politburo diktat 2.0

General to be commander of Multi-National Forces in Iraq

Two of the U.S. Army’s top commanders in Iraq have been selected for new assignments, the Pentagon announced. The second-in-command in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, will become a special assistant to the commander of Central Command with responsibility for developing the military capabilities of nations in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Chiarelli is due to be replaced in Iraq by Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno when Odierno becomes commander of Multi-National Corps-Iraq early next year. Chiarelli had previously commanded the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq.

Is Ray Odierno the right guy for a senior job in Iraq? In 2003-04, he commanded the 4th Infantry Division, when it was known for its aggressive tactics:

The 4th Infantry and its commander, Maj. Gen. Raymond Odierno, are best remembered for capturing former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, one of the high points of the U.S. occupation. But in the late summer of 2003, as senior U.S. commanders tried to counter the growing insurgency with indiscriminate cordon-and-sweep operations, the 4th Infantry was known for aggressive tactics that may have appeared to pacify the northern Sunni Triangle in the short term but that, according to numerous Army internal reports and interviews with military commanders, alienated large parts of the population.

The unit, a heavy armored division despite its name, was known for “grabbing whole villages, because combat soldiers (were) unable to figure out who was of value and who was not,” according to a subsequent investigation of the 4th Infantry Division’s detainee operations by the Army inspector general’s office. Its indiscriminate detention of Iraqis filled Abu Ghraib prison, swamped the U.S. interrogation system and overwhelmed the U.S. soldiers guarding the prison.

Lt. Col. David Poirier, who commanded a military police battalion attached to the 4th Infantry Division and was based in Tikrit from June 2003 to March 2004, said the division’s approach was indiscriminate. “With the brigade and battalion commanders, it became a philosophy: ‘Round up all the military-age males, because we don’t know who’s good or bad.’ ” Col. Alan King, a civil affairs officer working at the Coalition Provisional Authority, had a similar impression of the 4th Infantry’s approach. “Every male from 16 to 60” that the 4th Infantry could catch was detained, he said. “And when they got out, they were supporters of the insurgency.”

The unit’s tactics were no accident, given its commanding general, according to his critics. “Odierno, he hammered everyone,” said Joseph Kellogg, a retired Army general who was at Coalition Provisional Authority, the U.S.-led occupation agency.

But that criticism hasn’t hurt Odierno’s subsequent career. When he returned to the United States in mid-2004, Odierno was promoted to be the military assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recently took command over III Corps at Fort Hood, Texas, and is scheduled at the end of this year to return to Iraq to become the No. 2 U.S. commander there, overseeing the day-to-day operations of U.S. forces.

We are supposed to be learning here, right? It is possible that Odierno has learned and changed, but successful, senior people tend not to change when they have been successful, which, in Odierno’s realm, he has been. But why choose Odierno? There are lots on generals in the Army, and Rumsfeld, with his selection of Schoomaker and Sanchez, has shown he is willing to call on junior and even retired officers to fill key slots. This nomination strikes me as “more of the same.”