Petraeus on Goldwater-Nichols & Private Security Contractors

[Snaquebite]

People who have spoken with Petraeus recently said he believes that politicians and journalists have put too much emphasis on the increase in troop numbers and too little on his intention to use them differently. Their top priority will be protecting the Iraqi population, following counterinsurgency doctrine laid out in a new Army manual, which he oversaw, that says "the people are the prize."

http://mountainrunner.us/2007/01/pet...c_hearing.html

[82ndtrooper]

In other words, the General addresses the need for PMC's in force protection, sight security, convoy security, and diplomatic security operations.

[Snaquebite]

Basically, from what I am hearing while listening to the confirmation hearings is that by the use of PMC's to do certain security operations i.e. US Embassy, other key sites etc is that this frees up the military to do other missions that they may or may not be able to do if the PSC's were not performing these functions.

[CDRODA396]

However it plays out, it will be very interesting to see how much and how fast things change, and who gets what piece of the pie, both military and PMC once he takes over and starts instituting change.

[Warrior-Mentor]

LTG Petraus is credited with stating "Generals set tone."

The GOs that will work for him will pay signigficanly more attention to the value of non-kinetic operations and weighing the vallue of kinetic opertions before launching them.

The question is how long will it take to filter down to the Squad Leader level?

I know one General who personally lost 30 pounds just to "remodel himself" before taking command. I suspect it put him in the image of Petraus...but who knows...

[NousDefionsDoc]

Originally Posted by Warrior-Mentor

LTG Petraus is credited with stating "Generals set tone."

The GOs that will work for him will pay signigficanly more attention to the value of non-kinetic operations and weighing the vallue of kinetic opertions before launching them.

The question is how long will it take to filter down to the Squad Leader level?

I know one General who personally lost 30 pounds just to "remodel himself" before taking command. I suspect it put him in the image of Petraus...but who knows...

In my limited experience with General officers, many seem to be tone deaf.