"Odierno launched a guerrilla campaign for a change in direction in Iraq, conducting his own strategic review and bypassing his superiors to talk through retired Gen. Jack Keane, a former Army chief of staff, to White House staff members and key figures in the military. It would prove one of the most audacious moves of the Iraq war, and one that eventually reversed almost every tenet of U.S. strategy."

Odierno, when he became the No. 2 general in Iraq in 2006, successfully lobbied for an increase in the American force level there. An agreement between leaders in Washington and Baghdad requires U.S. forces be withdrawn by the end of 2011. Odierno, however, has said publicly tens of thousands of troops might have to stay well into next decade. "What it means for President Obama is that Iraq is going to change Obama more than Obama changes Iraq," Ricks said in an interview with Newsweek. "He came in promising to have all combat troops out of Iraq in 16 months. That's not going to happen. As Odierno tells me in the book, it will be hard to get below 35,000 troops through 2015."

That might be Odierno's goal, but the existing Status of Forces Agreement between Washington and Baghdad calls for U.S. forces to leave by 2011. To move toward Odierno's goal, Iraqi officials would have to formally ask Americans to stay longer. And Odierno says he sees no evidence that Iraqi officials will comply."I think that the Iraq[i] leadership is focused on that this ends in 2011," Odierno told The Associated Press. "The progress we're making now and what I see today, I say that I don't see anything that would have us have to re-negotiate in 2011. But again, I never say never."

Curtailing Contractors

Questions abound about what will happen in Iraq when U.S. troops are no longer providing security and working with indigenous security forces. Odierno will also tackle difficult questions about how to fill the vacuum when the hundreds of thousands of U.S. contractors leave the war-torn nation.

There are about 150,000 contractors(most of them American) in Iraq from nations all around the globe providing services like security, transportation and construction. The general is already moving to shrink dependence on American private-sector workers in Iraq. Odierno"recently issued a directive asking his subordinate commanders to reduce the use of civilian contractors on at least 50 bases and small installations across Iraq and, where possible, provide employment to Iraqis instead," journalist Gordon Lubold reported in early March 2009.

Some of the jobs the private-sector workers are doing will not be needed when American forces leave. A need for others, like security at military bases that Iraqi forces will inherit, will remain. Odierno wants to see a 5 percent quarterly reduction in the use of contractors.. Notably, he wants contractor jobs to be transitioned to Iraqi citizens whenever possible.

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