General Petraeus? Do you know the history of the Iraq war? Petraeus was brought in as the commanding general because he literally wrote the book on urban pacification and dealing with insurrection. The changes that were made in the Iraq strategy were his changes, as was the surge.
Yes, he's a great hero of Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, etc., but I'm talking reality.
Spend some time talking with troops that were in Ninewah with him and after, and you'll find that things weren't so rosy as the lefties would have you believe.
Petraeus was brought in as the commanding general because he literally wrote the book on urban pacification and dealing with insurrection.
Funny...he was in the war in 2003, but the COIN FM wasn't drafted until 2006. Did he have a time machine?!?
The Left loved him because he acted like they do...he threw money around, not really caring where it went or how it was spent. "Money is ammunition" is a great line--if you follow through on it...as in, "Money is ammunition, so don't give it to your enemies!" Too bad so many arms went missing under him, and too bad he helped funnel so many US taxpayer dollars to the insurgency.
As much as he's perceived as being all touchy-feely and understanding "the people," he sure screwed up in his approach in Mosul. While it's true that Sec. Rumsfeld was clueless with his Stryker brigades serving as blunt instruments where a delicate touch was needed and providing too few "boots on the ground," that doesn't explain the whole story. Recall how poorly the Iraqis trained by him performed, as compared with others. Recall the warnings the Kurds gave about who he was putting into place, and how, after he left, the Sunni police capitulated while the Kurdish police didn't.
So the whole "Gen. Petraeus was great in Mosul" narrative isn't as straightforward as the hagiography would indicate.
The changes that were made in the Iraq strategy were his changes, as was the surge.
Wow...is Fred Kagan actually Gen. Petraeus in disguise? Or maybe Jack Keane?