One thing that struck me in particular was this statement:
As commander of the 4th Infantry Division in the Sunni Triangle, Odierno led troops known for their sometimes heavy-handed tactics, kicking in doors and rounding up thousands of Iraqi "MAMs" (military-age males). He finished his tour believing the fight was going well. "I thought we had beaten this thing," he would later recall.
Sent back to Iraq in 2006 as second in command of U.S. forces, under orders to begin the withdrawal of American troops and shift fighting responsibilities to the Iraqis, Odierno found a situation that he recalled as "fairly desperate, frankly."
This I think goes to the heart of what I've argued for on my blog, that we have been winning the war in Iraq. The problem is that we have not faced a single enemy to beat in Iraq, but a series of enemies who we have beaten in turn.
And while opponents of the war mocked the repeated assertions that we had reached a turning point in the war, these claims were right--when you understand that we had reached turning points against different enemies.
As commander of 4th ID in the immediate post-major combate operations phase, Odierno could see that we had "beaten this thing" since that thing in question was the Baathist resistance. By winter 2003-2004, Saddam was captured and casualties were dropping as the Baathists were ground down.
By the time Odierno returned in 2006, however, the thing we were fighting was al Qaeda in Iraq supplied through Syria and Iranian-backed Sadrists. Syria and Iran are allies, and this was part of the plan to tear apart Iraq and inflict a defeat on us.
So we had a new enemy to beat--not the task of redefeating the Baathists for a third time (overthrowing the regime and capturing Saddam as one and two, basically).
And I still don't rule out that Iraq, with our help, will have new enemies to face. But unless the Kurds go loopy, I don't see how it will be an internal enemy.
