Accidental Statement Analysis

The Accidental Statement: Understand In March 20, 2003, President George W. Bush gave his military forces orders to invade Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein and his government. These orders resulted in an operation named “shock and awe”, which tumbled the nation’s government swiftly and allowed U.S. troops to create a sense of mission command within the overthrown country of Iraq. During the initial invasion Major General David Petraeus commander of the US Army’s 101st Airborne Division was given the critical task to create mission command (ADRP 5-0, p.1-1) of the city of Mosul, Iraq (capital of Nineveh province). Major General Petraeus understanding of the operational variables were key in rebuilding Mosul. This paper will focus his understanding …show more content…
The 101st Airborne Division Soldiers began to quickly identify local resources and began to restore such things as water plants, electricity plant, create a trash disposal problem, clean roads, re-open schools, universities, hospitals, and mosques. The 101st also were placed on heavy guard of the oil and gas infrastructures in which they devised a strategic plan to handle the scarce oil and gas supplies. Shortly afterwards, General Petraeus coordinated a vast numbers of gas trucks to come from neighboring countries such as turkey to import their resources to the city of Mosul. As soon as the local economy began rebuilding, General Petraeus had to make sure the citizens were protected and secure. The General then ordered a heavy law and order presence of his troops through means of patrols and checkpoints to maintain order, while also providing a sense of security for the people of …show more content…
The first change was stern in not allowing any former Baath party members in any form to serve in any political role. The next policy was that the Iraqi Army be permanently disbanded. These policies were put in place to erase any ideologies of the old Saddam regime and Baath party. This placed General Petraeus in a bind, mainly because majority of his elected officials from the Mosul area were indeed affiliates of the Saddam and the Baath party. The General quickly acted with no recourse and this created rapid violence in Mosul. The General quickly began noticing more attacks on 101st Airborne Division Soldiers. The higher command ordered General Petraeus to handle his insurgency problem in a combat manner and divert from gaining hearts and minds to a show of force. This behavior quickly ramped up high casualties both US Soldiers and insurgents. The overall success of the General Petraeus vision was taunted by political