New Iraq Commanders Differ

Petraeus, 55, from Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y., is seen as a blend of military veteran and politically savvy intellect.

He earned a doctoral degree from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, and he spent a year in Bosnia before moving to Fort Campbell, Ky., to be commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division. Under his command, the 101st participated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq before settling in northern Iraq for nearly a year.

"Dave Petraeus is a terrific leader and well grounded in the challenges in Iraq," said John Batiste, a retired major general who commanded the 1st Infantry Division in Iraq from 2002 to 2005.

In 2004, Petraeus was tapped to enact a key piece of Bush's strategy in Iraq _ training the Iraqi security forces so American forces could come home. Iraqi forces, though growing in size and controlling ever bigger swaths of territory, are seen by many American commanders as unreliable. Some units are riddled with militia infiltrators, desertions are frequent and some soldiers routinely refuse to fight in areas outside their home communities.

Petraeus now heads the Army's Combined Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and helped rewrite the military's manual on counterinsurgency _ the kind of battle the U.S. was largely fighting in Iraq until sectarian killings emerged as a huge new danger last year.

A physical fitness buff, Petraeus was accidentally shot in the chest at the firing range in Fort Campbell in 1991. His surgeon was Bill Frist, who went on to become a Tennessee senator and majority leader, colleagues have said.

Fallon, 61, has held the No. 2 Navy job at the Pentagon, flown combat missions in the Vietnam War, commanded a carrier air wing in the Persian Gulf War of 1991, and led the naval battle group supporting NATO operations in Bosnia.

Fallon is familiar with political tensions, since his command includes North Korea, China and Taiwan. He oversees 300,000 troops in the Pacific.

Fallon is no stranger to insurgents, with hundreds of U.S. Special Forces training and equipping Philippine troops to help them fight an insurgency in Mindanao, traditional home of the country's Muslims.

He's also pushed ahead to develop military exchanges with China despite some vocal criticism from some corners of the Pentagon and some conservative think tanks.

As an admiral, Fallon seemed a surprising choice to run a command consumed by two major ground wars, in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Analysts said the nomination may suggest that the administration has an eye on potential conflicts that would be more dependent on naval or air power, such as with nearby Iran.

Still, several analysts said winning a campaign is not just about individuals.

If the key to success in Iraq is political reconciliation rather than battlefield victories, as the Bush administration has said, "then it's indeed unfair to expect military leadership to have a major effect," said foreign policy expert Christopher Preble of the CATO Institute.

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Associated Press writers Anne Flaherty and Natasha Metzler in Washington and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed to this report.