POLITICIAN GENERAL

His calm manoeuvrings off the battlefield and his highly-exaggerated actions in the line of duty—Iraq initially, and now, the whole of Middle East, Egypt and Central Asia—have paid him rich dividends in the highest echelons of the American political class. He straddles the scalding deserts of major anti-US conflicts and the cool corridors of the White House with equal ease and elan seldom seen in any top-ranking military leader in the United States so far. His thinking carries as much weight in the Barack Obama administration as it did during George W Bush's ignominious presidency. But the reality is that he badly faltered in Iraq under the 'facade' of the Surge, and has been equally dismal in the Af-Pak region—he had never been involved in combat operations before his first tour of Iraq.

Meet US Central Command (Centcom) Commander and former chief of the Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I) General David Howell Petraeus—the most politically astute and the shrewdest US General who commands equal respect in the political fraternity and military ranks, especially among Generals who toe his lethal and ruthless line of action during war time and share his thinking during peace.

Politician Petraeus' towering political ambitions often have overshadowed his military goals. In 2007, speculation was rife that the General wanted to run for the White House a few years down the line—considering how cadet Petraeus rapidly scaled the heights of success from the US Military Academy in West Point, New York, to the Centcom in October, 2008, it is quite possible. *Patrick Cockburn of The Independent reported that when Petraeus was commanding the US forces in Iraq and was stationed in Baghdad, he told Sabah Khadim, then a senior adviser at Iraq’s Interior Ministry, about his long-term interest in running for the presidency. “I asked him if he was planning to run in 2008, and he said, ‘No, that would be too soon,' ” Khadim told Cockburn.

What brought Petraeus into the limelight of the US media was the 'sham of the Surge in Iraq'. The Surge was an increase in the number of American troops in Iraq by 30,000 authorised by Bush in January, 2007 to provide security to Baghdad and Al-Anbar province. Bush also extended the tour of 4,000 Marines already in Anbar, describing the overall objective of the Surge as establishing a "...unified, democratic federal Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself, and sustain itself, and is an ally in the War on Terror." The aim was to "to help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security".

UNITS DEPLOYED UNDER THE SURGE

The five US Army brigades committed to Iraq as part of the Surge were:

1. 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, deployed in Baghdad
2. 4th Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, deployed in Baghdad
3. 3rd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, deployed in southern Baghdad Belts
4. 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, deployed in Diyala province
5. 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, deployed in the south-east of Baghdad

RIDING THE 'SURGE'

But the Surge failed though Petraeus rode the media surge and hijacked headlines for the 'purported reduction in violence in Iraq'. A confident Petraeus, a media manipulator, presented his report to the Congress on September 10, claiming that "the military objectives of the surge are, in large measure, being met" with the Al-Qaeda in Iraq taking a beating. Soon the media embraced its 'darling' with Michael O'Hanlon and Jason H Campbell of the Brookings Institution crediting the General with “an improved security environment, the best since 2004”. Even the CNN reported that the monthly death rate of US forces was “its second lowest point during the entire course of the war”.

SHAM OF THE SURGE

Though there was an overall reduction in violence, reports stated that the monthly death toll in Iraq rose by 15% in March, 2007. Besides, 65 Iraqi policemen were killed in the same month against 131 the previous month while 44 Iraqi soldiers died compared to 29 in February. The number of insurgents killed fell to 481 in March compared to 586 killed in February.

Then Marine Corps General James Logan Jones Jr (right)—the current US National Security Advisor—who was appointed the head of an independent military commission, found that the decrease in violence might have been due to areas overrun by Shias or Sunnis. Cockburn seconded Jones' view, stating that Sunnis relented since the Shia government orchestrated an ethnic cleansing of their community. Even Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President of foreign policy think tank Carnegie Endowment, wrote in September, 2007 that the Surge had failed. “By tacitly conceding that there has been no political progress in Iraq since then, Mr Bush admits as much, but asks for more time,” she wrote.

The Sunni Awakening councils, which were formed in 2005, were another reason for the reduction in violence. Infuriated by a string of attacks by the al-Qaeda in Iraq, Sunnis had formed armed councils to take on the terror group. In the process, they were ably aided by the US forces to contain violence. David Kilcullen, Petraeus' counter-insurgency and troop Surge adviser, said that "the tribal revolt was arguably the most significant change in the Iraqi operating environment in several years”. In fact, **Juan Cole's post in JuanCole.com on July 29, 2008, says that the technique of bribing Sunnis to fight radical vigilantes “began months before the troop escalation and had a dramatic effect in Anbar province long before any extra US troops were sent”.

“For the first six months of the troop escalation, high rates of violence continued unabated. That is suspicious. What exactly were US troops doing differently from September than they were doing in May, such that there was such a big change? The answer to that question is simply not clear. Note that the troop escalation only brought US force strength up to what it had been in late 2005. In a country of 27 million, 30,000 extra US troops are highly unlikely to have had a really major impact when they had not before.”

Besides, Cole also mentioned the ethnic cleansing: “As best I can piece it together, what actually seems to have happened was that the escalation troops began by disarming the Sunni Arabs in Baghdad. Once these Sunnis were left helpless, the Shiite militias came in at night and ethnically cleansed them. Shaab district near Adhamiya had been a mixed neighborhood. It ended up with almost no Sunnis. Baghdad in the course of 2007 went from 65 per cent Shiite to at least 75 percent Shiite and maybe more. My thesis would be that the United States inadvertently allowed the chasing of hundreds of thousands of Sunni Arabs out of Baghdad (and many of them had to go all the way to Syria for refuge).”

Cole added, “Of course, General David Petraeus took courageous and effective steps to try to stop bombings in markets and so forth. But I am sceptical that most of these techniques had macro effects. Big population movements because of militia ethnic cleansing are more likely to account for big changes in social statistics.” Besides, the US was successful in Anbar because of the split between Al-Qaida in Iraq and the more nationalist insurgent groups, not due to the Surge.”

Khadim too was sceptical about the Surge. Commenting on the US military alliance with the Sunni tribes in Anbar, he said: “They will take your money, but when the money runs out, they will change sides again.”

PETRAEUS 'AMBUSHED'

The highly decorated parachutist was himself unclear about what the Iraq invasion of 2003, in general, and the Surge, in particular, intended to achieve—at the back of his mind Petraeus knew he had failed. When the Bronze Star winner General and then Ambassador to Iraq Clark Ryan Crocker testified before the Senate on the Surge progress report on September 11, 2007, their ambiguity and lack of conviction was exposed. In reply to Word War II veteran and then Republican Senator from Virginia John Warner's (left)question that whether Petraeus' strategy would make America safer, the General's replied like a nincompoop: “I don't know that Iraq victory will make America safer. Sir, I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own kind. What I have focussed on is to how to accomplish the mission of the multi-national force in Iraq.”

Warner's party colleague and then Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel (right)had Petraeus and Crocker in a tighter spot. "The Green Zone in the last few days has been rocketed and mortared, we took casualties there.... The reality is since the Surge in January 2007, we have lost 1,000 American soldiers. General, you said in March last year, 'There is no military solution to a problem like that of the insurgency in Iraq. A political resolution is what will determine in the long run the success of that effort.' When you were here in September, you both noted that the Surge was to buy time for some political resolution or, at least, some accommodation.”

Hagel caught Petraeus unawares further: “Couple of weeks ago in an interview in The Washington Post you, General, said: "No one in the US and Iraqi government feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation.”

As Petraeus and Crocker listened speechless, the Senator stressed the guiding principle behind government's military policies and the accountability they demand: "If we are to be held accountable... elected officials for anyone thing, we should be held accountable to developing and setting policy worthy of the sacrifices of our men and women that we ask to implement policy."

GREATEST DEBACLES

The failure of the Surge was Petraeus' third unsuccessful and desperate attempt to register a military success in Iraq—but the wily General has always turned fiascos into glitte