How Gen Petraeus transformed US foreign policy in Iraq

BOOK OF THE DAY: LAURA MARLOWEreviews The Gamble: General Petraeus and the untold story of the American surge in Iraq, 2006-2008by Thomas E. Ricks 394pp, £25

AS PENTAGON correspondent for the Washington Postsince 2000, Thomas E. Ricks probably knows the US military better than it knows itself. Fiasco, his previous book on the Iraq war, explained how a small gang of neoconservatives hijacked US defence and foreign policy, dragging America into disaster.

In The Gamble, Ricks recounts the transformation of US policy in Iraq by Gen David Petraeus. Early 2007 was a bloody transition period, but Petraeus's strategy eventually paid off. Casualties dropped dramatically and President Obama can cope with the country the Bush administration destroyed.

Petraeus had three strikes against him, Ricks writes: he was an intellectual with a doctorate from Princeton; he was friendly with journalists and politicians; and alone among army generals, he had made a success of his tour as a division commander early in the Iraq war.

As punishment, Petraeus was banished to the army’s training centre at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the military equivalent of Siberia. There he drew up a new counterinsurgency manual, published in December 2006.

The inspiration for this manual, Petraeus says, was Counterinsurgency: Theory and Practice, published by French army colonel David Galula in 1963. Galula’s theory – that in counterinsurgency civilians must be the prize, not the playing field – underlies the U-turn in US policy in Iraq.

Reversing Colin Powell’s doctrine of overwhelming force, Petraeus advocated minimum force. Instead of massing within huge fortresses, US troops had to spread out in small units among the population, Petraeus wrote. They must not abuse prisoners, nor take hostage the relatives of suspected insurgents. He put his theories into practice when he took over as US commander in Iraq in January 2007.

In 2006, Iraq had descended into civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims. US forces were hit by 1,000 roadside bombs every week. A half dozen retired US generals complained publicly of the misconduct of the war. Their plea for a new strategy coincided with the emergence of the self-described surgios among National Security Council staffers. George W Bush sacked defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, ignored the advice of the Iraq Study Group and dispatched an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq.

Ricks gives five reasons for the relative success of the “surge”. The most important was Petraeus’s practice of spreading troops throughout Baghdad, with top priority placed on protecting civilians.

By the time this started, Sunnis and Shia had nearly completed “ethnically cleansing” their neighbourhoods. The populist Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr declared a ceasefire in his war on the Americans. US forces were at last working under clear, consistent orders. Last, and far from least, Petraeus bought off much of the Sunni insurgency – 103,000 men – by putting them on the US payroll.

However, the surge achieved security gains, but no real political progress.

Petraeus, now head of Centcom, and President Obama intend to pursue a similar strategy in Afghanistan.

Ricks predicts the Iraq war will surpass Vietnam as the longest US foreign war. “I worry that now again we are failing to imagine sufficiently what we have gotten ourselves into and how much more we have to pay in blood, treasure, prestige and credibility,” he concludes. “I don’t think the Iraq war is over, and I worry that there is more to come than any of us suspect.”

Lara Marlowe is France Correspondent of The Irish Times.She covered the 2003 invasion of Iraq and its aftermath for the paper