Evolution Of a U.S. General In Iraq

Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, until this week the No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq, met with tribal leaders in the village of Quarghuli south of Baghdad in October to thank the local citizens who were securing the restive area. (By Maya Alleruzzo -- Associated Press)

Lt. Col. Gian P. Gentile, a brigade executive officer in the division, acknowledged that "there were mistakes made along the way. I think especially early on, I think perhaps we didn't have a sense of the people we were detaining and the effect that was going to have."

Odierno, who was a major general at the time, says the critical assessments didn't take into account that he was operating in a particularly dangerous Sunni area. He said it was difficult to use nonlethal means because Sunni tribal leaders at the time were not receptive to working with the Americans.

"I don't think I was perfect, and I made some mistakes," Odierno said. "But I think I was mischaracterized."

A senior military official in Iraq at the time, though, said tribal leaders were unwilling to reach out to Odierno because of the way his division treated the Sunnis in the area.

"The sheiks believed that the 4th ID would go and arrest everyone in the village," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he continues to deal with Iraq issues. "There was this mentality of, 'We'll arrest everyone now and sort it out later at Abu Ghraib,' " he added, referring to the U.S.-run detention facility. "That didn't create goodwill."

'A Brilliant Job'

Col. John M. Murray, the head of operations for Odierno over the past year, had read news accounts about Odierno and arrived in Iraq prepared to work with a man with no understanding of counterinsurgency doctrine.

"The man I met was completely different," Murray said. "He wasn't anything like this caricature I was expecting."

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has been the public face of the troop buildup over the past year known as the surge, but it was Odierno who began work on the plan before Petraeus arrived.

Odierno said part of the spark for his plan was a call by Petraeus's predecessor, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., to find a way to secure Baghdad. At the time, about 15 combat brigades were in the country, and there was pressure to draw them down to 10 brigades. Odierno said he realized they had to request more, which eventually led to the deployment of a full 20 brigades in Iraq.

"Ray Odierno forthrightly requested the surge in forces upon taking command in mid-December 2006," Petraeus wrote in an e-mail. "He then did a brilliant job as the operational-level architect of the plans to employ those forces."

Odierno's aides said he was determined to move soldiers off large bases and into smaller combat outposts among the population, a tenet of counterinsurgency doctrine.

"He just said right from the beginning, 'We've got to figure out how to move our people downtown to provide 24-hour coverage to the population,' " said Brig. Gen. Mark McDonald, a senior commander under Odierno. "He said, 'We can't just go downtown and conduct security operations and then go home at night.' "