Petraeus Strategy Takes Aim at Post-Vietnam Mind-set
8 March USA Today - Petraeus Strategy Takes Aim at Post-Vietnam Mind-set by Jim Michaels.
Quote:
... Now the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Petraeus is following his own advice. Since he arrived in Baghdad last month, U.S. troops are moving off large bases and into combat outposts in the city's turbulent neighborhoods. Aides insist the new strategy is beginning to show positive results, particularly in the capital.
Sectarian fighting between Sunni Arabs and Shiites is down by between 50% and 80% in some districts in Baghdad, says David Kilcullen, Petraeus' senior counterinsurgency adviser. Between 600 and 1,000 families have returned to Baghdad in the past month, says Kilcullen, a former Australian army officer on loan to the U.S. military. Prior to that, about 20 families fled the capital daily...
Petraeus, 54, has brought some of the Army's top counterinsurgency experts to Iraq to implement the new strategy. "We are doing something completely different," Kilcullen says...
Petraeus has done two previous tours in Iraq. When he returned to the USA, he began tackling a problem he first identified 20 years ago: the lack of strong counterinsurgency training and doctrine in the U.S. Army.
"We got so far out of this business when we got back from Vietnam," says Andrew Krepinevich, a counterinsurgency expert at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Petraeus oversaw the creation of a new counterinsurgency manual. "He was the driving force behind it," says Army Lt. Col. John Nagl, who wrote a book on insurgencies and now helps train military advisers...
