and common criminals," said Odierno, whose troops operate north of Baghdad to Kirkuk and east to the Iranian border. The area includes Tikrit, Saddam's former hometown.

"We are seeing military activity throughout our zone, but I really qualify it as militarily insignificant," Odierno told Pentagon reporters in a video conference from Tikrit. He added that the attacks are "having no impact on the way we conduct business on a day-to-day basis."

Apparently, Odierno just didn't get it! Doesn't America deserve adaptive leaders with foresight and vision? Odierno's performance as a division commander should have ended his career, but it didn't.

Odierno began to see the light in the summer of 2004 when Petraeus was promoted ahead of him to lieutenant general on May 18, and his son lost his left arm due to injuries sustained in an ambush. From that point on, Odierno worshipped at the altar of counterinsurgency. Odierno read the French Coptic texts of David Galula and the Gospels of John, also known as Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and FM 3-24. Odierno forced himself to believe that his diminutive former peer, David, could perform miracles and slay Goliath.

I truly hope that I am wrong about Odierno and he can run this war himself. Hopefully, his years of Counterinsurgency Bible study have prepared him for his apostolic succession. I hope that he is thinking of what the transition from counterinsurgency operations to nation building entails and reads Nation-Building: Beyond Afghanistan and Iraq, by Francis Fukuyama of The End of History and the Last Man fame, as a way to start to wrap his mind around the issues he could face. I hope he is prepared to start from scratch if the oil spots dry up; this time, however, there will be no surge forces available to keep the peace unless the selective service system is activated. I also hope he is prepared to execute a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and take the last chopper out of Baghdad if he is called to do so (which I think is highly unlikely). Finally, I hope that he does not take Petraeus' focus off of the strategic issues he needs to deal with as CENTCOM commander and he will not be calling Petraeus every few hours asking him what to do...

Odierno will have an able corps commander to help him, LTG Lloyd Austin, who, while serving as the ADC-M for the 3ID during the initial invasion of Iraq, was awarded the Silver Star. Austin, an infantry officer with numerous light infantry commands, is described as a "soldier's soldier" by peers and will bring a needed perspective to the heavy handed Odierno, who has a proclivity, as evidenced by his command of the 4ID, to fall back on his more than 25 years of conventional/force-on-force/3GW warfare training as a heavy artillery officer. On Monday, when asked if he thought progress could be moved along any faster or if he expected any changes from Petraeus to Odierno, Austin said, "I'm not sure that pushing them [the Iraqi government, the IA, and IPs] forward is the right thing that we want to do. We tried that once before and found that that didn't work." Hopefully, Odierno's heavy hand does not reverse the limited gains made in Iraq during the reign of the infallible David and he does not prove the Peter Principle as MNF-I commander, which I argue he already proved as a major general from March 2003 to April 2004.

See also:

Odierno's Conversion

Nomination of LTG Odierno for MNF-I commander

Petraeus says by fall he may seek Iraq troop cuts

Once again, the military is rewarding failure. Some prior examples:

1. LTG Chiarelli to MNC-I commander after mixed results as 1st Cavalry Division commander in Baghdad.

2. GEN Casey to Army Chief of Staff after a numbing performance as MNF-I commander.

3. LTG Odierno to MNC-I commander after using heavy handed tactics and overflooding the prisons at Abu Gharib when he was commander of 4th Infantry Division.

Now, once again, LTG Odierno and LTG Chiarelli have been nominated for promotions. LTG Odierno has been nominated for promotion to general and to become MNF-I commander, meanwhile LTG Chiarelli has been nominated for promotion to general and to Army Vice Chief of Staff. How much does one have to fail at the top levels in the Army in order to be forced to retire? LTG Odierno and GEN Casey are lauded as counterinsurgency converts, but where were they before counterinsurgency became the term de jour in military parlance? They were flooding prisons and getting mixed results as commanders. Wouldn't one expect a career Army officer to recognize an insurgency when he sees one instead of taking years and thousands of American lives? GEN Casey, LTG Odierno, and LTG Chiarelli's wives must run a mean officers' wives club.

GEN Petraeus and LTG Odierno were division commanders under the Peter Principle proving LTG Sanchez when our overarching strategy in Iraq was to kill and capture bandits and denying there was an insurgency... Odierno did exactly what Sanchez wanted - kill and capture bandits. Odierno excelled at the capture part and overflooded Abu Gharib (remember that?), while GEN Petraeus did his own thing up north (think back to the often-mocked "winning hearts and minds" mantra). Then Odierno was promoted to lieutenant general and suddenly became a counterinsurgency convert under his former peer Petraeus after a career as a "big guns go boom" artillery officer. On a side note to those who hate "legs," how is Odierno non-airborne qualified after spending years at Ft. Bragg? Meanwhile, a PhD holding, Tal-Afar saving, counterinsurgency expert like COL McMaster was passed over for brigadier general twice (H.R. McMaster Passed Over - Reverse Peter Principle?), and a career green beret like LTG McChrystal is not given MNC-I or MNF-I command. GEN Petraeus can only do so much with a sloppy joe officer corps above the rank of the few good captains that stayed in the Army. I wonder what maneuver Odierno, the inadaptable artillery officer, will make after MNF-I command? I wonder how many hours a day he will pull GEN Petraeus away from his strategic tasks (e.g. drug trade, Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, etc.) as CENTCOM commander asking him exactly what to do every step of the way as MNF-I commander?

**NOTE: This piece was written prior to COL McMaster being picked up for brigadier general (See H.R. McMaster Leads New Crop of Generals) and immediately after it was leaked that LTG Odierno was being nominated for MNF-I command