ANALYSIS-New US Iraq commanders may have limited impact
Source: Reuters
By Andrew Gray WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - In naming two new commanders for Iraq, President George W. Bush has set the stage for a major shift in strategy but analysts question how much effect any U.S. military leader can have on the war at this point. Adm. William Fallon takes over as head of U.S. Central Command, the regional headquarters that covers the Middle East, and Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus will be promoted to become the top U.S. general in Baghdad. Fallon already has experience heading a joint command, which includes Army, Marine Corps, Navy and Air Force assets, as the current head of U.S. Pacific Command. Although he will have a significant role in Iraq planning, he faces plenty of other challenges on his new patch, including the war in Afghanistan and increasing U.S. concerns about Iran's nuclear program. That means much of the public attention on U.S. operations in Iraq will focus on Petraeus, currently head of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. A media-friendly, articulate warrior-scholar with a doctorate from Princeton University, he has a reputation for viewing military power as much more than the use of force. He led the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division in the 2003 Iraq invasion and won plaudits for working closely with local leaders to stabilize the northern city of Mosul, getting involved in everything from privatization to local elections. "We knew that in this kind of endeavor you have to generate early wins, you've got to achieve early momentum and then you've got to maintain it," he told Reuters in 2003 at his Mosul headquarters, a former palace of Saddam Hussein. COMPLEX MIX Petraeus later led efforts to train Iraqi security forces and most recently he has overseen an overhaul of the U.S. military's counterinsurgency manual that stresses the importance of understanding local politics and culture. But he faces a deadlier, more complex mix of security problems than during his previous tours in Iraq. Attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians are at their highest levels since the invasion and sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims has eclipsed the Sunni insurgency and al Qaeda attacks as the biggest threat. "General Petraeus can be counted on to be as competent as possible. But it's quite obvious that he's walking into a situation where the United States doesn't control events anymore," said military analyst Anthony Cordesman from the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. "U.S. military operations are only one part of the equation, and not the dominant one at that," said Cordesman, a prominent military scholar in Washington. Bush is contemplating a short-term increase of up to 20,000 U.S. troops into Iraq as part of his new strategy, expected to be announced next week. But analysts say that move alone would have only a limited impact at best. They see the only solution to sectarian tensions as reconciliation between the Shi'ite majority, which was oppressed under Saddam, and the Sunni minority. Responsibility for that process rests with Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, not the 132,000 U.S. troops in the country, they say. "You could put a Marine or a soldier on every street corner in Baghdad and it wouldn't make a difference until they do the reconciliation," said Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense now at the Center for American Progress.
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