Modern warfare complex but winnable, Petraeus tells Vanderbilt
Posted 3/1/2010
Photo by Vanderbilt University
It’s a fact that the U.S. military is in the nation-building business in the Middle East, Petraeus said, and victory will only be achieved when secure and responsible governments are in place in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.
Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, responded March 1 to questions put to him by Vanderbilt Law School professor Mike Newton, who incorporated input pre-submitted by students, faculty and members of the wider Nashville community.
The conversation was sponsored by the International Legal Studies Program and the College of Arts and Science. Included in the audience were a number of military personnel, some of whom are headed to the war zone as well as family members of those already deployed. U.S. Reps. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., and Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., also attended.
Petraeus has worked with presidents and administrations from both political parties. He was promoted to chief of the U.S. Central Command in October 2008 after several tours in Iraq, including the role of top commander in Iraq for more than 19 months.
“A good outcome in Iraq would be an Iraq in which there is a government that is representative of all the people, that is responsive and responsible to all the people,” Petraeus said. It would also be able to provide its own security and basic services like education, electricity and fresh water, he said.
Introduced by Chancellor Nicholas S. Zeppos as “one of the most distinguished and visionary and indeed influential leaders of our 21st century,” Petraeus spoke of the necessity to “live your values” in order to persuade people in Iraq and Afghanistan that America is a positive force in the Middle East. He said the horrors of the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq was an incalculable blow against that effort, and described another incident where a sniper in Iraq used a page from the Koran for target practice.
The Army was “first with the truth” about the incident, and the apologies came from every level, including Petraeus and President George W. Bush.
“You must live your values,” Petraeus said. “If you don’t live your values, you’re going to pay for it in the long run.”
The way to win victories in the 21st century is to be sensitive to local customs and have just as much concern for the long-term plan as the shorter-term victory, he said. Leadership in the military and anywhere else boils down to implementing some key concepts, he said
“The truth is that the duties of leadership at any level … are to try and get the big ideas right, first and foremost,” Petraeus said. “The second is to develop those ideas by educating the organization to them and getting (the organization) to embrace them. Then of course you have to oversee the implementation of the big ideas.”
The final step, he said, is to look at what worked and what didn’t and see if that affects the big ideas you started with.
That process is well on the way in Iraq and coming along in Afghanistan, he said.
Petraeus recalled that his life was saved at Vanderbilt University Medical Center about 20 years ago, after he was accidentally shot in the chest during a training exercise while commanding a battalion of the 101st Airborne at nearby Ft. Campbell just over the Tennessee border in Kentucky. He was brought to Vanderbilt, where Dr. Bill Frist – who would one day be a United States senator from Tennessee and is still a faculty member at Vanderbilt’s medical and law schools – performed a life-saving operation.
“You don’t get a purple heart actually for getting shot by your own troops,” he joked.
His soldiers gave him an unofficial, makeshift purple heart anyway, which he proudly displayed to the Vanderbilt audience.
A video podcast of the event is posted here.
Contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu
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