by William A. Knowlton, Jr.

Industrial College of the Armed Forces

National Defense University

Case Study

The Surge

General Petraeus and the Turnaround in Iraq
Industrial College of the Armed Forces

National Defense University

The Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF) is part of the 

National Defense University. ICAF is the premier Department of 

Defense joint professional military education institution for national 

security resource management. ICAF prepares selected military officers and civilians for senior leadership positions. Upon successful 

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and then is divided into three phases: the domestic context of national 

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Cover

General David H. Petraeus speaks with Iraqi army general while touring a 

market in Abu Ghraib, Iraq, August 2, 2008 (Charles W. Gill)
The Surge:

General Petraeus and the Turnaround in Iraq

Industrial College of the Armed Forces

Case Study

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

December 2010

by William A. Knowlton, Jr.

The Surge:

General Petraeus and the Turnaround in Iraq
For current publications of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, consult the National 

Defense University Web site at: www.ndu.edu.

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those 

of the author and do not necessarily represent the official policy of the Defense Department or 

any other agency of the Federal Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permission, provided that a 

standard source credit line is included. NDU Press would appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints 

or reviews.

First printing, December 2010
v

Contents

The General. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Taking Command. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Iraqi Political Dynamics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Executing a Political-Military Strategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Briefings and Testimony in Washington: Influencing Up. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

In the Hot Seat: Testifying Before Congress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

The Tide Gradually Turns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Another Challenge for Petraeus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Petraeus Changes Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

About the Author. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

1

The Surge

When General David H. Petraeus, USA, took command of Multi-National Force–Iraq 

(MNF–I) on February 10, 2007, beginning his 3d

 tour and 28th month in Iraq, the situation was 

grim. Increasing sectarian violence had led to an escalation of killings of civilians in Iraq, with 

up to 150 corpses being found daily in Baghdad.1

 The government of Prime Minister Nouri alMaliki was viewed by almost everyone as ineffective at best, and the U.S. military strategy was 

not well defined and clearly not working. Iraq appeared to be sliding out of control toward civil 

war or disintegration, and the United States appeared to be headed inexorably toward defeat—

another Vietnam. Popular sentiment held that the best course of action was to cut our losses and 

disengage from a fight we were losing. General George Casey, USA, the outgoing commander 

of MNF–I, had supported a gradual drawdown of U.S. forces and a handoff of security tasks to 

Iraqi forces even as the situation got worse.2

Yet by the time General Petraeus turned over command of MNF–I to General Ray Odierno in September of 2008 and took command of U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM), he 

had achieved a turnaround in Iraq that seemed almost miraculous. How did he lead “the surge” 

that achieved successes that were unimaginable 19 months before? How did he succeed when 

his predecessors failed? Answering these questions requires first examining General Petraeus 

himself, then looking at what he did between February 2007 and September 2008.

The General

It is common knowledge that General Petraeus is an atypical military officer and that he 

has had an unusual career in the Army since graduating from West Point in 1974. Without going into the details and chronology of that career, it is worth noting some highlights that made 

him stand out from his peers. First was his unequalled record of success in whatever he has 

done. Examples are his winning all three leadership awards in his class at the U.S. Army Ranger 

School, arguably the toughest training the Army has to offer; his top-ranking in his class at the 

U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, even though he was one of the most junior 

officers in the class; and his completion of both a Masters in Public Administration and a Ph.D. 

in international relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs 

at Princeton University.

Second was working directly for and learning from some of the Army’s best strategic leaders. These assignments included being the aide to General John Galvin when the general commanded the 24th Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and then working for him again 

when he was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Supreme Allied Commander, 

Europe (SACEUR). He also acted as aide to General Carl Vuono when the general was Chief 
2 

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of Staff of the Army and executive assistant to General Henry (Hugh) Shelton when he was the 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Third were the key assignments he had involving counterinsurgency operations. These 

included a year as the Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations of the NATO Stabilization Force 

and Deputy Commander of the U.S. Joint Counter-Terrorism Task Force–Bosnia; a year commanding the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) engaged in combat and counterinsurgency 

operations in Iraq during the first year of Operation Iraqi Freedom; and 15 months as the first 

Commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command–Iraq and the NATO Training Mission–Iraq.3

 General Petraeus also found two other assignments quite valuable: a summer in Central America in 1986 while he was working for General Galvin, during which the 

United States was supporting the Salvadoran government’s counterinsurgency operations, and 

6 months in 1995 as Chief of Operations of the United Nations (UN) Force in Haiti.4

What makes General Petraeus unusual is that he has demonstrated exceptional performance in the troop-leading arena, achieved an equal level of success in the academic realm, 

had an almost unparalleled opportunity to serve directly for senior leaders in the strategic environment (another officer who shares that distinction is General Colin Powell), and gathered 

extensive experience in counterinsurgency operations, including his two tours in Iraq prior to 

assuming command of MNF–I. Finally, immediately before General Petraeus took command 

of MNF–I, he “commanded the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, 

during which time he oversaw the development of the Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual.”5

What further makes General Petraeus unusual are his personal characteristics. He has 

been described as “the most competitive man on the planet.”6

 He drives himself to succeed at 

every endeavor, and he usually manages to best everyone else. That competitiveness is evident 

in physical fitness. The general maintains an extremely high level of fitness, reveling in running 

Soldiers half his age into the ground, and beating them in push-up or sit-up contests. When 

asked how many push-ups, sit-ups, or ankles-to-the-bar he can do, his usual response is, “One 

more than you!”7

 Twice, he had serious accidents: first, he was accidentally shot in the chest by a 

Soldier during a live-fire training exercise, and second, he broke his pelvis in multiple places in 

a skydiving accident. In both cases, he demonstrated incredible recuperative powers, returning 

to full activity much earlier than anticipated.8

General Petraeus also has a high level of strategic thinking skills developed and honed by 

the strategic leaders he has served as well as his broadening experiences at Princeton. He has 

described his time there as the most important developmental years of his career because of his 
3

The Surge

exposure to an environment where most people thought differently than he did. It broadened 

his perspective and helped him better get outside his preferred frame of reference.9

Finally, General Petraeus is not afraid to take prudent risks. Two examples illustrate this 

characteristic. The first was when he took command of the 101st Airborne Division at Fort 

Campbell, Kentucky, and was preparing the division to deploy to Iraq. Knowing that the deployment order was imminent and that he would have difficulty getting the division’s equipment, 

particularly its helicopters, to the port of embarkation on time if he waited for the order, on his 

own initiative he sent all of the division’s helicopters on a “cross-country training exercise” that 

just happened to terminate in Jacksonville, Florida, their point of departure. He also did a rail 

load-out exercise for the lead brigade at Fort Campbell, got the port in Jacksonville opened, 

and started shrink-wrapping his helicopters, all as part of the “exercise.” When the deployment 

order came down from the Secretary of Defense through U.S. Forces Command (FORSCOM) a 

few days later with a seemingly impossible deployment date (as he had anticipated), he was able 

to report to the surprised FORSCOM commander that he would meet his deployment deadlines without any difficulty since his helicopters were already at the port and being prepared 

for shipment.10 General Petraeus’s decision to send his helicopters to Jacksonville on his own 

authority was risky and illustrated his mantra: “In the absence of guidance or orders, figure out 

what they should have been and execute accordingly.”11

The second example of General Petraeus’s willingness to take risks is recounted in a case 

study written at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard entitled “The Accidental Statesman: General Petraeus and the City of Mosul, Iraq.” The case study focuses on his time in Iraq 

as the Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division when he was in charge of all of 

northern Iraq. General Petraeus realized that restarting the economy there would require resuming trade with neighboring states, notably Syria. However, there was a UN embargo on Iraq 

and trade with Syria was opposed by the U.S. Government and Congress because Syria was perceived as “hostile to U.S. interests.”12 Also, there was no time to wait for the Department of State 

to get personnel on the ground in Mosul to negotiate opening the border. A statement from 

General Petraeus quoted in the case study illustrates his attitude: “You have to jump through 

windows of opportunity and exploit windows of opportunity while they’re open, and not study 

them until they start to close, and then you try to wriggle through and force them back open.”13

General Petraeus was determined to jump through this window of opportunity. Realizing 

he did not have the authority to negotiate an agreement with Syria or between Syria and Iraq, 

he arranged for his military lawyers to advise him. What they recommended was to unilaterally 

reopen the Iraqi side of the border, an action they believed he had the authority to execute. His 
4 

Knowlton

Staff Judge Advocate, the division’s senior lawyer, later stated, “‘The decision was made that we’ll 

tell [our higher headquarters that we are opening the border], but we won’t ask permission and 

we certainly won’t wait for the State Department to get in here and figure it out.’ Petraeus kept 

[his higher headquarters] fully informed—but he also took the initiative.”14

Taking Command 

When General Petraeus returned to Iraq in February 2007, he was widely believed to be 

taking on a hopeless mission. Linda Robinson characterizes that view when she writes that “the 

president had asked him to rescue a failing war.”15 Few believed that he would be able to effect 

such a rescue. When the general arrived back in Iraq, 2,000 to 3,000 people were being killed a 

month, many by sectarian violence.16 General Petraeus was shocked by how much the situation 

had deteriorated in the year and a half since he left the country. According to Robinson, for 

“months afterward, he referred to Iraq’s ‘torn social fabric,’ and pondered whether it was too late 

to repair it.”17 Despite his doubts, General Petraeus hit the ground running.

One of the first impacts General Petraeus had was on the tempo of operations in MNF–I. 

Wherever he took command, the pace seemed to noticeably pick up, and MNF–I was no exception. Part of the change in tempo was due to his high personal energy level—he tends to infuse 

an organization with energy. That is no accident, as General Petraeus believes energizing others 

is one of a commander’s mandates.18 He wants to make things happen, and happen rapidly. One 

of his challenges, in fact, is not to move too fast but to take time for reflection when making 

important decisions.19 In MNF–I, the more rapid pace was immediately apparent in the daily 

“battlefield update assessment,” a briefing for the general and the MNF–I staff and senior commanders that involved a classified intelligence assessment and that guided daily operations and 

priorities. This briefing was attended by some MNF–I staff and commanders and broadcast to 

others throughout Iraq by secure video teleconference (VTC). General Petraeus used this daily 

briefing both to get himself rapidly up to speed and to make his influence felt in guiding and 

directing what was going on throughout Iraq.20

One example of General Petraeus’s personal impact was the case of the notorious Tower 

57, a damaged electrical power tower that had been inoperable for months. When the status 

of Tower 57 was briefed at one of his first daily assessments, instead of letting it go by without 

comment as had happened in the past, General Petraeus stopped the briefing and asked why it 

had been inoperable for so long. The reply was that it could not be repaired because it was in an 

unsecure area with a high threat of terrorist attack. The general’s reaction was that he could not 

control many things, but one thing he could do was to ensure adequate security for Tower 57.
5

The Surge

Once security was improved, it finally took a letter to Prime Minister Maliki to prod the 

Iraqi electrical ministry into action, but Tower 57 eventually came back online. The effect on 

the MNF–I staff was significant. With that one action, General Petraeus demonstrated that it 

was not “business as usual” and that he would not be satisfied with people telling him why 

something could not be done; he expected his subordinates to tell him how they were making 

things happen and solving problems, and he would not let up until the problem was solved. At 

the briefing when Tower 57’s status was finally reported as online and operational, cheers could 

be heard from the staff listening to the briefing via VTC.21

General Petraeus believed in establishing as flat an organization as he could and in using a 

hands-off leadership approach. Early on, he told subordinates, “I don’t need to be hierarchical. . . . I 

want to flatten organizations. I’m comfortable with a slightly chaotic environment. I know that it’s 

okay if some of you get out ahead of us . . . we will catch up with [you].” One of his staff amplified: 

“A lot of [leadership] is about intent, about setting parameters, and an incredible decentralization.”22 Thomas Ricks commented in his book on a related aspect of Petraeus’s leadership:

Petraeus adopted a posture of much lowered expectations, and as was his wont, 

set the tone for his entire command. One of his most striking characteristics is his 

ability to discern and evaluate the reality of events. That isn’t as easy as it sounds, 

and it is especially difficult to pick out reality through the fog of war. The first and 

foremost task of a commander is to understand, with a steady head, the nature 

of the conflict in which he is engaged. In order to achieve that understanding a 

commander can be neither overly optimistic nor pessimistic, and especially, not 

subject to McClellanesque mood swings, seeing every minor victory as a triumph 

and every partial setback as disaster.23

In this case, Petraeus’s job in setting expectations was particularly difficult because some 

members of his command thought the fight in Iraq was already lost. As retired Army General 

Jack Keane stated, “I was amazed with what Petraeus did. He took over a command with a 

sense of futility and hopelessness about it and almost overnight he changed the attitude and he 

brought them hope and a sense that we can do this, we can succeed at this.”24

General Petraeus maintained a grueling daily schedule, often spending all day out visiting 

units, getting a first-hand look at conditions, and making his presence felt. He is known for his 

remarkable ability to respond to hundreds of emails a day. Often, someone sends General Petraeus 

an email, and no matter the time of day or night and what time zone he is in, he responds quickly, 
6 

Knowlton

sometimes within minutes. His public affairs officer commented, “He is more accessible than any 

general in the army. . . . He will respond to anyone from an E–2 [a private] to a three star.”25

One of the keys to his ability to deal with incredible amounts of information and make sense 

of what goes on in his environment is his personal staff. Petraeus has been described as a “collector of intellectuals.”26 Members of his personal staff in Iraq were handpicked, and they were an 

impressive group that included officers who were Rhodes scholars, had doctorates, or were at the 

top of their West Point classes. Among them were Colonel Pete Mansoor, his executive officer and 

chief of staff; Colonel Bill Rapp, the head of Petraeus’s Commander’s Initiatives Group; Colonel 

Mark Martins, his staff legal advisor; and Major Everett Spain, his aide. These four individuals and 

others on Petraeus’s personal staff were critical to allowing Petraeus to do all he did.

Mansoor was Petraeus’s link to the MNF–I staff and monitored who got access to Petraeus 

as well as orchestrating the flow of information and documents in and out of the general’s office. 

Spain ensured that the logistics of Petraeus’s incredibly busy schedule were fully coordinated 

and, like all good aides, tried to anticipate what his boss would need before he asked. Spain often 

had the opportunity to discuss issues with Petraeus on morning runs, and Petraeus developed 

the close relationship with Spain that he himself had with General Galvin as his aide.27 Martins 

gave Petraeus legal advice on a wide range of issues, going well beyond the normal functions of 

a staff judge advocate. Rapp served as Petraeus’s “extended memory” and provided a second set 

of eyes and ears, accompanying him everywhere, staying in the background, and watching and 

listening. Most importantly, these officers served as Petraeus’s sounding board. They gave him a 

set of intellectually gifted individuals who understood how he thought. He could bounce ideas 

off them, and they would give him honest feedback on those ideas.28

General Petraeus also benefited from a first-rate set of subordinate commanders and senior advisers. Chief among these was British Lieutenant General Graeme Lamb, his deputy 

commanding general, whose experience in counterinsurgency went back to tours in Northern Ireland fighting the Irish Republican Army. Lamb was on good terms with many key Iraqi 

players and provided Petraeus both with recent first-hand experience in Iraq and a long-term 

historical perspective on counterinsurgency. Other key subordinates included Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, heading up most special mission unit forces in Iraq, and Lieutenant 

General Odierno, commander of the Multi-National Corps–Iraq, who was Petraeus’s principal 

deputy for ground operations.29

The final key element of Petraeus’s leadership group was the Joint Strategic Assessment 

Team (JSAT). Led by Colonel H.R. McMaster, another brilliant and unconventional thinker, 

and including David Kilcullen, an Australian counterinsurgency expert, this team augmented 
7

The Surge

Petraeus’s personal staff in serving as an external sounding board for his ideas, conducting 

an in-depth analysis and evaluation of the situation in Iraq, and drafting recommendations to 

serve as the basis for the development of Petraeus’s campaign plan (they would complete their 

study in late April 2007—General Petraeus recalls he let it drag to buy time).30 In effect, the JSAT 

served as Petraeus’s “brain trust.”31

It is worth commenting specifically on the relationship between Generals Petraeus and 

Odierno. Both had commanded divisions in Iraq in 2003–2004 with very different leadership 

styles. Petraeus got favorable notice for his unconventional and successful leadership in northern Iraq; Odierno got some unfavorable attention for what were perceived as overly aggressive 

tactics in his area of operations. Some believed these differences in leadership styles would lead 

to friction between them when Petraeus took over MNF–I and became Odierno’s boss. However, by most accounts, they worked together well, and General Odierno completely supported 

Petraeus’s counterinsurgency strategy and doctrine.32

The Military Strategy

The first major strategic decision that General Petraeus had to make was how to most 

effectively employ U.S. forces already in Iraq and the additional forces arriving as part of the 

surge. Petraeus was helped by the work that General Odierno had already done in starting to 

implement a surge strategy, and Odierno viewed the employment of U.S. forces much as Petraeus did.33 Early in the strategic development process, Petraeus rejected a recommendation to use 

additional U.S. forces to strengthen the advisory teams embedded with the Iraqi forces. Rather, 

he opted to increase the pace and number of U.S. military combat operations.

Part of his rationale for this choice was the assessment that Iraqi forces were not yet capable of leading the fight despite the years of investment in their development and training, 

an effort General Petraeus himself had directed in 2004–2005. Two other decisions about the 

employment of U.S. forces had to be made: how to allocate them between Baghdad and the rest 

of the country, and how to allocate them between directly attacking the insurgents (using that 

term to cover a wide range of groups) and providing security for the Iraqi people. Although the 

primary thrust of military operations was fighting the insurgents in Baghdad, General Odierno 

advocated expanding the fight to the areas surrounding the city, arguing that limiting the fight 

to Baghdad would allow the insurgents a “safe haven” where they could build up their forces to 

attack Baghdad, much as Cambodia provided such a sanctuary for the North Vietnamese army 

during much of the Vietnam War. Petraeus accepted Odierno’s recommendation and divided 

his forces between Baghdad and the surrounding area.34
8 

Knowlton

The decision of whether to take an “enemy-centric” or a “population-centric” approach 

was one of the most important and difficult decisions General Petraeus had to make.35 The general has long believed in “big ideas . . . the right intellectual constructs to guide one’s approach 

or strategy.” In his words, “strategic leadership is fundamentally about big ideas and about four 

tasks connected with those big ideas: first, getting the big ideas right; second, communicating 

them effectively; third, ensuring that they are executed properly; and fourth, capturing, sharing, 

and institutionalizing lessons learned and best practices identified during the execution of those 

big ideas.”36

The most important big idea that guided his strategy in Iraq was that securing the Iraqi 

population must be preeminent—that without security for the population, military operations 

against insurgents would bring only temporary gains at best. General Odierno agreed, recommending to Petraeus that their top priority be to “secure the Iraqi people, with a focus on Baghdad.”37 As the commander of the newly formed Multi-National Division–Baghdad (MND–B) 

stated, “We are very good at clearing areas, but that does not count for anything unless you hold 

it afterwards.”38 General Petraeus recognized that unless U.S. or Iraqi forces could hold and 

retain cleared areas, they could not secure the population and insurgents would just move back 

into areas after the coalition forces moved on.

The implementation of this big idea—securing the population—was through the Baghdad 

security plan, which had been formulated and begun to be implemented before General Petraeus returned to Iraq, although it was not formally launched until after he took command in February 2007.39 The author of this plan was Lieutenant Colonel Doug Ollivant, the MND–B chief 

of plans. Ollivant was a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies at the U.S. Army 

Command and General Staff College and was another of the Army’s innovative thinkers. He 

had published an article in 2006 in Military Review, which caught the eye of General Petraeus 

and other senior leaders. In this article, Ollivant made the case that “the combined arms maneuver battalion, partnering with indigenous security forces and living among the population 

it secures, should be the basic tactical unit of counterinsurgency warfare.”40 Ollivant was now 

getting the opportunity to put his ideas into practice in Baghdad. (It is worth commenting on 

General Petraeus’s interaction with Colonel Ollivant. Well aware of Ollivant’s Military Review

article and that Ollivant was working on the Baghdad security plan, which would implement 

the ideas expressed in his article, Petraeus bypassed the layers of command between himself and 

Ollivant and contacted him directly by email. The resulting dialogue enabled Petraeus to tap 

directly into Ollivant’s thinking and also made Ollivant realize that his views mattered and that 

as a midlevel staff officer he could have a strategic impact far beyond his rank.)41
9

The Surge

A key part of the plan was the necessity for the military force to get out of the large base 

camps.42 As General Petraeus put it:

[We] realized we couldn’t adequately secure the people by commuting to the fight. 

We had to live among the people we were going to secure. Thus we embarked on 

the construction of dozens of joint security stations and combat outposts in the 

midst of Iraqi communities, where our troopers, along with Iraqi security forces, 

were based and from which they performed their tasks—eventually establishing 

77 such locations just in the Baghdad area alone. This entailed risk initially, of 

course, as establishing outposts in tough areas was clearly an action the enemy 

would fight to prevent, as it reduced his freedom of maneuver. And we did 

have some substantial engagements as we and our Iraqi partners expanded our 

footprint. But that was absolutely necessary, and over time it helped us reduce the 

enemy’s capabilities and thus reduce sectarian violence significantly.43

This move away from centralizing U.S. forces at large bases represented a major change in 

the deployment of those forces, but one Petraeus believed was essential to securing the population. He stated, “In Iraq, winning the support of the people required creating a lasting presence and demonstrating to the Iraqi people that coalition and Iraqi security forces would not 

abandon them to an enemy that sought to return. Securing the people in Iraq was an enormous 

task, especially with an insurgency, terrorism, criminal activity, and ethno-sectarian violence all 

threatening simultaneously.”44

The Political Strategy

Even before he returned to Iraq, however, General Petraeus had come to the conclusion 

that there needed to be “a surge in four areas: not just the military, but also the civilian side of 

the U.S. government, the Iraqi forces, and Iraqi political will.”45 JSAT also recognized that the 

strategy for the war involved much more than just a military strategy, and in addition to their 

recommendation “to apply a military strategy of protecting the population and attacking those 

who would not come to the [negotiating] table,” the JSAT made four other recommendations:

■ to adopt a political strategy of seeking cease-fire agreements with individual groups or 

key actors

■ to engage in active regional diplomacy
10 

Knowlton

■ to build government capacity

■ to root sectarian actors out of the government, if necessary unilaterally using the authority vested in the coalition under the UN Security Council Resolution.46

The broader political strategy that encompassed these additional four recommendations 

would prove far more difficult to formulate and implement than the military strategy described 

above. One of the obvious challenges with developing and implementing a political strategy was 

that it is traditionally the role of the State Department, not the Defense Department.

The Petraeus-Crocker Team

The ability to surmount the U.S. intragovernmental challenges in Iraq was dependent on 

how well General Petraeus was able to work with the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Both General 

Petraeus and the United States were fortunate that Ryan Crocker became the U.S. Ambassador in late March 2007, less than 2 months after the general assumed command. Ambassador 

Crocker was first of all probably the most experienced diplomat in the region, having served 

as Ambassador to Lebanon, Kuwait, Syria, and Pakistan prior to his appointment to Iraq. 

He was fluent in Arabic and had decades of service in the Middle East. Crocker was astute 

enough to recognize that although he was formally in charge of the diplomatic and political 

aspects of U.S. policy in Iraq, the U.S. military wielded enormous influence and power—both 

because of the sheer size of its budget and presence in Iraq and also because of Petraeus’s 

stature and personality.

Fortunately, both leaders recognized that they would need to work together to succeed. To 

this end, they worked hard to coordinate their schedules and personally met on an almost daily 

basis. Their personalities complemented each other. Petraeus liked to take the lead in almost 

any area, using his energy and drive to make things happen. Crocker often exerted his influence 

in a more subtle way, and did not fight Petraeus for control, a power struggle that would have 

been detrimental for all concerned. Neither was the Ambassador intimidated by the general’s 

confident and energetic manner. Petraeus had tremendous respect for Crocker’s intellect and 

greater experience in the Middle East, and their mutual admiration allowed them to forge a 

strong bond. Crocker frequently used his calm and even manner to smooth relations with the 

Iraqis, while Petraeus was more likely to push Iraqi leaders, including Prime Minister Maliki, 

for action, demonstrating a range of emotions and occasionally exaggerating his emotional reaction when he believed it was necessary—although the two did take turns being the “bad cop” 

on occasion.47
11

The Surge

Both leaders were absolutely committed to “unity of effort” if not unity of command, and 

Petraeus often used the slogan “one team, one mission” to get that imperative across. Both 

also “walked their talk” and demonstrated the importance of a unified approach between the 

Departments of State and Defense, not tolerating parochial fighting between their elements. 

Petraeus and Crocker almost always met together with Prime Minister Maliki, supporting 

each other and making it clear that either one of them spoke for both. Crocker was comfortable with Petraeus talking directly with Iraqi political leaders, which Petraeus frequently did.

On one occasion, General Petraeus pushed Prime Minister Maliki to visit Ramadi in 

Anbar Province, a strong Sunni area that Maliki had not visited before (Maliki was a Shiite 

and reluctant to venture into Sunni areas). Emphasizing the importance of Maliki demonstrating that he was the prime minister of all Iraq and not just a Shiite leader, Petraeus convinced him to go to Ramadi and took him there on his own command helicopter, without 

Crocker. Petraeus later took Maliki to several other locations where Sunni reconciliation 

was succeeding.48

The importance of the close personal relationship between Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus cannot be overemphasized, and without it, the United States probably would not 

have had a coordinated and united political-military strategy and effort in Iraq. Moreover, the 

situation demanded such a strategy because establishing security, the essential precondition for 

progress, was as much political as military, and perhaps more so.49

Iraqi Political Dynamics

The political situation was extremely complex and almost unfathomable to those without first-hand knowledge and experience in Iraq. The largest political groups were the three 

major ethnosectarian groups: the Sunni, Shiites, and Kurds. The Kurds dominated the north, 

the Sunnis were most prevalent in the middle of the country, and Shiites were predominant in 

the south. The Shiites were the largest of these groups, but they had been repressed for decades 

by Saddam Hussein’s Sunni dictatorship. After Saddam’s overthrow, Shiites took control of the 

Iraqi government and in many cases deliberately blocked Sunnis from getting any positions of 

power in post-Saddam Iraq. This reenergized a Sunni insurgency, as Sunnis found themselves at 

best marginalized and at worst killed or forced from their homes by Shia militias that supported 

the government. Most of the sectarian violence that characterized Iraq in 2007 was Sunni-Shia 

as each group tried to gain control of the country and retaliate for attacks directed against members of their ethnosectarian group, much of this violence going back to Saddam’s brutal control 

of the Shia population during his regime.
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Meanwhile, the Kurds continued their tight control of northern Iraq, in effect a semiautonomous region. The power struggle among these three groups would have been complicated enough by itself, but there were also internecine power struggles within various Shia or 

Sunni groups, not to mention a still dangerous al Qaeda–led terrorist campaign aimed at amplifying sectarian divisions. Furthermore, other actors in the region had a vested interest in the 

ascendancy of one group or the other, particularly Shia Iran, who supported the Shia factions 

in Iraq, and the Kurdish groups within Turkey, who allied themselves with the Iraqi Kurds and 

pushed for an autonomous Kurdistan, which Turkey vehemently opposed.

Underlying and crosscutting the major ethnosectarian conflict were three other political/

religious/cultural conflicts. Religious leaders from both the Sunni and Shia factions attempted 

to exert control over the government, some pushing for a theocracy rather than a sectarian 

government. The most visible religious leader was Moqtada al-Sadr, a fiery Shiite cleric who 

had a great deal of power because of the Mahdi army or Jaish al-Mahdi (JAM), the Shiite militia 

he led. Another Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, was the most revered Shia religious 

leader in Iraq, but he rarely directly intervened in political conflicts and avoided advocating 

direct violence. However, both Shia and Sunni religious leaders often led factions, many on the 

Shia side leading militias that were jockeying for power and attacking Sunnis.

A second source of conflict that had gone on for centuries, if not millennia, was based in 

tribal allegiances—such as Saddam’s Tikriti tribe—sometimes aligned with the major ethnic/

religious groups but often with their own interests and agendas. Finally, there were the major 

political parties themselves, sometimes religious based, but sometimes cutting across religious 

lines, such as the socialist Ba’ath Party that controlled Iraq under Saddam but had both Sunni 

and Shia members.50 The end result for Iraq was a shifting mesh of ethnic, political, religious, 

and tribal groups, all intertwined and fighting for power, with political leaders who had linkages 

to different groups and often had deep-seated animosity toward other leaders.51 This was the 

political situation from which Crocker and Petraeus had to help build a unified central government for Iraq—an almost insurmountable task.52

Executing a Political-Military Strategy

Guiding Political Reconciliation

Preeminent among the political tasks Petraeus and Crocker faced was a basic one: getting 

the different Iraqi leaders to work together with people they viewed as adversaries and did not 

like or trust. It was clear to General Petraeus that he could not just improve security for the 
13

The Surge

population and sit back to let the Iraqi leaders sort the political situation out on their own—he 

and Ambassador Crocker had to get personally involved, pushing, prodding, cajoling, guiding, 

and persuading the various leaders to overcome their differences and build a coalition government.53 Linda Robinson nicely summarizes the situation:

Petraeus knew . . . that the real endgame for the Iraq war was a political 

solution. That meant delving into the intricacies of Iraq’s religious, ethnic, and 

personalistic factions . . . to see what kinds of levers of persuasion and influence 

might be effective in bringing them together. The [JSAT] study had concluded 

that Iraq was now locked in a communal conflict, or low-grade civil war, which 

meant that the government that was the United States’ ally was also a party to 

the conflict. That put Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker in the delicate 

position of both supporting and browbeating their Iraqi partner. Since the 

United States had been instrumental in bringing these Iraqi political factions 

and individual leaders into power, it would have to deal with them no matter 

what their flaws.54

One means that Petraeus used to help him deal with the Iraqi leaders was an unlikely one: 

his translator, Sadi Othman. An imposing figure at 6’ 7”, Othman had first served as General 

Petraeus’s interpreter when he commanded the 101st Airborne Division in Iraq in 2003–2004. A 

Palestinian who was brought up in Jordan and then moved to the United States, Othman quickly became one of Petraeus’s most trusted advisors—far more than merely a translator—and 

each time Petraeus returned to Iraq he grabbed Othman to rejoin his inner circle of advisors. 

Othman rapidly became the perfect conduit for communication between Petraeus and the Iraqi 

political leaders. Giving Othman a secure cell phone and extraordinary autonomy, Petraeus 

used him to deliver messages to Iraqi leaders and listen to their concerns and complaints. The 

Iraqis grew to trust Othman and be confident that he would deliver their views to Petraeus unfiltered and without bias. They also learned that when Othman talked to them, he spoke for Petraeus. But Othman could soften a message from Petraeus and deliver it in the form of “friendly 

advice,” saving face for the Iraqi leaders and allowing Petraeus to avoid confrontation unless 

it was necessary. Othman’s role as an unbiased communication channel between Petraeus and 

the Iraqis made him tremendously useful to Petraeus and his insights into the Iraqi leaders and 

their agendas, attitudes, allegiances, and interests more than earned him his title as senior advisor to the commanding general.55
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Buying Time

One major problem that Petraeus and Crocker faced was managing expectations in 

Washington. Political reconciliation among Iraq’s leaders and their various groups and factions was incredibly difficult to achieve, and things did not progress or move as rapidly as 

they wanted or as the President and Congress expected. As Petraeus stated, “The Washington clock was moving much faster than the Baghdad clock.”56 Petraeus’s solution to slow 

down the Washington clock was to make national reconciliation a long-term but “distant” 

goal of the Joint Campaign Plan (JCP) and to focus on a local level, measuring progress in 

terms of security gains and reductions in violence in specific localized areas in Baghdad 

and across the country. Over time, as more and more local areas achieved higher levels of 

security and decreased levels of violence, these “pockets of local security” could be linked, 

leading to “sustainable security” nationwide, and then to national reconciliation. By not 

even putting a target date on national reconciliation, the JCP made that a “generational 

goal” and eliminated expectations that Iraq would reach that goal for years to come. This 

also shifted the long-term goal from a military victory resulting in some kind of formal surrender of the enemy forces to a series of negotiated agreements for things such as sharing 

power and resources and national governance.57

One tool General Petraeus used to great effect in managing expectations in Washington and elsewhere was the media. Petraeus is the exception to the common military view 

of the media as adversaries who can do no good but only harm.58 In his view, providing 

open access to the media would allow him to get his message out and influence perceptions 

and expectations rather than reacting to what was printed or said without his input. In his 

dealings with the media in Iraq, he tried to be positive in highlighting accomplishments 

but realistic in acknowledging setbacks or lack of rapid progress, and he did the same in 

congressional hearings, another important venue for influencing public opinion.59 As Robinson states:

Petraeus’s views on the power of the news media went beyond a keen sense of its 

ability to make or break someone’s career and personal reputation. He certainly 

tended his image, but he also believed that wars could be won or lost through 

information and perception, a realm the military had taken to calling information 

operations. He held fast to his philosophy that “you can’t win if you don’t play.” 

That included taking the media to task for stories he . . . felt did not meet basic 

standards of accuracy, proper context, and correct characterization.60
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The Surge

Petraeus further issued a mandate to his commanders to talk to the media, telling them: 

“We are in an information war. Sixty percent of this thing is information. . . . Don’t worry about 

getting out there too much [in talking to the media]—I will tell you if you are.”61

Achieving Local Successes in Baghdad

The experiences of U.S. Army units in two key areas of Baghdad are recounted at some 

length in Linda Robinson’s book and serve to illustrate how difficult and costly it was to achieve 

the “pockets of local security” that were the short-term objectives of the JCP. The first was the 1st

Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment (1/26 IR), which fought for control of Adhamiya in northeast 

Baghdad for its entire 15-month deployment in 2006–2007. Adhamiya was a predominantly 

Sunni area that had been one of the centers of the Sunni insurgency in Baghdad, and a breeding 

ground for al Qaeda in Iraq. Sectarian fighting between Sunni insurgents, al Qaeda, and Shia 

militias had practically destroyed Adhamiya and made it one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Iraq. It was certainly a hostile environment that tested the new strategy of pushing U.S. 

forces out into the neighborhoods in combat outposts to secure and hold the area. U.S. Army 

patrols faced heavy attacks or were embroiled in the ongoing sectarian violence that claimed 

the lives of many Iraqis. The 1/26 IR not only had to fight Sunni insurgents and try and root 

them out but also had to fight the Shia militias who were engaged in a form of ethnosectarian 

cleansing trying to drive Sunni families out of the area (often with the tacit approval of the 

predominantly Shia government). One of the techniques the U.S. Soldiers finally resorted to 

was building concrete barriers to separate Sunnis and Shiites and stop them from killing each 

other. Surprisingly successful, these barriers became one of the hallmarks of pacifying Baghdad, 

but they were not without controversy, and General Petraeus continued to build them despite 

international criticism that likened the walls to the wall that partitioned Berlin during the Cold 

War. He also had to cope with public criticism from Prime Minister Maliki, who denounced 

the barriers in public but supported their use in private. The bottom line was that the barriers 

worked. They inconvenienced Iraqi civilians and made life more difficult for isolated neighborhoods, but they limited the ability of both Sunni insurgents and Shia militias to move fighters, 

weapons, and bombs around Baghdad.62

The experience of the 1/26 IR in Adhamiya clarified a number of things. First, it would 

require a lot of troops, both U.S. and Iraqi, to bring security to Baghdad. Related to this point, 

the Iraqi troops who were fighting alongside the Americans had to be willing to fight Shia 

militias as well as Sunni insurgents, and if they allied themselves with the Shia militias, they 

exacerbated the problem rather than helping solve it. Second, securing the population could 
16 

Knowlton

not be purely defensive but offensive as well. Insurgents had to be killed or captured, but 

“collateral damage” in the form of civilian casualties had to be minimized or the end result 

would be creating more insurgents than had been killed. Finally, the Sunni insurgents would 

keep fighting as long as they believed the Shia-dominated Iraqi government was out to kill 

Sunnis or drive them out of their homes. A lasting peace would require significant changes at 

the national level.63 This was Petraeus’s conundrum: local gains were required to push along 

national reconciliation, but lasting local gains were impossible without progress toward reconciliation at the national level.

The second Army unit profiled by Robinson was the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment 

(1/5 CR), which operated in Ameriya in western Baghdad. Like Adhamiya, Ameriya was a 

predominantly Sunni neighborhood with much the same situation: an urban area that had 

suffered extensive damage and was a center of Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda in Iraq. The 

1/5 CR operated the same way the 1/26 IR was operating in Adhamiya and started pushing 

out into Ameriya, seizing areas and setting up combat outposts and joint security stations to 

hold them. The battalion also tried to establish contacts in Ameriya with imams who were 

the most influential leaders in the area, but with mixed results. Like their sister unit in Adhamiya, the 1/5 CR suffered casualties as it tried to clear and hold areas, mainly from bombs 

and improvised explosive devices. The battalion was having difficulty making progress in a 

hostile environment.

The turning point for Ameriya came in May 2007 when Sheikh Walid, one of the imams 

the battalion had made contact with, called the battalion commander of the 1/5 CR, Lieutenant 

Colonel Dale Kuehl, and notified him that Iraqis from Ameriya were going to attack al Qaeda 

fighters who had kidnapped two Iraqis. This was the result of increasing Iraqi disenchantment 

with al Qaeda’s objectives and methods, particularly their brutal treatment of Iraqis, which finally had led to a total break with al Qaeda and a decision to drive them out of Ameriya. In 

consultation with his brigade commander, Kuehl initially kept his battalion on the sidelines, 

and then assisted the Iraqis when al Qaeda fought back and the Iraqis asked him for help. This 

was a pivotal moment because there was considerable risk involved in supporting and allying 

with Sunnis who had been fighting against the Americans and the Iraqi government forces a 

short time before. This gradually led to a partnership with the Iraqi fighters, led by Abu Abid, a 

Sunni who until recently had been fighting against the Shia militias in sectarian battles, to defeat 

al Qaeda in Ameriya.64

The 1/5 CR alliance with Abu Abid’s Sunnis was fully supported by General Petraeus, 

and the manner in which he expressed that support says something about his leadership 
17

The Surge

style. In early June, Petraeus invited an officer to accompany him on an early morning run at 

his headquarters (a large base named Camp Victory), something he commonly did. Petraeus 

used this as one means of keeping in touch with tactical-level leaders in his command and 

finding out what was going on directly from those leaders, rather than going through the layers of command, much as he did when he contacted Colonel Ollivant directly by email. In this 

case, the officer Petraeus invited was the operations officer of the 1/5 CR, Major Chip Daniels. 

When he asked Daniels what was going on in Ameriya, the major told the general about the 

ongoing joint operations with Abu Abid’s Sunnis (operations Petraeus was already aware of) 

and expressed concern that Colonel Kuehl was taking a big risk in engaging in these operations with former enemies. Petraeus replied to Daniels, “Do not stop! Do not stop what you 

are doing. . . . You are doing the right thing and now is the time to take risks!” He then went 

on to say, “Do not let our army stop you. . . . Do not let the Iraqi government stop you.”65 In 

one short conversation, General Petraeus supported initiative, empowered his subordinates, 

reinforced a climate of risk-taking in his command, and gave his subordinate commanders 

reassurance that he would back them up against opposition from risk-averse individuals in 

the U.S. Army and Iraqi government.

Robinson’s summary of the significance of what happened in Ameriya follows:

Kuehl and his battalion had accomplished an amazing turnaround in Ameriya. 

They had implemented the full gamut of counterinsurgency tactics, including 

skillful diplomacy that had won the confidence of the local leaders and population 

and cemented an alliance with indigenous fighters. They had exploited all of this 

for intelligence to target and diminish the enemy forces, and had begun to revive 

the neighborhood’s economic, political, and social life. The battalions and brigades 

had created facts on the ground that could be used as levers to move the national 

leaders forward. But it remained to be seen whether their local success would 

hold, and whether it would help catalyze wider progress.66

As indicated above, what happened in Adhamiya and Ameriya was matched by gains in 

many other parts of Baghdad, although the city was far from totally secure. One estimate put 

about half of the city still short of being cleared of insurgents or al Qaeda fighters, and the progress was not irreversible.67 Thomas Ricks attributes the improved situation and the reduction in 

violence in Baghdad to five underlying reasons:

■ securing the population by U.S. forces
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■ ethnosectarian cleansing that had already forced Sunnis out of some areas of the city 

and created separate Sunni and Shia enclaves

■ Moqtada al-Sadr implementing a ceasefire that greatly decreased fighting between his 

militia and U.S. forces (although he did it under duress)68

■ U.S. forces all moving toward the same goal (securing the population) in the same way

■ getting many of the Sunni insurgents to change sides.69

The tide had turned militarily. The next step was to continue the movement toward national reconciliation.

National Reconciliation (Continued)

General Petraeus continued to devote much of his effort to the “bottom-up” approach of 

using local gains to push national reconciliation. The best example of that approach outside 

Baghdad was Anbar Province. An almost exclusively Sunni province, Anbar had been one of 

the most violent provinces in Iraq and a stronghold of the insurgency until al Qaeda brutality 

against Iraqis drove Sunni tribes to start fighting against al Qaeda and partner with U.S. forces 

in that fight (as happened in Ameriya). What became known as the Anbar Awakening developed in 2006, but did not gain ground until 2007 when U.S. commanders recognized that tribal 

leaders were the key power brokers in the province.

In late 2006, 35 tribes and subtribes joined forces against al Qaeda and started cooperating 

with the Americans instead of fighting them. Ricks views supporting the turning of Sunni insurgents from adversaries to partners as the biggest risk General Petraeus took in Iraq. Although the 

Sunni change of sides began without U.S. support, it continued and broadened because the U.S. 

military started paying and arming the Sunnis. This decision was risky for Petraeus for two reasons. First, it was done without the support or even official knowledge of the Iraqi government, 

who still viewed the Sunni insurgents as enemies. Of note, Petraeus had facilitated reconciliation 

of Sunnis before. During his first tour in Iraq in 2003, Petraeus supported the Iraqis in conducting a reconciliation commission in Mosul. Unfortunately, the results never went beyond Mosul 

because of a lack of support from the Iraqi government. Again, Petraeus did not get approval 

from Baghdad, at least initially.70 Second, he implemented the policy without notifying President 

George W. Bush. Petraeus’s response when questioned about not getting the President’s approval 

is telling: “I don’t think it was something that we need to ask permission for. We had the authority 

to conduct what are called security contracts, and that was how we saw these. But to be truthful, 
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The Surge

we didn’t see it growing to 103,000 [fighters].”71 Interestingly, some 25,000 of those fighters were 

not Sunnis fighting against al Qaeda, but Shiites who opposed the Shia militias in their areas.72

By summer 2007, attacks against American troops in Anbar Province had almost entirely 

ceased—a dramatic change. Although violence in much of the country continued at high levels 

and U.S. casualties were still high (particularly in June), the situation in Anbar was a leading 

indicator of the decrease in U.S. and coalition casualties nationwide that would follow in later 

months. Three critical decisions by the Iraqi government, pushed by Petraeus and Crocker, 

institutionalized the advances made in Anbar Province. First, with Prime Minister Maliki’s approval, large numbers of Sunnis were allowed to join the Iraqi military and police force. This 

was not a small step because one of the greatest fears of Maliki and other Shiites in the government was that arming Sunnis and bringing them into the security forces would lead to a Sunni 

takeover of the government and seizure of power.

Second, tribal leaders in Anbar were allowed to run for seats on the provincial council, 

which gave them an active role in the political process. This also was not a small step because 

the provincial councils controlled the allocation of funds and other resources for the provinces. 

Third, with the strong support of Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, the central government 

started releasing more resources to Anbar Province. In Petraeus’s view, “these three steps represented the essence of a political solution” for Iraq.73

An incident in Fallujah, one of the cities in Anbar Province that had achieved a remarkable 

turnaround, demonstrates how General Petraeus worked the Iraqi political leaders to push them toward national reconciliation. As he did with Prime Minister Maliki in Ramadi, Petraeus invited Vice 

President Tariq al-Hashimi, Iraq’s highest ranking Sunni, to accompany him on a tour of Fallujah. 

Again using his own command helicopter, Petraeus flew Hashimi to Fallujah and led a walking tour 

of the market, which until recently had been an extremely dangerous place. Walking through the 

market with only a soft cap and no body armor, Petraeus demonstrated to the Iraqi officials who accompanied him (some reluctantly) that he was not afraid to connect with Iraqis, and that they should 

not be afraid either. He also demonstrated to the citizens of Fallujah that members of the government 

were interested in their concerns and would listen to them, not a foreign concept to politicians in the 

United States but uncommon in an Iraq still beset with factional and sectarian violence.74

Crocker Continues Top-down Push

Meanwhile, Ambassador Crocker continued to push the Iraqis to achieve progress toward 

political reconciliation. Six benchmarks adopted by the Iraqi government in 2006 were particularly related to national reconciliation:
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■ bring more Ba’ath Party members from Saddam’s regime into the government

■ agree on legislation determining how to share the country’s oil among the three ethnosectarian regions

■ pass legislation establishing (and increasing) the powers of the provincial governments

■ hold provincial elections

■ revise the constitution to give Sunnis more power in governing Iraq

■ reach an agreement on how to demobilize the predominantly Shia militias and how and 

for what to provide amnesty.75

Progress on achieving these benchmarks was slow. In fact, by August 2007, it was doubtful whether Maliki’s coalition government would even survive. Sunni members of the government had largely become frustrated with their exclusion from positions of power, half the 

members of Prime Minister Maliki’s cabinet had withdrawn from any active role, and Maliki 

was rarely even talking with many remaining members of the government, including the 

president and vice presidents. However, Crocker kept working with the leaders, going to the 

next level down in the government when the top leaders would not budge from their partisan 

positions. Crocker’s view was that the only hope for survival of the Maliki government and 

any progress toward reconciliation was to get the various parties to negotiate, and he pushed 

them that way at every opportunity.

Some progress was made, however limited. As Ambassador Crocker stated, “The future of Iraq lies in the ability of these three communities [Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds] to 

work out problems and set policies and courses. They managed to do it [achieve agreement], however painfully, and that is the way I think they have to keep going.”76 One positive outcome from an incident of violence was when Moqtada al-Sadr overplayed his hand 

and his JAM militia attacked the guards at a major Shia shrine in Karbala in late August, 

leading to a fight that killed or wounded more than a hundred Iraqis. Maliki was outraged, 

and he aggressively reacted, personally going to Karbala to restore order. He gained a lot of 

points with Sunnis by his actions to finally curb the power of the Shia militias and indicate 

that he was not going to allow sectarian violence initiated by the militias to continue.77 In 

spite of gains in some areas, however, Crocker and Petraeus did not have much political 

progress to show when they were called back to report to the President and Congress in 

September 2007.
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The Surge

Briefings and Testimony in Washington: Influencing Up

The Petraeus and Crocker briefings and testimony before Congress were a watershed event 

for the Iraq War and the surge. Petraeus had been in command in Iraq for almost 8 months, 

and military and political leaders in Washington wanted to hear from him if he believed the 

surge was working, and what his recommendations were for the future. Most of the leaders were 

inclined to believe that the surge was not achieving its desired effects and that it was time to 

shift to a gradual withdrawal from Iraq. Although Ambassador Crocker accompanied General 

Petraeus to Washington and testified with him before Congress, the weight of making the case 

for continuing the surge strategy in Iraq rested on Petraeus’s shoulders.

One of the first battles Petraeus faced was determining to whom he could make his recommendations, and to what extent he should make them through those higher in his chain of command. His immediate boss was Admiral William Fallon, USCENTCOM commander. Although 

there is some question as to whether General Petraeus and Admiral Fallon had as bad a personal 

relationship as has been reported in the press, there is little doubt that they disagreed on the 

correct strategy for Iraq. Fallon and Petraeus’s relationship was worsened by Fallon’s belief that 

Petraeus was bypassing him and communicating directly with the President. Fallon was correct; 

Petraeus had two direct links to the President—one formal and one informal.

The formal link was through weekly VTCs that Petraeus and Crocker had with President 

Bush. These updates were carefully prepared by Petraeus to help “make sure [his] bosses [particularly Bush] understand the mission.” Admiral Fallon was aware of the content of these updates 

since advance copies were sent to him, General Peter Pace (then–Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff), and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Moreover, all of the chain of command were 

linked into the VTC itself. However, Petraeus and Crocker did the majority of the talking, communicating directly with the President. That gave Petraeus unusual access to Bush and allowed 

the President to directly provide guidance to his leadership team in Iraq.78

As Bob Woodward reported in an April 2008 Washington Post article, Petraeus also had an 

informal link through General Jack Keane, one of Petraeus’s mentors who was a close informal 

advisor to the President and Vice President. Woodward reported that Keane went to the White 

House on September 13, 2007, and briefed Vice President Richard Cheney that the military chain 

of command above General Petraeus disagreed with Petraeus’s assessment of the situation in Iraq 

and that disagreement “threatened to undermine Petraeus’s chances of continued success.”79

Fallon was not the only one in the military chain of command who disagreed with Petraeus’s assessment of the situation and his strategy. Also supporting a disengagement from 
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Iraq and a drawdown of military forces were the Chief of Staff of the Army, General George 

Casey (Petraeus’s predecessor as Commander, MNF–I); the other members of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, including General Pace; Lieutenant General Doug Lute, not formally in the chain of 

command but in an influential position in the White House; and Secretary of Defense Gates.80

Not only did Petraeus and his military chain of command have different ideas about what he 

should present to Congress and the President, but they also disagreed on how he should present it. Petraeus was asked to present only an assessment of what would happen in three future 

scenarios to the Chairman and the Secretary of Defense, who would then make a recommendation to the President. Petraeus strongly opposed that course of action, realizing that his ability 

to shape the force levels and overall strategy in Iraq in the future would be diminished if he did 

not make a recommendation directly to the Commander in Chief. Accordingly, he insisted as 

strongly as he could that he make his recommendation not only to his superiors in the military 

chain of command—the Chairman and the Secretary of Defense—but also to the President. 

Robinson concludes, “Petraeus’s attitude . . . was that he was presenting his views rather than 

clearing them with his superiors. The president would decide whether to accept or reject them, 

but his core recommendations were not going to change.”81 This internal battle was resolved by 

Secretary Gates:

Secretary of Defense Gates was . . . personally in favor of a drawdown on a more 

modest path, but he was not inclined to overrule Petraeus. The views of Petraeus, 

as the commander on the ground, should carry enormous weight, the secretary 

believed. But he also believed that CENTCOM [Admiral Fallon] and the joint 

staff [the Joint Chiefs] should be heard directly by the president, so he constructed 

a process that allowed each to have his say. Petraeus’s superiors had a right to offer 

their views on Iraq, and it was their responsibility to assess Iraq in light of other 

regional and global challenges as well as the state of the military services.82

In the end, General Petraeus prepared his assessment of the three scenarios as directed and 

briefed each of his superiors in his chain of command on his views and recommendations. They 

each presented their views to the President (including Admiral Fallon, who met with Bush in 

the White House the night before Petraeus’s briefing),83 and then Petraeus got his turn to brief 

the President.

General Petraeus personally briefed President Bush on August 31, making his recommendations to the President unfiltered. At the end of the briefing, President Bush approved those 
23

The Surge

recommendations, which essentially were to continue the surge strategy and gradually draw 

down military forces, but only as the situation in Iraq would permit.84 General Pace ultimately 

helped gain support among the Joint Chiefs for Petraeus’s recommendations, recognizing that 

it would not be good to have the Joint Chiefs unsupportive of the general even though they did 

not fully agree with his recommendations.85 The President’s support was made even clearer in 

an extraordinary “back-channel” message that President Bush asked General Keane to deliver 

to Petraeus just before he left Washington to return to Iraq. Bob Woodward recounts that Keane 

wrote down the President’s words and read them to Petraeus:

I respect the chain of command. I know that the Joint Chiefs and the Pentagon 

have some concerns. . . . I want Dave [Petraeus] to know that I want him to 

win. That’s the mission. He will have as much force as he needs for as long as 

he needs it. When he feels he wants to make further reductions, he should only 

make those reductions based on the conditions in Iraq that he believes justify 

those reductions. . . . I do not want to change the strategy until the strategy has 

succeeded. I waited over three years for a successful strategy. And I’m not giving 

up on it prematurely. I am not reducing further unless you are convinced that we 

should reduce further.86

Clearly, the President’s support was assured. However, there was another key stakeholder 

whose support was not at all assured. Petraeus would have a much harder time convincing Congress of the success of the surge strategy.

In the Hot Seat: Testifying Before Congress

Even before General Petraeus testified before Congress, his credibility was being attacked 

in the media by a number of sources. Some questioned Petraeus’s assertions about progress 

being made in Iraq, some questioned the facts and metrics he was using to support his conclusions, and some questioned his integrity and suggested that he was distorting facts to suit his 

own ends. The most direct of these personal attacks was a large opinion piece in the New York 

Times placed and paid for by moveon.org, a liberal group who opposed the war in Iraq. The 

headline of the piece was “GENERAL PETRAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US? COOKING 

THE BOOKS FOR THE WHITE HOUSE.” The piece accused General Petraeus of lying and 

distorting facts to further his own advancement and agenda. Reaction to the piece was rapid, 

but not what the originators of the piece intended. Accusing an Active-duty general of betrayal 
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Knowlton

(in effect, treason) was perceived by many as an unprincipled and unwarranted personal attack, 

and it increased support for General Petraeus among those who believed that he had been the 

target of a vicious and unjustified attack. A number of politicians on both sides of the aisle immediately distanced themselves from moveon.org and condemned the piece.87

That did not mean that General Petraeus had an easy time when appearing before Congress 

on September 10 and 11, 2007. Rather, over those 2 days he was asked pointed questions by Members of Congress, some of whom expressed their skepticism with his facts and conclusions. He 

began his opening remarks with an unusual statement designed to preemptively disarm those who 

would believe that he was only repeating what he had been told to say: “At the outset, I would like 

to note that this is my testimony. Although I have briefed my assessment and recommendations to 

my chain of command, I wrote this testimony myself. It has not been cleared by, nor shared with, 

anyone in the Pentagon, the White House, or Congress.”88 Having established his independence by 

making it clear that his testimony was unvetted and unfiltered, General Petraeus went on to state, 

“the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met.”89 He described the gains that 

had been achieved, the reduction in ethnosectarian violence, and stated:

Based on all this and on the further progress we believe we can achieve over the 

next few months, I believe that we will be able to reduce our forces to the presurge level of brigade combat teams by next summer without jeopardizing the 

security gains that we have fought so hard to achieve. Beyond that, while noting 

that the situation in Iraq remains complex, difficult, and sometimes downright 

frustrating, I also believe that it is possible to achieve our objectives in Iraq over 

time, though doing so will be neither quick nor easy.90

Petraeus concluded his statement by summarizing the recommendations that he had presented 

to his military chain of command and to the President, although he did not specifically mention his 

briefing to President Bush. The operational and strategic considerations he listed are worth noting:

The recommendations I provided were informed by operational and strategic 

considerations. The operational considerations include recognition that:

■ military aspects of the surge have achieved progress and generated momentum;

■ Iraqi Security Forces have continued to grow and have slowly been shouldering 

more of the security burden in Iraq;
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■ a mission focus on either population security or transition alone will not be 

adequate to achieve our objectives;

■ success against Al Qaeda-Iraq and Iranian-supported militia extremists requires conventional forces as well as special operations forces; and

■ the security and local political situations will enable us to draw down the 

surge forces.

My recommendations also took into account a number of strategic considerations:

■ political progress will take place only if sufficient security exists;

■ long-term US ground force viability will benefit from force reductions as the 

surge runs its course;

■ regional, global, and cyberspace initiatives are critical to success; and

■ Iraqi leaders understandably want to assume greater sovereignty in their country, although, as they recently announced, they do desire continued presence of 

coalition forces in Iraq in 2008 under a new UN Security Council Resolution 

and, following that, they want to negotiate a long term security agreement 

with the United States and other nations.91

Petraeus then recommended a limited reduction in military forces returning to pre-surge 

force levels by July 2008, but stated that he was recommending to delay a decision on further 

force reductions until March 2008 when he would be able to make an assessment of the situation and what, if any, further reductions would be justified. Finally, he concluded, “In describing 

the recommendations I have made, I should note again that, like Ambassador Crocker, I believe 

Iraq’s problems will require a long-term effort. There are no easy answers or quick solutions. 

And though we both believe this effort can succeed, it will take time. Our assessments underscore, in fact, the importance of recognizing that a premature drawdown of our forces would 

likely have devastating consequences.”92

After Petraeus’s opening statement, it was Congress’s turn, and the Members were not 

hesitant to make their views known. As mentioned above, in 2 long days of almost continuous 

hearings, a number of Members questioned General Petraeus’s views, facts, and conclusions. 

Senator Hillary Clinton was among the most skeptical, stating, “Despite what I view as your 

rather extraordinary efforts in your testimony both yesterday and today, I think that the reports 
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that you provide to us really require the willing suspension of disbelief. In any of the metrics that 

have been referenced in your many hours of testimony, any fair reading of the advantages and 

disadvantages accruing post-surge, in my view, end up on the downside.”93 Senator Clinton’s 

comments clearly indicated that she was not convinced the situation in Iraq was as favorable as 

General Petraeus portrayed it, and some interpreted her comment on “the willing suspension 

of disbelief ” to indicate that she questioned General Petraeus’s credibility and integrity.94 Other 

Senators, including Barack Obama and Joseph Biden, expressed reservations about General 

Petraeus’s assessment and conclusions.

In spite of what could be described as a hostile atmosphere, throughout the hours of hearings 

General Petraeus demonstrated incredible self-control and an ability to conceal any affective reaction to the comments being made. His demeanor never changed even when the comments amounted to personal attacks. Petraeus’s ability throughout the hearings to “keep his cool” was perhaps as 

important as the content of his assessment in delivering his message, and some viewers compared 

his performance favorably with that of the Senators and Members of Congress questioning him.95

There was another group that Petraeus and Crocker had to report to and convince that 

it was not time to give up in Iraq: the American people. In keeping with their philosophy that 

engagement with the media was the best way to ensure that their views got out and that it was 

better to be seen and heard expressing their views than to have media commentators stating 

what they had heard, Petraeus and Crocker gave numerous media interviews after each day’s 

hearings, some running late into the evening. One count had Petraeus giving 23 interviews during his short time in Washington.96

The end result of Petraeus and Crocker’s visit to Washington was mixed. Many people 

still believed that the war in Iraq was lost and that the United States should withdraw its forces 

as rapidly as possible—indeed, their views had not changed. However, General Petraeus’s and 

Ambassador Crocker’s performance during the hearings received generally favorable reviews, 

and they were successful in controlling the size and speed of the drawdown of U.S. forces until 

at least March 2008. Buying the time to continue the surge strategy was no small accomplishment and gave them 6 more months to achieve the progress on political reconciliation that so 

far had been elusive.

The Tide Gradually Turns

Progress continued in the fall of 2007. Generals Petraeus and Odierno carefully monitored 

the situation in Baghdad and the surrounding areas and adjusted U.S. troop strengths down 

as violence decreased. By December 2007 in Dora in southern Baghdad, one of the al Qaeda 
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strongholds in the city and one of the most violent areas, Iraqi deaths had dropped to one-tenth 

of the previous levels and attacks against U.S. troops had completely stopped. This progress in 

Dora and other Baghdad neighborhoods was due to the hard work of the U.S. forces in the areas 

in finding and killing or capturing al Qaeda insurgents (the “irreconcilables”), their partnering 

with Iraqi military and police units who could be relied upon not to engage in sectarian attacks 

against Sunnis, getting more Sunni volunteers into the Iraqi police units, and getting those units 

to then take on the JAM and other Shia militias.97

One technique that worked particularly well was U.S. commanders brokering cease-fire 

agreements between Shia and Sunni factions at the local level and then facilitating a return to 

the status quo ante as much as possible, including helping to forge agreements to resettle Iraqis 

displaced from their homes by sectarian violence and helping restore basic services.98 All the 

while, Petraeus kept a visible personal presence throughout Iraq, often bringing Iraqi government officials with him into previously unsecure areas as part of his campaign to work from 

the bottom up to build security and also to push Iraqi government involvement in reducing 

violence and increasing national reconciliation.99

One could attribute the tide having changed during the last half of 2007 to many factors. 

Certainly the added U.S. troops committed during the surge had a major impact, but, in Robinson’s analysis:

The way in which the troops were employed was even more important than 

the numbers. . . . The dispersion of troops . . . to live with the population they 

were securing made them a catalyst for much of the grassroots reconciliation 

and cease-fires that occurred. Most important each [unit] made it a priority 

to develop relationships and reach out to the “reconcilable” antagonists, their 

supporters, and the fence-sitters. These were inherently political activities that 

produced political effects that Petraeus massed rapidly to pressure the Iraqi 

government to in turn take political action that would affect the war’s strategic 

level. The emphasis on the political line of operations at all echelons stood in 

stark contrast to past practices. . . . Petraeus waded into politics as no general 

before him had done and directed his troops to do the same.100

Also important was turning sectarian forces, both Sunnis and Shia militias, from “enemies 

into allies.”101 The more volunteers who joined the fight against al Qaeda, the fewer there were 

engaging in sectarian violence or attacking U.S. troops or Iraqi government forces. And that 
28 

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directly led to a decrease in violence against Iraqi civilians as well as U.S. and coalition forces. 

The role of U.S. commanders and troops in “setting the conditions” that allowed this turnaround to occur should not be underestimated; they took immense risk and suffered casualties 

in intervening in sectarian fighting and resourcing and supporting the Iraqi sheikhs and tribal 

leaders who turned against al Qaeda.102

A Political Crisis Barely Averted

Unfortunately, progress in reducing violence and winning the fight against the insurgents was not matched by progress politically. In fact, in late 2007, the Iraqi government 

almost collapsed. Prime Minister Maliki had indicated an unwillingness or inability to create 

a genuine coalition government with real power-sharing among the different ethnosectarian 

groups, and those who were disenfranchised got tired of waiting for him to take any forward 

steps. In December 2007, a number of political leaders, including President Jalal Talabani, 

threatened to withdraw their support for the Maliki government and bring it down if he did 

not meet their demands in a number of areas. The U.S. reaction to this looming crisis was 

mixed. Ambassador Crocker believed allowing the Maliki government to fall would significantly set back efforts to achieve political progress. Other U.S. officials believed that Maliki 

was incapable of unifying the country because of his sectarian leanings and were ready to 

write him off as a bad investment. There was a lot of political maneuvering among the Iraqi 

factions and leaders, but ultimately the Maliki government survived—at least for the time 

being. There was a positive result of the political crisis: it broke the deadlock over passing 

legislation to further national reconciliation.103

Expanding beyond their traditional mission, the U.S. military had an active role in getting key legislation passed in the Iraqi parliament. Operating once again in the political realm, 

General Petraeus acted on his conviction that political progress was essential to benefit from 

the military gains. He knew that the window of opportunity opened by the military would not 

remain open for long, and he used all the resources available to push the government and Prime 

Minister Maliki through before it closed. At Petraeus’s direction, military leaders at all levels 

engaged in a campaign to get votes in the Iraqi parliament for the reconciliation legislation. 

Sadi Othman, Petraeus’s link to the Iraqis, proved particularly useful in this campaign because 

of his extensive contacts with the Iraqi leaders and his established role as Petraeus’s informal 

spokesman. Commenting on the military role in Iraqi politics, Petraeus stated, “We know the 

legislative process now. This is what it takes. This is what we need to do, and the scrutiny that 

this makes them [the Iraqis] feel is enormously important to the overall effort.”104
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Also on the table in early 2008 was the formal relationship between Iraq and the United States. Ambassador Crocker was active in forging a new agreement, engaging in hard 

negotiating with the Iraqis over the terms under which the U.S. and coalition forces would 

remain in Iraq and for how long. General Petraeus was actively managing the gradual 

transfer of missions and power to the Iraqi military and police forces, an equally important 

issue. Ensuring that Iraqi military and police forces did not engage in sectarian attacks 

was paramount to building government legitimacy and keeping sectarian violence low, and 

Petraeus was aware that sectarian attacks by Iraqi government forces or violence against 

the Iraqi people by coalition or Iraqi forces could quickly undermine the progress that had 

been made.105

Maliki Takes a High-risk Gamble 

In March 2008, Prime Minister Maliki made a decision that had significant consequences. Faced with increasing violence and lawlessness in Basra, the major city in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, he decided to lead a poorly planned, hasty attack to roust out the militias 

and “criminal elements” there and restore order. This was a total surprise to Petraeus, who, 

along with Maliki’s national security advisors and security ministers, had just been briefed on 

a deliberate plan to retake Basra in 3 to 4 months. Maliki’s military commanders told him that 

it would be an easy victory, and he decided to launch the attack in 2 days and to personally 

direct the operation.

From the U.S. perspective, prospects were not good, and the situation in Baghdad was 

poor with over a dozen rocket attacks daily on the Green Zone, the U.S. and Iraqi government 

safe-haven in Baghdad, from Sadr City—the part of Baghdad controlled by the Moqtada alSadr and the JAM, who also were the major source of violence in Basra. As feared, at first the 

government attack looked like a disaster in the making, but on the fifth or sixth day, the momentum turned as Petraeus and the new Multi-National Corps–Iraq commander, Lieutenant 

General Lloyd Austin, shifted U.S. assets to support the fight in Basra, and Sadr called on his 

militia to stand down and discontinue attacks. A cease-fire followed with fighting dying out by 

early April. Petraeus viewed this as a clear-cut military victory; Sadr’s militia was destroyed and 

control of Basra and its ports was taken back by the government.106 The attack in Basra totally 

changed almost everyone’s opinion of Maliki. From being perceived as a weak politician, Maliki almost overnight became seen as a strong and decisive leader for all Iraqis who was willing 

to take on and whip Shiite militias. To many more Iraqis, siding with Maliki rather than Sadr 

looked like a good decision.107
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Another Challenge for Petraeus

The next challenge for General Petraeus came in March 2008 when he was due to make his 

recommendations on the pace of the decrease of military forces in Iraq to the President and Congress. Petraeus believed that it was critical to keep 15 Brigade Combat Teams in Iraq until September, while most of his superiors were pushing for a more rapid decrease to 10 brigades.108 Petraeus 

knew that he held a trump card, which was the direct communication channel that President Bush 

had established with him—and the President’s willingness to use it. Bush had met with Petraeus 

and Crocker in Kuwait in January and made it clear that he would support keeping the troop levels they believed they needed. He had then stated to the press, “My attitude is, if [Petraeus] didn’t 

want to continue the drawdown, that’s fine with me, in order to make sure we succeed. I said to 

the general, ‘If you want to slow her down, fine; it’s up to you.’”109 With that kind of support from 

the President, General Petraeus knew he would be likely to prevail on troop levels, and that happened in April when President Bush accepted Petraeus’s recommendations to keep troop levels at 

15 brigades while also recognizing the stress that would put on the Army and Marine Corps by 

directing that the tour length for military units be reduced from 15 to 12 months by August.110

Petraeus’s stature was boosted further when his direct boss, Admiral Fallon, the USCENTCOM commander, was forced to retire after publication of an article in which he appeared to come 

out against administration policy. Petraeus was not involved in the article or the issues that got Fallon 

in trouble, but it was well known that Fallon and Petraeus had disagreed on U.S. policy in Iraq, and 

Fallon’s abrupt departure was seen as a positive development for Petraeus (even more so when the 

general was later selected to replace the admiral as USCENTCOM commander).111 Petraeus found 

that getting his recommendations up to the President was much less difficult in the spring of 2008 

than in the previous fall, and that Fallon and the Joint Chiefs were relatively supportive of his recommendations even though they favored a more rapid drawdown than Petraeus did.112

Petraeus’s reception when testifying before Congress in early April 2008 also was considerably more favorable than it had been in the previous September, and he believed that without 

the recent fighting in Basra and Sadr City that his testimony would have been “very straightforward.”113 As it was, he still faced tough questioning about the duration, cost, and extent of the 

U.S. commitment and some skepticism as to how lasting the gains would be. Petraeus was clear 

about his assessment of the situation in his prepared testimony before Congress:

Since Ambassador Crocker and I appeared before you seven months ago, there 

has been significant but uneven security progress in Iraq. Since September, levels 
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of violence and civilian deaths have been reduced substantially, Al Qaeda–Iraq 

and a number of other extremist elements have been dealt serious blows, the 

capabilities of Iraqi Security Force elements have grown, and there has been 

noteworthy involvement of local Iraqis in local security. Nonetheless, the situation 

in certain areas is still unsatisfactory and innumerable challenges remain. 

Moreover . . . as I have repeatedly cautioned, the progress made since last spring is 

fragile and reversible. Still, security in Iraq is better than it was when Ambassador 

Crocker and I reported to you last September, and it is significantly better than it 

was 15 months ago when Iraq was on the brink of civil war and the decision was 

made to deploy additional US forces to Iraq.114

Petraeus made no predictions about the future in his prepared testimony, and when asked 

when the war would be over, he replied that it depended on how and when the Iraqis resolved 

the ongoing struggle for power and control of resources and the various factions decided to 

work together.115

Petraeus Changes Commands

As mentioned above, General Petraeus’s tenure in command of MNF–I ended in an unpredicted way with Admiral Fallon’s departure as USCENTCOM commander. Petraeus was nominated to succeed Admiral Fallon in April 2008, but also to remain in command in Iraq until the 

fall of 2008. General Petraeus was confirmed by the Senate as USCENTCOM commander on 

July 10, 2008,116 and took command on September 16, 2008, replaced in command of MNF–I 

by General Odierno.

What had been accomplished by the time General Petraeus left Iraq? Violence had sunk to 

levels not seen since 2004. He had led the U.S. and coalition forces that, with the help of their 

Iraqi comrades, created the time to allow the Iraqis to work toward national political reconciliation. According to Robinson, “Petraeus and Crocker’s main achievement was that they identified the right goal—political accommodation among Iraqis—and then bent all their efforts to 

that task.”117 She concludes her book with this summary: “Petraeus may not have brought the 

Iraq war to its conclusion, but what he did accomplish will surely be enshrined in the annals of 

U.S. military history and counterinsurgency warfare. . . . Petraeus gave Iraq a chance to climb 

out of its civil war and America a chance to redeem itself for the errors it made there.”118

Thomas Ricks was not as optimistic. His evaluation was that the surge had not achieved 

its objectives:
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Knowlton

The surge campaign was effective in many ways, but the best grade it can be given 

is a solid incomplete. It succeeded tactically but fell short strategically. There is no 

question that the surge was an important contributor to the reduction in violence 

in Iraq and perhaps the main cause of that improvement. But its larger purpose 

had been to create a breathing space that would then enable Iraqi politicians to 

find a way forward and that hasn’t happened. As 2008 proceeded, not only were 

some top Iraqi officials not seizing the opportunity, some were regressing. . . . Iraqi 

politicians had found that they didn’t necessarily have to move forward.119

Two years later in September 2010, an active combat role for U.S. forces in Iraq has ended and U.S. troop strength has gone below 50,000. However, after parliamentary elections in 

March 2010, no clear winner emerged, and 6 months later the Iraqis have been unable to form 

a new government or decide on a new prime minister. Random violence also continues, mostly 

blamed on Sunni insurgents. General Petraeus probably was not surprised by these developments, but one doubts even he would have foreseen that in 2010 he would be facing an even 

greater challenge than Iraq: Afghanistan.
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Notes

Most of the information that is the basis for this case study is drawn from Linda Robinson, 

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq (New York: 

PublicAffairs, 2008), supplemented by Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus 

and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006–2008 (New York: Penguin, 2009), Rick Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2004), and personal conversations between the author and General David Petraeus.

1 Linda Robinson, Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out 

of Iraq (New York: PublicAffairs, 2008), 17.

2 Ibid., 15.

3 Various sources, including General Petraeus’s official biography, available at <www.defense.

gov/bios/biographydetail.aspx?biographyid=166>, and personal knowledge of the author.

4 Petraeus, conversations with author, August–September 2010.

5 Petraeus’s official biography.

6 Rick Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 2004), 73.

7 Petraeus, conversation with author.

8 Personal knowledge of author.

9 Petraeus, conversation with author.

10 Atkinson, 35; and Petraeus, conversation with author.

11 Petraeus videotaped interview with David Ignatius, February 9, 2010.

12 Kirsten Lundberg, The Accidental Statesman: General Petraeus and the City of Mosul, Iraq

(Boston: Kennedy School of Government Case Study, 2006), 29.

13 Ibid., 15.

14 Ibid., 29–30.

15 Robinson, 83.

16 Ibid., 86.

17 Ibid., 88.

18 Petraeus, conversation with author.

19 Robinson, 89.

20 Ibid., 90–92.

21 Ibid., 92–93; and conversation with author and staff officer.

22 Thomas E. Ricks, The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure 

in Iraq, 2006–2008 (New York: Penguin, 2009), 154.

23 Ibid., 154.

24 Ibid., 154–155.

25 Robinson, 93.

26 Briefing prepared by Colonel Brad Pippin, USA, for The Great Captains elective course, slide 6.

27 Personal knowledge of author.
34 

Knowlton

28 Robinson, 109–113.

29 Ibid., 94–97.

30 Petraeus, conversation with author.

31 Robinson, 98–100, 114.

32 Ricks, 130–133.

33 Ibid., 132–133.

34 Robinson, 104–105.

35 Ibid., 104.

36 Petraeus, videotaped presentation to students at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 

August 2009.

37 Ricks, 133.

38 Robinson, 122.

39 Ibid., 119.

40 Doug Ollivant, “Producing Victory: Rethinking Conventional Forces in COIN Operations,” 

Military Review, July-August 2006, as reported in Robinson, 121.

41 Robinson, 123–124.

42 Ollivant, as reported in Robinson, 121.

43 Petraeus, videotaped presentation.

44 Ibid.

45 Robinson, 82–83.

46 Ibid., 115.

47 Petraeus, conversation with author.

48 Ibid.

49 Robinson, 148–153.

50 Ibid., 2.

51 Ibid., 142.

52 Background information for this section comes from a variety of open sources, but the summary in this section is the author’s, who wishes to thank John Matheny for his assistance in developing 

this section.

53 Robinson, 141.

54 Ibid., 142.

55 Ibid., 175–176.

56 Ibid., 176.

57 Ibid., 176–177.

58 Ricks, 133.

59 Petraeus, videotaped presentation.

60 Robinson, 179.

61 Ricks, 133.

62 Excerpts from Robinson, 181–216.

63 Ibid., 189, 215.

64 Ibid, 217–249.
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65 Ibid., 238.

66 Ibid., 248–249.

67 Ibid., 269.

68 Petraeus, conversation with author.

69 Ricks, 200–202.

70 Petraeus, conversation with author.

71 Ricks, 202.

72 Petraeus, conversation with author.

73 Robinson, 271–275.

74 Ibid., 278.

75 Ibid., 170.

76 Ibid., 282.

77 Ibid., 285–286.

78 Ricks, 225–227; and Petraeus, conversation with author.

79 Bob Woodward, “‘You’re Not Accountable, Jack’: How a Retired Officer Gained Influence at 

the White House and in Baghdad,” The Washington Post, September 9, 2008, A1.

80 Robinson, 294.

81 Ibid., 295.

82 Ibid., 294.

83 Ibid., 295.

84 Ibid., 294–296.

85 Petraeus, conversation with author.

86 Woodward.

87 Robinson, 296–297.

88 David H. Petraeus, “Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq,” September 10–11, 2007, 

available at <www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/Petraeus-Testimony20070910.pdf>.

89 Ibid.

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid.

92 Ibid.

93 Robinson, 300. Emphasis added.

94 Author’s opinion, supported by others’ observations.

95 Ibid.

96 Robinson, 300.

97 Ibid., 309–312.

98 Ibid., 315–317.

99 Ibid., 312–313.

100 Ibid., 324.

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid., 324–325.

103 Ibid., 327–331.
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104 Ibid., 331.

105 Ibid., 334–336.

106 Petraeus, conversation with author.

107 Ricks, 280–285.

108 Robinson, 337–339.

109 Ibid., 339.

110 Ibid., 342.

111 Ibid., 340.

112 Petraeus, conversation with author.

113 Ibid.

114 David H. Petraeus, “Report to Congress on the Situation in Iraq,” April 8–9, 2008, available 

at <http://armed-services.senate.gov/statemnt/2008/April/Petraeus%2004-08-08.pdf>.

115 Robinson, 344.

116 “Senate Confirms Gen. Petraeus as New Central Command Chief, Gen. Odierno Promoted,” 

Associated Press, July 10, 2008, available at <www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,379942,00.html>.

117 Robinson, 349.

118 Ibid., 363.

119 Ricks, 296.
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About the Author

William A. Knowlton, Jr., is a Professor of Behavioral Science in the Department of Strategic Leadership, Industrial College of the Armed Forces (ICAF), at the National Defense University, a position that he has held for more than 18 years. A retired Army officer, he has a BS 

from the United States Military Academy at West Point, an MBA from Long Island University, 

and an MS and a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Washington. During his 22 years of Active duty, he held numerous leadership and staff positions, taught leadership and psychology at West Point, taught leadership at the U.S. Army Command and General 

Staff College, developed leadership policy on the Army Staff, and developed leadership training 

programs at the Center for Army Leadership. As an adjunct faculty member he has taught leadership courses in graduate programs of The George Washington University. He is the Program 

Director for the ICAF Executive Assessment and Development Program, teaches an elective 

entitled The Great Captains, which analyzes great military leaders throughout history, and is the 

Faculty Co-Leader of the Health Care Industry Study at ICAF.