5 Minute Guide: Petraeus report
Updated on 07 September 2007
New readers start here. Everything you need to know about the US army's Baghdad 'surge' and the subsequent report from General David Petraeus.
Q: When was the surge announced?
A: In a live broadcast to the US public on 10 January this year, President George W Bush committed more than 20,000 extra troops to the Iraq conflict - the vast majority to be based in Baghdad and embedded with Iraqi units.
Q: What were the goals of the surge?
A: Bush said the boost in troop numbers had three motivations: to secure Iraqi neighbourhoods, protect the local population and support home-grown forces.
Effectively the plan was to stabilise the Baghdad area - the scene of 80 per cent of sectarian violence in Iraq.
Outside of the capital, 4,000 marines sent to Iraq's western Anbar province to fight Sunni insurgents.
Q: Should it have been called a surge?
A: In the battle for hearts and minds, the language of war is becoming more and more important. And controversy has surrounded Bush's use of the word 'surge' - Democrat critics preferring to call the tactic an 'escalation'.
Resentment surrounded the fact surge suggested a temporary increase in troops - when it fact there was no conflict end date in sight.
Q: Who was in charge of this massive increase?
A: In January this year Bush announced General David Petraeus would lead all troops in Iraq, taking over from General George Casey.
Petraeus told the US Senate that he agreed with the surge policy. In fact many journalists credited the 54 year-old general with coming up with the counter-insurgency move himself.
Q: Who is David Petraeus?
A: Petraeus was born in 1952 to Dutch-American parents. He grew up in the upstate New York town of Cornwall, within spitting distance of West Point, America's military academy.
He graduated from West Point in the top 5 per cent of his class, after which he worked his way up to general.
Being too late for Vietnam - and having a desk job in the Gulf War - Petraeus did not see conflict until Iraq. However, it is perhaps the general's academic background which is of most interest.
In the 1970s he wrote a PhD in international relations at Princeton entitled: The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam.
In one passage he wrote: "Vietnam was an extremely painful reminder that, when it comes to intervention, time and patience are not American virtues in abundant supply."
Q: Why choose Petraeus?
A: He was seen by many as Bush's last chance to salvage a deteriorating Iraq.
Petraeus was credited with subduing northern Iraq following the 2003 invasion, restarting the economy, building security forces and establishing democratic institutions in the city.
His success appears to have been down to a combination of less aggressive military tactics than others employed and a very aggressive effort to win over the locals.
Bush hoped he could pull the same trick in Baghdad.
Q: Is Petraeus popular in political circles?
A: He has a lot of supporters within the White House, who see his long-term peace-building beliefs as a departure from conventional gung-ho military attitudes.
His fans believe he's a new-style officer for a new type of warfare, where battles can be won with superior technology and firepower, but true victories can be secured only by good peacemaking and politics.
His critics say he won a short-term peace in northern Iraq at the expense of allowing insurgents to organise themselves mostly unmolested.
Some are also uncomfortable with his blatant ambition and clever PR.
Q: Has the surge been a success?
A: As with all politically sensitive matters, it depends who you listen to...
The White House claims the extra troops have been successful in quelling overall violence in the Iraqi capital, providing a more stable platform to move forward.
Critics point to a rise in suicide bombings, combined with a failure of to engender political progress.
A growing tension between the Iraqi PM Nuri Maliki and Bush's regime is perhaps testament to that.
While General Petraeus acknowledged in an interim report last month that the US was making "slow progress" in establishing Iraqi security forces.
