Dyson, “George W. Bush, the Surge, and Presidential Leadership,” 581;
Woodward, War Within , 202–3.
CENTCOM, at Petraeus’s suggestion, would go to Admiral William J.
“Fox” Fallon, an ill-considered choice because he neither understood the
surge nor its underlying rationale. Fallon and Petraeus clashed often over
the following months.
Ricks, Gamble , 123.
Nyhamar, “Accidental Vacuum or Counterinsurgency Logic?” 7; Wood-
ward, War Within , 327. Petraeus brought with him as his deputy (and
eventual successor) Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno and a number
of the dissident colonels such as McMaster and Peter Mansoor who had
advocated COIN methods.
Nyhamar, “Accidental Vacuum or Counterinsurgency Logic?” 9.
Nyhamar, “Accidental Vacuum or Counterinsurgency Logic?” 18–19.
For an excellent account of the Awakening and the motives of the tribal leaders
that relies heavily on Arabic sources, see Marc Lynch, “Explaining the
Awakening: Engagement, Publicity, and the Transformation of Iraqi Sunni
Political Attitudes,” Security Studies 20 (2011): 36–72. Th e decision to arm
Sunni irregulars was made by Petraeus and Odierno in Iraq, with little or no
discussion with administration offi cials in Washington. Ricks, Gamble , 217.
Woodward, War Within , 381.
Ricks, Gamble , chap. 10.
Ricks, Gamble , 261, 263.
Nyhamar, “Accidental Vacuum or Counterinsurgency Logic?” 6.
Ricks, Gamble , 264–65.
Ricks, Gamble , 236–37; Woodward, War Within , 307, 311, 342–43, 348–49.
For a fuller discussion of congressional eff orts to set a withdrawal
deadline, see Andrew J. Polsky, “Collective Inaction: Presidents,
Congress, and Unpopular Wars,” Extensions (Spring 2008): 4–8.
Tama, “Power and Limitations of Commissions,” 149.
Ricks, Gamble , 244. Democrats looked forward to another opportunity
to condemn the president’s war policy when General Petraeus returned
for a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in fall 2007.
By that point, however, insurgent attacks had abated and casualties had
started to decline, so the Democratic narrative of “no progress in Iraq” no
longer fi t all the evidence. Democrats could still point up the lack of real
political progress. Unfortunately for them, on the day of the hearing an
antiwar organization published a large ad in the New York Times ques-
tioning Petraeus’s patriotism, a remarkably maladroit swipe at a military
commander in wartime. Republican senators had a fi eld day condemning
the ad and putting their Democratic colleagues on the defensive. Several
Democratic would-be presidential candidates, including the eventual
nominee, Senator Barack Obama, used the occasion to state their position
against the war and the president’s handling of it. Th e hearings otherwise
shed little light on the actual situation in Iraq.
