NYT : New Jobs Set for 2 Generals With Iraq Role

New Jobs Set for 2 Generals With Iraq Role

By THOM SHANKER | April 24, 2008

WASHINGTON — Under a plan announced at the Pentagon on Wednesday, the two commanders most closely associated with President Bush’s current strategy in Iraq would be elevated into new posts with responsibilities extending into the next administration over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gen. David H. Petraeus would take charge of all military affairs across the Middle East and Central Asia, and would be succeeded as the senior commander in Iraq by Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who returned to Washington in February after serving 15 months as General Petraeus’s deputy.

Asked whether the planned nominations by Mr. Bush were a sign that American policy was to “stay the course” in Iraq, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said that the security gains that had been achieved under General Petraeus’s command meant that “staying that course is not a bad idea.”

The nomination of General Petraeus could, however, portend a renewed American focus on Afghanistan, where the American war effort is widely recognized to be lagging, with violence by the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the rise. Mr. Gates already has expressed the desire to send several thousand additional troops to Afghanistan next year, although that could require further reductions in troop commitments to Iraq. General Petraeus would be expected to apply his views of counterinsurgency to Afghanistan, which may include a push toward increased troops.

Mr. Gates said he and President Bush settled on General Petraeus for the post because his counterinsurgency experience in Iraq made him best suited to oversee American operations across a region where the United States is engaged in “asymmetric” warfare, a euphemism for battling militants and nonuniformed combatants.

The previous Central Command chief, Adm. William J. Fallon, chose early retirement in March after rankling the Bush administration with public comments that seemed to suggest differences with the White House. If General Petraeus and General Odierno were to win Senate confirmation to their new posts, Mr. Gates said, they would take over in late summer or early fall.

The situation in Iraq remains fragile, as General Petraeus acknowledged in testimony to Congress this month when he warned that recent security gains could be easily reversed. Under his command, an increase in American forces brought troop levels as high as 165,000, and even critics of the increase say it contributed to a decline in violence, along with the cease-fire proclaimed by the Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr for his Mahdi Army militia and a shift in sentiment among Sunni tribes that turned them against Sunni militants.

Among the three candidates still vying to become the next president, Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, has defended the idea of maintaining high troop levels even after the troop increase runs its course in July, bringing the number down to slightly more than 140,000.

The two Democratic contenders, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, by contrast, have pressed for troop reductions at a pace far faster than those that General Petraeus has endorsed and have pledged to carry out withdrawals even if it meant going against the advice of field commanders. It would be unusual for a new president to replace a senior general new to his assignment. In a statement, Mrs. Clinton described General Petraeus as “an able and respected leader in Iraq under incredibly difficult circumstances,” and said she looked forward to hearing. “how he will meet these important challenges” of the broader Central Command region.

Mr. McCain, at a news conference on Wednesday, said that General Odierno “is maybe not perfect, but I think he has done a magnificent job.” Referring to General Petraeus, Mr. McCain said, “I think he is by far the best-qualified individual to take that job” as the regional commander.

After three tours in Iraq, General Petraeus, 55, has become perhaps the best-known military officer of his generation, and it had been expected that his next assignment after Iraq would be as the top American commander in Europe. Chosen instead to take charge of a region that includes Pakistan and Iran, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan, General Petraeus issued a statement on Wednesday saying, “I am honored to be nominated for this position and to have an opportunity to continue to serve.”

General Petraeus and General Odierno have built a strong working relationship and are believed to see eye to eye on how to carry out the complicated Iraq mission — one they believe requires offensive military operations, more subtle counterinsurgency missions and society-wide reconstruction, all at once.

Mr. Gates said General Odierno was the logical choice to succeed his old boss because he was familiar to the officers and troops in Iraq and, not least, to the Iraqis. “In most parts of the world, especially the Middle East, personal relationships make a big difference,” Mr. Gates said.

The defense secretary also announced that Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, Mr. Gates’s senior military assistant, would be nominated for Army vice chief of staff, a post that General Odierno had been expected to take. General Chiarelli has had two tours in Iraq — first as commander of the First Cavalry Division and coalition forces in Baghdad, and then as the No. 2 commander in the country.

The Central Command position would be General Petraeus’s fourth tour in the region since the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He first served as commander of the 101st Airborne Division, which invaded Iraq from the south and set up an area of control across the north. However, parts of the north, in particular the city of Mosul, are today among the most unstable in the nation.

He returned to Iraq to serve as commander of training Iraqi security forces, then commanded Fort Leavenworth, where he oversaw the writing of the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual, certain to influence his efforts in Afghanistan, too, if he is confirmed to the Central Command job.

General Petraeus’s challenge as leader of Central Command will be to avoid being trapped in continued, detailed management of the Iraq mission as he takes on vast geographical responsibilities across North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia, which clearly are the focus of American policy today far and above Europe or East Asia.

Mr. Gates said he believed that General Petraeus would win quick confirmation, based on recent conversations that he had with leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee. But he said “a good handoff” of responsibilities.

That transfer could come about the time that General Petraeus has promised to begin a new review of troop levels in Iraq, after the departure of five brigades by July will leave a force of about 140,000, slightly more than were in Iraq before the troop increase began.

The announcement that General Petraeus, 55, would head Central Command, and Mr. Gates’s emphasis on operations in Afghanistan as well as Iraq, reinforced the impression that Pentagon leaders expected the United States to have significant numbers of troops deployed in those two countries for some time to come.

When he was asked whether General Petraeus’s promotion to the theaterwide post, coupled with the selection of his former deputy, General Odierno, to lead forces in Iraq, should be interpreted as a warning to Iran, which has often been accused of meddling with the affairs of its neighbor Iraq, Mr. Gates did not answer directly.

But he did not discourage the suggestion of a warning to Iran, saying: “What Iranians are doing is killing American servicemen inside Iraq.”

General Odierno had been criticized in some quarters during his first tour in Iraq, as commander of the Fourth Infantry Division based in Tikrit. A high point was the capture of Saddam Hussein by forces under his command, but his troops also were criticized for heavy-handed operations that, critics said, helped fuel frustration and, perhaps, the insurgency itself.

Yet he received high marks during his most recent tour, as day-to-day commander of operations playing an important role in prosecuting that troop increase strategy.

Michael R. Gordon contributed reporting from Baghdad, and David Stout from Washington.

WaPo : Top U.S. Officer in Mideast Resigns

Top U.S. Officer in Mideast Resigns

By Thomas E. Ricks | Washington Post Staff Writer | March 12, 2008

The top U.S. commander in the Middle East, whose views on strategy in the region have put him at odds with the Bush administration, abruptly announced his resignation yesterday, calling reports of such disagreements an untenable "distraction."

Adm. William J. "Fox" Fallon became head of U.S. Central Command last March, putting him ostensibly in charge of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he clashed frequently with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, over strategy and troop levels, Pentagon officials said. Though technically Fallon's subordinate, Petraeus has more experience in Iraq and has forged a strong connection with President Bush.

Fallon had made several comments reflecting disagreement with the administration's stance on Iran, most recently in an Esquire magazine article last week that portrayed him as the only person who might stop Bush from going to war with the Islamic republic.

"Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time," Fallon said in a statement. Though he denied that any discrepancies exist, he said "it would be best to step aside and allow" Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates "and our military leaders to move beyond this distraction."

Fallon is expected to step down at the end of the month, after barely a year in his position, and just eight days before Petraeus is scheduled to testify before Congress about conditions in Iraq. Military officers said it appeared that it was made clear to Fallon that nobody would object if he stepped down.

"Admiral Fallon reached this difficult decision entirely on his own," Gates said yesterday in an unscheduled news conference. He added: "I believe it was the right thing to do, even though I do not believe there are, in fact, significant differences between his views and administration policy."

The defense secretary also praised Fallon's abilities as a strategist, even though it was the admiral's strategic views that seemed to trouble the administration. "He is enormously talented and very experienced, and he does have a strategic vision that is rare," Gates said.

The Esquire article, written by Thomas P. M. Barnett, a former Naval War College professor, asserted that if Fallon left his job anytime soon, it could signal that Bush intends to go to war with Iran. Asked about that yesterday, Gates called it "just ridiculous."

Several Democrats were quick to accuse the administration of not tolerating dissent. "It's distressing that Admiral Fallon feels he had to step down," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.). "President Bush's oft-repeated claim that he follows the advice of his commanders on the ground rings hollow if our commanders don't feel free to disagree with the president." Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) asked whether Fallon's resignation is a reflection that the administration is hostile to "the frank, open airing of experts' views."

A likely successor to Fallon is Petraeus, some defense experts said. The general could be promoted to the Centcom post and replaced in Baghdad by Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, who until last month was Petraeus's deputy in Iraq. Odierno, who has been nominated to become Army vice chief of staff, developed a strong working relationship with Petraeus.

Another possible successor mentioned yesterday is Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the head of Special Operations in Iraq. McChrystal recently was nominated to be director of the staff of the Joint Chiefs, a key Pentagon position.

On Iraq, Fallon butted heads with Petraeus over the past year, arguing for a more rapid drawdown of U.S. troops and a swifter transition to Iraqi security forces. Fallon even carried out his own review of the conduct of the war -- a move that surprised many Pentagon officials, in part because Odierno and Petraeus had already revamped U.S. strategy in Iraq and, with Bush's approval, had implemented a buildup of about 30,000 additional troops, moving them off big bases and deploying them among the Iraqi population.

In the Esquire article, Fallon contends that Iraq was consuming excessive U.S. attention. In a part of the world with "five or six pots boiling over," he is quoted as saying, "our nation can't afford to be mesmerized by one problem."

The article was "definitely the straw that broke the camel's back," a retired general said, especially because of its "extraordinarily flip, damning and insulting" tone. He noted that since it appeared last week, it has been the talk of military circles, where it was expected that Fallon would be disciplined.

Fallon, one of the last Vietnam veterans in the U.S. military, was the first Navy officer selected to lead Centcom, a role traditionally granted to Army and Marine generals such as H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Tommy R. Franks and Anthony C. Zinni. One reason he was chosen to replace Army Gen. John P. Abizaid was because the administration -- dealing with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as a diplomatic crisis over Iran's nuclear program -- wanted a seasoned officer who could step into the job quickly, without having to learn the ropes of top command, according to a person involved in his selection.

As a veteran of Pacific Command, where he focused on dealing with the rise of China, Fallon was seen as someone who would be comfortable operating at the highest levels of diplomacy and politics. He had told colleagues that he viewed Iran as a problem similar to China -- one that mainly required steady engagement rather than aggressive confrontation. That stance put him at odds with Iran hawks both inside and outside the administration.

Peter D. Feaver, a former staff member of Bush's National Security Council, said that the public nature of Fallon's remarks made it necessary for the admiral to step down. "There is ample room for military leaders to debate administration policy behind closed doors," said Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University. "However, taking such arguments into the media would violate basic democratic norms of civil-military relations."

But Richard Danzig, who served as Navy secretary from 1998 to 2001 and has known Fallon for 15 years, said Fallon's departure will leave a significant hole in a critical region. "Any turnover in Centcom has real costs, because this is an arena in the world, more than others, that depends a lot on relationships and extensive periods of conversation and mutual understanding," he said.

That might prove especially true in Pakistan. Fallon had become a point man for crucial military relations there as the Pentagon implements a stepped-up program to help Pakistani forces deal with Islamic extremism along the border with Afghanistan. In visits to Islamabad in November and January, he cemented ties with Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, the new armed forces chief of staff. The administration hopes that Kiyani will keep the military out of Pakistani politics while showing new aggression toward al-Qaeda and Taliban forces along the Afghan border.

Fallon's departure also reflects Gates's management style. During his 15 months at the Pentagon, the defense secretary has shown a willingness to move decisively in cases of internal conflict. A career intelligence officer, he demanded the resignation of Army Secretary Francis J. Harvey last year because of the way he handled the fallout from reports about substandard care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Gates also declined to nominate Gen. Peter Pace, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for a second two-year term, amid concerns that a Democratic-controlled Congress would grill Pace on Iraq.

Yesterday, Gates said the perception that Fallon disagreed with the administration's policies was enough to concern Fallon that he may no longer be effective in the region. Gates quoted Fallon as saying that the situation was "embarrassing."

Staff writers Josh White, Karen DeYoung and Peter Baker contributed to this report.

NYT : Petraeus Says U.S. Seeking Calm in North

Petraeus Says U.S. Seeking Calm in North

By ALISSA J. RUBIN and JAMES GLANZ | October 29, 2007

CAMP SPEICHER, Iraq, Oct. 28 — With tensions on the border between Iraq and Turkey still running high, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the American military’s commander in Iraq, indicated Sunday that behind-the-scenes efforts were under way to calm the situation. But he would not talk about them publicly because the situation was volatile.

“I am not going to be saying anything about what we may be doing with our longtime NATO ally Turkey, although we clearly are doing things with them,” General Petraeus said. “Nor am I saying what we’re doing with our longtime Iraqi partners,” he added.

He made the remarks to a handful of reporters after a change-of-command ceremony he attended at Camp Speicher, the military base five miles northwest of Tikrit that is headquarters for American-led forces in northern Iraq.

Turkey and Iraq are at odds because Kurdish guerrillas who have taken refuge in the Qandeel mountains in the Kurdistan region in northern Iraq are using the area as a base for making raids into Turkey. Last week, the guerrillas, part of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., killed at least 12 Turkish soldiers and kidnapped several. That, with previous raids, led Turkey to threaten to invade northern Iraq to rout the guerrillas.

Iraq-Turkey tensions have put the United States in an awkward position because Turkey is an ally and there about 160,000 American troops in Iraq.

General Petraeus also made clear that despite reports describing Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as a largely spent force, he viewed it as a continuing threat, though with reduced influence among Sunni Arabs in Baghdad over the past several months. The force is composed largely of Iraqi insurgents and is believed to be foreign-led, according to American intelligence sources, but its ties to Osama bin Laden are unclear at best.

“The presence of Al Qaeda in a number of the key neighborhoods that they were in before — Amariya, Adhamiya, Ghazaliya, Dora — has been significantly reduced and its actions degraded,” General Petraeus said. He added that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia “remained a very lethal enemy of Iraq” and that the military must “keep the pressure on very, very intensely.”

With Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia’s activity reduced, General Petraeus said, it has been possible to see other problems more clearly, including criminal activities like extortion. He described the criminal influence in some areas of the capital as almost “a mafia-type presence.”

The vulnerability of Sunnis and Shiites who are working to thwart extremism was clear again on Sunday evening when 10 sheiks, three of them Sunni Arabs and the rest Shiites, were kidnapped as they tried to return to Al Salam in eastern Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province.

The sheiks had gone to Baghdad to meet with a representative of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. It was unclear who was responsible for the kidnapping, which occurred in Shaab, a poor, predominantly Shiite neighborhood.

On a separate matter, General Petraeus seemed to distance himself from any effort to save Sultan Hashim, the defense minister under Saddam Hussein, from a death sentence. At the same time, General Petraeus said the three-man Iraqi presidency council “has a very important role.”

The council, made up of President Jalal Talabani and two vice presidents, has yet to ratify the death sentence as required before the execution can be carried out. One result has been to stall Mr. Hashim’s execution. Mr. Talabani opposes the death penalty, but was not a vocal opponent to Mr. Hussein’s execution.

Mr. Hashim is being held in American custody, with the agreement that he will be turned over to the Iraqis when they are ready to hang him. However, the Americans seem to be intent on ensuring that all paperwork be completed. General Petraeus said the Americans would hand Mr. Hashim over when they received the completed paperwork, implying that they had not received it.

Mr. Hashim, who surrendered to General Petraeus in 2003, has been well treated, the general said Sunday. While in American custody, Mr. Hashim was allowed to visit his family and with an imam, General Petraeus said.

Recently, he has become a symbol to Sunni Arabs of the poor treatment of anyone who worked for Mr. Hussein, even those who served the country. The Americans, who are trying to persuade Sunni Arabs to work with them and the Iraqi government to fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, want to avoid doing anything that would alienate potential allies.

There has been an outcry in defense of Mr. Hashim primarily from Sunni Arabs, especially those who are former members of the security services. Leading the effort has been Tariq al-Hashimi, a Sunni Arab who is one of Iraq’s two vice presidents. Mr. Hashimi emphasized that Mr. Hashim had had little choice but to obey Saddam Hussein’s orders and that in all respects Mr. Hashim was viewed as a professional soldier, not a defender of Mr. Hussein’s rule.

Alissa J. Rubin reported from Baghdad, and James Glanz from Camp Speicher. Qais Mizher contributed from Baghdad.

WaPo : U.S. Planners See Shiite Militias as Rising Threat

U.S. Planners See Shiite Militias as Rising Threat

By Ann Scott Tyson | Washington Post Staff Writer | October 22, 2007

Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker have concluded that Shiite extremists pose a rising threat to the U.S. effort in Iraq, as the relative influence of Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq has diminished drastically because of ongoing U.S. operations.

This judgment forms part of the changes that Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, approved last week to their classified campaign strategy for the country, which covers the period through summer 2009. The updated plan anticipates shifting the U.S. military effort to focus more on countering Shiite militias -- some backed by Iran -- that have generated new violence as they battle for power in the south and elsewhere in Iraq, said senior military and diplomatic officials familiar with the plan.

"As the Sunni insurgents quit fighting us, the problems we have with criminality and other militia, many of them Shia, become relatively more important," said a U.S. Embassy official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity because the plan is not finalized.

The plan also acknowledges that the U.S. military -- with limited time and troops -- cannot guarantee a wholesale defeat of its enemies in Iraq, and instead is seeking "political accommodation" to persuade them to end the use of violence, the officials said.

In the political arena, the campaign plan no longer upholds the passage of specific laws by Iraq's parliament as the main measure of reconciliation among religious and ethnic factions. It instead emphasizes the need for government leaders to take concrete, practical steps in areas such as sharing oil revenues or hiring ex-Baathist officials. "We want to have more focus on these results . . . not on the technical legislation," said the embassy official.

Crocker and Petraeus are in broad agreement over the campaign plan changes, summarized in a 20-slide presentation that they approved in a meeting last Wednesday. However, officials identified frictions over elements of the plan -- in particular, the pace and scope of future troop withdrawals -- between Petraeus, whose priority is stabilizing Iraq, and senior leaders at the Pentagon, Joint Chiefs of Staff and regional commands concerned about the risks of conflicts elsewhere.

Top military, Pentagon and State Department officials will review the changes, which will then be incorporated into the full campaign plan, a document of more than 200 pages. Petraeus and Crocker are expected to sign the new plan by mid-November.

The revised plan lays out specifics of the withdrawal of five U.S. combat brigades from Iraq by July 2008 as announced by President Bush last month, but it stresses that any drawdowns hinge on continued security gains -- not a timeline.

"Redeployments of U.S. brigades -- even of the surge forces -- are dependent on the security situation on the ground in Iraq. If General Petraeus early next year sees the security situation deteriorating, he will have the courage to go back to the president and say he needs to keep forces that he had planned to send home," said Col. John R. Martin, senior adviser to Petraeus.

In contrast, "Centcom, the Joint Staff and OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] would be happier with more forces coming out, and if they could order us to redeploy forces more quickly they would do it," said a senior official familiar with the plan. "But the president is on the CG's [commanding general's] side."

Senior Pentagon and military officials say the tensions emerge from commanders' different responsibilities. "The concern in Baghdad is a lot more restricted, as their mission only includes Iraq," said a senior military official. "At the end of the day, Iraq is Iraq. It's very important, but there are other problems in the world," such as Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon and the Horn of Africa, the official said.

The plan calls for accelerated talks with the Iraqi government to secure a renewal of the U.N. Security Council resolution that allows the U.S. military to operate in Iraq through 2008. That process could be complicated if, as U.S. officials expect, Iraqi leaders pursue changes to the status of private security contractors operating in Iraq.

Then, by the end of next year, the plan calls for the negotiation of an accord on a long-term strategic relationship between the two countries. Such an agreement would spell out the remaining U.S. forces' authority to operate in Iraq; senior Pentagon and military officials expect them eventually to number fewer than 50,000. It would be likely to provide for U.S. aviation and other military assets to protect Iraq's borders, as well as financial and other governmental assistance for several years, officials said.

The plan also outlines how U.S. commanders should carry out the transition as Iraqi forces assume greater responsibility for the country's security while the gradual withdrawal of combat brigades shrinks the U.S. presence.

Commanders are instructed to maintain their ability to train and mentor Iraqi security forces and to contribute air support, intelligence and other key capabilities. In addition, they must closely oversee events in regions where Iraqis are operating, either by assigning U.S. military transition teams to Iraqi units or by partnering U.S. units with Iraqi forces -- although the latter option will diminish as U.S. forces pull out. "As partnering goes away, I expect transition teams to grow," a senior military official said.

The campaign plan's recognition that Shiite extremists pose a relatively greater threat comes as rival Shiite militias have increased their attacks throughout southern Iraq in recent months, including the assassination of two provincial governors. A quarterly Pentagon report on Iraq released last month concluded that the instability in some southern provinces reflected the growing strength of the Mahdi Army, the militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

Even so, officials said, the targeting of Shiite militias is far more sensitive for the Shiite-led Iraqi government than is the U.S. effort against the Sunni group al-Qaeda in Iraq. "When hitting on these militias, you are getting close to home for these Shia politicians . . . so it's a lot more delicate," said one military official.

In one area of debate over the plan, some U.S. diplomats disagree with military officials who think the United States should exert more influence to weed out Iraqi government and security force officials who follow sectarian agendas in how they distribute resources and whom they target.

Petraeus has a notebook in which he keeps the names of sectarian officers and officials, but he recently noted that a few of the worst offenders are now advancing reconciliation, said the senior military official.

While U.S. leaders in Baghdad revise their campaign plan, a parallel effort is underway, directed by the Pentagon and Central Command, "to execute the drawdown and mission change in Iraq," said another senior military official. This involves weighing how best to pull U.S. combat units from regions, redistribute their assigned areas of operation and decide which combination of U.S. troops, Iraqi forces and local volunteers can maintain security.

"The key thing is, as you pull a brigade out, their turf has to be reapportioned to other people. How is that done -- with more of our troops or Iraqi troops? We will have to make continual assessments of how the Iraqi army is doing and how to integrate the concerned local citizens," that official said.

Some military analysts doubt that Iraqi security forces are impartial enough to enforce the local cease-fires being negotiated around the country, and think that large numbers of U.S. troops will be needed to police such accords for at least another year. "If we are leaving and expecting the Iraqi security forces to enforce these cease-fires, we are in deep, deep trouble," said Stephen Biddle, a military expert at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised Petraeus.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates and other senior officials have said that they hope to continue the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq beyond July at a similar pace, possibly after a pause to assess the impact.

Advisers to Petraeus say that may be possible, if security continues to improve, but stressed that no decision will be made until March. "We should be able to maintain a reasonable rate of redeployment, perhaps at about the same rate as the surge brigades are redeployed," Martin said.

Independent : President Petraeus? Iraqi official recalls the day US general revealed ambition

President Petraeus? Iraqi official recalls the day US general revealed ambition

By Patrick Cockburn | September 13, 2007

The US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, expressed long-term interest in running for the US presidency when he was stationed in Baghdad, according to a senior Iraqi official who knew him at that time.

Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq's Interior Ministry, says General Petraeus discussed with him his ambition when the general was head of training and recruitment of the Iraqi army in 2004-05.

"I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008 and he said, 'No, that would be too soon'," Mr Khadim, who now lives in London, said.

General Petraeus has a reputation in the US Army for being a man of great ambition. If he succeeds in reversing America's apparent failure in Iraq, he would be a natural candidate for the White House in the presidential election in 2012.

His able defence of the "surge" in US troop numbers in Iraq as a success before Congress this week has made him the best-known soldier in America. An articulate, intelligent and energetic man, he has always shown skill in managing the media.

But General Petraeus's open interest in the presidency may lead critics to suggest that his own political ambitions have influenced him in putting an optimistic gloss on the US military position in Iraq .

Mr Khadim was a senior adviser in the Iraqi Interior Ministry in 2004-05 when Iyad Allawi was prime minister.

"My office was in the Adnan Palace in the Green Zone, which was close to General Petraeus's office," Mr Khadim recalls. He had meetings with the general because the Interior Ministry was involved in vetting the loyalty of Iraqis recruited as army officers. Mr Khadim was critical of the general's choice of Iraqis to work with him.

For a soldier whose military abilities and experience are so lauded by the White House, General Petraeus has had a surprisingly controversial career in Iraq. His critics hold him at least partly responsible for three debacles: the capture of Mosul by the insurgents in 2004; the failure to train an effective Iraqi army and the theft of the entire Iraqi arms procurement budget in 2004-05.

General Petraeus went to Iraq during the invasion of 2003 as commander of the 101st Airborne Division and had not previously seen combat. He first became prominent when the 101st was based in Mosul, in northern Iraq, where he pursued a more conciliatory line toward former Baathists and Iraqi army officers than the stated US policy.

His efforts were deemed successful. When the 101st left in February 2004, it had lost only 60 troops in combat and accidents. General Petraeus had built up the local police by recruiting officers who had previously worked for Saddam Hussein's security apparatus.

Although Mosul remained quiet for some months after, the US suffered one of its worse setbacks of the war in November 2004 when insurgents captured most of the city. The 7,000 police recruited by General Petraeus either changed sides or went home. Thirty police stations were captured, 11,000 assault rifles were lost and $41m (£20m) worth of military equipment disappeared. Iraqi army units abandoned their bases.

The general's next job was to oversee the training of a new Iraqi army. As head of the Multinational Security Transition Command, General Petraeus claimed that his efforts were proving successful. In an article in The Washington Post in September 2004, he wrote: "Training is on track and increasing in capacity. Infrastructure is being repaired. Command and control structures and institutions are being re-established." This optimism turned out be misleading; three years later the Iraqi army is notoriously ineffective and corrupt.

General Petraeus was in charge of the Security Transition Command at the time that the Iraqi procurement budget of $1.2bn was stolen. "It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Iraq's Finance Minister, Ali Allawi, said. "Huge amounts of money disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal."

Mr Khadim is sceptical that the "surge" is working. Commenting on the US military alliance with the Sunni tribes in Anbar province, he said: "They will take your money, but when the money runs out they will change sides again."

SMH : We've sent al-Qaeda into a spin, says army chief

We've sent al-Qaeda into a spin, says army chief

Miranda Devine from Baghdad | August 31, 2007

DAVID PETRAEUS, the US military commander in Iraq, has given a preview of his forthcoming report to Congress, citing a dramatic reduction in violence in Baghdad and foreshadowing a "gradual" reduction in the number of troops in Iraq.

The Herald interviewed General Petraeus in Baghdad on Wednesday after he had a 90-minute meeting with the Defence Minister, Brendan Nelson, and Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston.

General Petraeus revealed the thinking behind his report, due on September 10, on President George Bush's "surge" strategy of increasing the number of US troops in Iraq, and divulged several measures of progress.

"We say we have achieved progress and will do all we can to build on that progress, [and] that al-Qaeda is off balance and we are certainly pressuring them," General Petraeus said.

"Our objective, with all the Coalition forces is … to gradually bring the surge down. Obviously we have some more months with the surge forces [still in place]."

His optimistic view contradicts a report prepared for Congress, which was leaked on Wednesday. The report, by the US Government Accountability Office, says progress in Iraq has stalled, and only three of 18 benchmarks for political and military progress have been met.

General Petraeus said his challenge in gradually cutting US troop numbers was to decide what the battlefield "footprint" in Iraq should eventually look like. The 30,000 additional troops sent to Iraq have brought US troop numbers to 160,000. Australia has 1575 troops in Iraq.

Dr Nelson described his meetings with General Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, as "extremely useful". Dr Nelson meets the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, in Washington today.

Dr Nelson flagged Australia's continued strong commitment to Iraq, saying "we are not looking for any premature withdrawal".

"General Petraeus was very frank, very open in his assessment … we have quite a clear picture now of his thinking on the state of the Baghdad security plan, the surge … [and on] the security environment in Baghdad and in the south and the work being done by us and the British. We now have a much clearer picture of what General Petraeus is going to present to Congress … The message is that this is achievable."

General Petraeus, 54, who commanded the 101st Airborne Division during the Iraq invasion in 2003, was appointed as commander of the Multi-National Force in Iraq in February.

In the interview with the Herald in his office in the US headquarters in a former Saddam Hussein presidential palace, he used as a benchmark of progress the number of "ethno-sectarian deaths", which have fallen steadily since December in Baghdad and in the rest of Iraq and have "come down for eight of the last 11 weeks to a level lower than for a year".

In Baghdad, the monthly death toll has fallen by more than two-thirds. In the rest of Iraq, such deaths have dropped by more than 50 per cent, but General Petraeus said they were "still too high".

"This is very much a work in progress," he said. "We are a little over two months into the so-called surge."

Having an extra combat infantry brigade, aviators and a marine expeditionary unit has been "very important", he said. "It has enabled us to start offensives [and] go after the al-Qaeda sanctuaries. We see them as public enemy number one … That is not to say that militant extremists supported by Iran are not a … growing concern."

He also cited success in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar province. "It was like Stalingrad," he said, an al-Qaeda stronghold and the most violent place in Iraq at the beginning of the year, but now peaceful after Coalition and Iraqi forces mounted an offensive in March and local Sunnis turned against the terrorists. He said al-Qaeda was also being forced out of strongholds in Baghdad and Diyala.

General Petraeus attributed much success to the "phenomenon of locals saying 'would it be OK if we pointed our weapons at al-Qaeda and not at you"'.

Another measure of progress was the increasing number of al-Qaeda members captured and killed - more than 1500 a month, as well as a significant reduction in the number of homemade bombs, "the biggest killer on our battlefield".

But there had been an increase in the number of more sophisticated bombs, which can blast armoured vehicles, and which the US Government says Iran has been supplying to insurgents.

General Petraeus spoke of the "malign involvement" of Iranian agents who had "trained, equipped and funded and in some cases directed" attacks on Coalition forces.

"This is not a pretty picture," he said, pointing to fighting between Shiites and to the fact al-Qaeda was still unleashing suicide bombers.

He paid tribute to Australia and its troops, who are "the epitome of professionalism … extraordinarily capable. Australians 'get it'," he said. "That is the highest praise."

He singled out for praise Australian Army Lieutenant Colonel David Kilcullen, his chief adviser on counterinsurgency operations, who rewrote General Petraeus's counter-insurgency handbook this year.

Dr Nelson this week also visited Australia's 1000 troops in Afghanistan and met the President, Hamid Karzai.

He had planned to deliver a letter from the Prime Minister, John Howard, to the embattled Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, but Mr Maliki had to fly to Kerbala after an eruption of violence in the city, and was unable to attend a meeting with Dr Nelson to receive it.

The letter also wanted to reiterate to Mr Maliki "that it's very important in this difficult environment … that the Government govern … The patience of open-hearted Australians should not be excessively tested."

After meeting General Petraeus, Dr Nelson said: "We will continue to do what we believe is right. While we understand support for our continuing involvement in Iraq is a minority position … we have a moral responsibility not just to Iraqis and the nations of the Middle East but also to people suffering under terrorism, and … to our allies US and Britain."

Reuters : Petraeus says Iraq "surge" working: paper

Petraeus says Iraq "surge" working: paper

August 30, 2007

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying.

"We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al Qaeda is off balance at the very least," General David Petraeus told the Australian in an interview after briefing Australia's defense minister, Brendan Nelson, in Baghdad.

Petraeus and U.S. ambassador Ryan Crocker will testify before the U.S. Congress on either September 11 or 12.

Their reports on Iraq's security and political situation could prompt a shift in U.S. President George W. Bush's Iraq policy amid calls from opposition Democrats and some senior Republicans for U.S. troops to start leaving Iraq.

Bush urged coalition allies to make pullout decisions based on security conditions on the ground.

"Failure in Iraq would lead to, in my judgment, turmoil, chaos in the Middle East, and other attacks on the United States and other nations," Bush told Sky News Australia in an interview broadcast on Friday ahead of the next week's 21-member Asia-Pacific leaders summit in Sydney.

"What matters is success and I believe we can be successful."

Bush said two forms of extremism had converged on Iraq, counting Sunni extremists inspired by al Qaeda and Shi'ite extremists fostered by Iran.

"We need all our coalition partners. Whether it be Afghanistan or Iraq, we've got more work to do, the free world has got more work to do."

Petraeus told the Australian that there had been a 75 percent reduction in religious and ethnic killing since last year, while the number of al Qaeda "kills and captures" was on the rise.

Coalition deaths from roadside bombings were also declining since Bush sent an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq, he said, according to the newspaper.

Nelson said he had received a frank assessment of progress during a 90-minute meeting with Petraeus and said "the message is that this is achievable".

The meeting came as the Washington Post reported that Iraq had only met three out of 18 goals set by Washington for political and security progress, according to a draft of another major report being prepared for Congress.

Nelson planned to write to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki about the paralysis in his administration and warn him that the "patience of open-hearted Australians should not be excessively tested".

Australia, a close U.S. ally, was an original coalition member in Iraq and still has around 1,500 troops in and around the country, although with a election looming and support for the war low, the government is under pressure to withdraw.

A survey by the foreign policy think tank Lowy Institute this week found 57 percent of Australians believed the country should not continue to have troops in Iraq, while 37 percent said Australian troops should remain.

Australia's Labor Party opposition, ahead in opinion polls with elections due by the end of the year, has said it would withdraw about 500 combat troops from Iraq if it wins power.

© Reuters 2007. All rights reserved.

WaPo : Democrats Refocus Message on Iraq After Military Gains

Democrats Refocus Message on Iraq After Military Gains

Criticism Shifts to Factional Unrest

By Jonathan Weisman and Anne E. Kornblut | Washington Post Staff Writers | August 22, 2007

Democratic leaders in Congress had planned to use August recess to raise the heat on Republicans to break with President Bush on the Iraq war. Instead, Democrats have been forced to recalibrate their own message in the face of recent positive signs on the security front, increasingly focusing their criticisms on what those military gains have not achieved: reconciliation among Iraq's diverse political factions.

And now the Democrats, along with wavering Republicans, will face an advertising blitz from Bush supporters determined to remain on offense. A new pressure group, Freedom's Watch, will unveil a month-long, $15 million television, radio and grass-roots campaign today designed to shore up support for Bush's policies before the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, lays out a White House assessment of the war's progress. The first installment of Petraeus's testimony is scheduled to be delivered before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees on the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a fact both the administration and congressional Democrats say is simply a scheduling coincidence.

The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.

"We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Anbar province, it's working," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday.

"My assessment is that if we put an additional 30,000 of our troops into Baghdad, that's going to quell some of the violence in the short term," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) echoed in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. "I don't think there's any doubt that as long as U.S. troops are present that they are going to be doing outstanding work."

Advisers to both said theirs were political as well as substantive statements, part of a broader Democratic effort to frame Petraeus's report before it is released next month by preemptively acknowledging some military success in the region. Aides to several Senate Democrats said they expect that to be a recurring theme in the coming weeks, as lawmakers return to hear Petraeus's testimony and to possibly take up a defense authorization bill and related amendments on the war.

For Democratic congressional leaders, the dog days of August are looking anything but quiet. Having failed twice to crack GOP opposition and force a major change in war policy, Democrats risk further alienating their restive supporters if the September showdown again ends in stalemate. House Democratic leaders held an early morning conference call yesterday with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), honing a new message: Of course an influx of U.S. troops has improved security in Iraq, but without any progress on political reconciliation, the sweat and blood of American forces has been for naught.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) made a round of calls yesterday to freshman Democrats, some of whom recently returned from trips to Iraq and made news with their positive comments on military progress. "I'm not finding any wobbliness on the war -- at all," Emanuel said.

The burst of effort has been striking, if only because Democrats left for their August recess confident that Republicans would be on the defensive by now. Instead, the GOP has gone on the attack. The new privately funded ad campaign, to run in 20 states, features a gut-level appeal from Iraq war veterans and the families of fallen soldiers, pleading: "It's no time to quit. It's no time for politics."

"For people who believe in peace through strength, the cavalry is coming," said Ari Fleischer, a former Bush White House press secretary who is helping to head Freedom's Watch.

GOP leaders have latched on to positive comments from Democrats -- often out of context -- to portray the congressional majority as splintering. Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), an Armed Services Committee member who is close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said many of her colleagues learned a hard lesson from the Republican campaign.

"I don't know of anybody who isn't desperately supportive of the military," she said. "People want to say positive things. But it's difficult to say positive things in this environment and not have some snarky apologist for the White House turn it into some clipped phraseology that looks like support for the president's policies."

Rep. Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.), who made waves when he returned from Iraq by saying he was willing to be more flexible on troop withdrawal timelines, issued a statement to constituents "setting the record straight."

"I am firmly in favor of withdrawing troops on a timeline that includes both a definite start date and a definite end date," he wrote on his Web site.

But in an interview yesterday, McNerney made clear his views have shifted since returning from Iraq. He said Democrats should be willing to negotiate with the generals in Iraq over just how much more time they might need. And, he said, Democrats should move beyond their confrontational approach, away from tough-minded, partisan withdrawal resolutions, to be more conciliatory with Republicans who might also be looking for a way out of the war.

"We should sit down with Republicans, see what would be acceptable to them to end the war and present it to the president, start negotiating from the beginning," he said, adding, "I don't know what the [Democratic] leadership is thinking. Sometimes they've done things that are beyond me."

In the fight for the Democratic presidential nomination, former senator John Edwards issued a scathing attack on Clinton's remark. But he said there has been "progress in Al-Anbar province."

"Senator Clinton's view that the President's Iraq policy is 'working' is another instance of a Washington politician trying to have it both ways," Edwards campaign manager David Bonior said in a statement. "You cannot be for the President's strategy in Iraq but against the war. The American people deserve straight talk and real answers on Iraq, not double-speak, triangulation, or political positioning."

The Times : Americans doubt ‘General Betraeus’ over troop surge

Americans doubt ‘General Betraeus’ over troop surge

General David Petraeus is facing a backlash ahead of his report to Congress on the progress of America's troop surge

Sarah Baxter | August 19, 2007

AFTER being hailed as King David, the potential saviour of Iraq, the US commander General David Petraeus is facing a backlash in advance of his report to Congress in September on the progress of America’s troop surge.

Critics, including one recently retired general, are privately calling him “General Betraeus” on the grounds that he is too ambitious to deliver a balanced report on the war.

Lawrence Korb, a defence official under Ronald Reagan who is now at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank, said Petraeus was regarded as “the most political general since General [Douglas] Mac-Arthur”, a reference to the second world war hero who was touted as a possible president.

Opponents of the troop surge believe that President George W Bush has been hiding behind Petraeus’s reputation for too long. “The president says the surge is the ‘Petraeus’ strategy. Petraeus should say, ‘No, I work for the president. This is his strategy’,” said Korb. “He is very ambitious and there’s nothing wrong with that, but his ambition may be used in an inappropriate way.”

Petraeus, who studied at Princeton and co-wrote the US army’s new counter-insurgency doctrine, is widely regarded as one of the brightest soldiers of his generation. He has an impressive grasp of military history - including British operations against 1950s Malayan insurgents and in Northern Ireland during the Troubles - as well as the physical stamina, at 54, to go on regular 10-mile runs with his troops. Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star general, describes Petraeus as “brilliant”.

One senior military source said Petraeus could be ambitious enough to move into politics one day. But the general would be looking for “bipartisan support” for his strategy in Iraq and was likely to give an accurate picture of progress on the ground.

Frederick Kagan, a military historian at the American Enterprise Institute and advocate of the surge, said Petraeus would deliver an honest assessment: “Even if it were true that he is too ambitious, and I don’t agree with that, if he makes some compromise that leads to failure in this conflict, that’s not in his interest at all.” According to a poll by CNN/Opinion Research Corp on Friday, 53% of Americans believe the report will try to make the situation in Iraq sound more favourable than it is. Only 43% said they trusted the US commander to give an objective picture.

Adding to suspicions, the report - based on recommendations by Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador to Iraq - will be written by White House staff. But both men will testify in public before Congress.

The report is expected to highlight progress in Anbar province and only patchy success in restoring order to Baghdad.

Crocker is said to have almost given up trying to persuade Nouri Al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, to come to a political accommodation with the Sunnis and is concentrating his efforts on wooing tribal sheikhs.

Petraeus and his second-in-command, General Ray Odierno, are seeking sufficient support to continue the surge until April. Odierno said last Friday that plans were under way to reduce troops to presurge levels by August 2008. By then the US presidential election will be only three months away and the White House is hoping to take some of the political sting out of the war.