re: Petraeus: Obama Iraq plan a good starting point

My take on it is this. (From reading, talking to people involved, and personal experience)

1. Petraeus understood and employed counter insurgency during OEF 1 when he was the 101st Commander, his subordinates did the same thing and for the most part it was successful, meanwhile Odierno as 4th ID Commander blundered during the same period, mostly because he didn't understand the dynamics of where he was operating and allowed his subordinate commands to make a bad situation worse. The 4th did have a tougher sector, but I have heard so many stories of ineptness that makes me think Odierno should have been relieved, but TF 121 captures Saddam in Odierno's sector and he gets credit. The 101st is relieved by one brigade of 2nd ID and Mosul goes to shite, meanwhile the 4th's sector is split between 1st ID, 1st CAV, and the Marines who have varying success. 1st ID generally does ok all things considered, the Marines do well and 1st CAV under Chiarelli, not so much.

2. So before the surge Petraeus takes his success and trains Iraqis and puts his thoughts into doctrine so much so that his influence is being felt heavily through all Training and Doctrine activities (I don't think this gets as much attention). By 2006 Iraq is a shite show both politically and militarily. Casey from my understanding is all about force protection, everything is big fobs, securing the routes and staying out of the cities. Meanwhile the Marines start their own counter insurgency tricks with the Anbar Awakening this pre dates the surge, they had also tried some early counter insurgency around Fallujah but Bremer had shut them down. At this point Petraeus and some policy insiders start pushing the administration for the surge. I guess my point is Odierno may have disagreed with Casey but I never heard he was instrumental in pushing for it.

3. I guess the last part is, did the surge really work, or did enough ethnic cleansing between the Sunnis and Shia finally separate the belligerent parties. The Marines in Anbar was certainly crucial in turning the tribes against AQ, and the intel/snake eaters under McChrystal got really good at killing the AQ types as well.

4. Anyway, I have never been really impressed with Odierno as a strategic thinker, and I have yet to hear anything extremely positive, just ok. I almost feel that some sort of revisionist history is being undertaken. Almost rather Soviet.