60 minutes rewind for the last year and a half general david petraeus has been the face of the
u.s war effort in iraq he led the surge that contributed to bringing the level of violence
down in much of the country now as the challenges change from military to economic and political a
new man is taking over general ray odierno known as general o this is his third tour of duty in
iraq in 2003 he led the fourth infantry division that captured saddam hussein in 2007 he became
general petraeus number two now after seven months in the united states he's back and in command
general ray odierno is 54 a west point graduate and former artillery officer in a ceremony
at one of saddam hussein's former palaces now the u.s military headquarters in iraq
he took command from general petraeus whose big shadow he must now come out from under so on day
two as commander he began a tour to establish his authority and make his first battlefield
assessment flying south to the so-called triangle of death would you go so far as to say this was
one of the absolute worst parts of iraq in terms of violence and yeah it absolutely was one of the
very worst parts of iraq and violence now the general surveyed a quiet neighborhood in the
triangle of death the area just south of baghdad was tamed with the help of former sunni insurgents
who the americans paid to change sides and turn their guns against al-qaeda in iraq
this was where al-qaeda staged a lot of its raids and rockets and ieds what happened to them
where where have they gone well i mean first off we've we've eliminated a lot of them
we've captured them killed them uh and really what's happened is their passive support base
that they got from the population is gone is this the first time you've walked down the street
in a long time what are you thinking as you walk along here i mean this is amazing he should feel
good he was the one who devised the battle plan for the triangle of death now there are iraqi
army troops and sunni civilian patrols everywhere so a year ago there were about a hundred attacks
a week here now there are only two you have about thirty thousand people now that help with security
we're back a year ago you probably had maybe a thousand so a thousand to thirty thousand well
no wonder it's calm down al qaeda in iraq used to extort protection money from these shop owners
now that that stopped too the local market is flourishing for the first time in years
we now have people starting their own businesses
they're now able to earn a living an honorable living for their family they're not afraid to
come out i would say 75 percent of the country maybe even more is more like this in baghdad
for instance where car bombs and corpses in the streets had become a way of life you see things
the iraqis thought they'd never see again laughter in the markets that are crowded and thriving
nightlife has returned people who used to live in fear take their children to the zoo and even the
shia slum of sadr city seemed calm odierno went to see for himself on his third day as commander
just four months ago this was a no man's land with maktada al-sadr's shiite militia in control
the idea of americans walking around even with protection and we had plenty of that
was impossible the last time i was here when i went to visit the police station we were hit by
rpgs and boarders yeah i was inside the police station uh everybody was okay so come back now
and and see the difference the fact that how much now we brought life back to the city
is very swift but it's still a war zone troops patrol and helicopters hover if i wanted to come
to this market myself yeah as an american yeah could i would i feel safe well got a lot of power
yeah yeah look this guy's got a big gun right here yeah what i would say is so do you
what i would i would say is the normal iraqi citizen would feel safe coming here without
a problem the reason i hesitate about seeing an american coming here is because there's still some
terrorist groups who just target americans beyond the terrorists the people we met express little
gratitude for the americans and lots of resentment like in the sunni town of macmudia so you want the
americans to leave yes i asked this shopkeeper if he likes the u.s army yes and no why yes
and the reason why i don't like them because they do raids on houses
general odierno interrupted that is it much less now than it was before
yes indeed it's very way lesser but he doesn't forget
but he doesn't forget that that's the point the irony is it was general odierno himself
who may have caused some of the resentment he is now charged with alleviating
when he commanded the fourth infantry division whose troops seen here in 2003 conducted raids
into people's homes and held large numbers of detainees many of them innocent he's putting
his hands on his back i got him covered you're targeted as the heavy-handed general back then
the charge was that your tactics helped fan the insurgency right i think that depiction is grossly
exaggerated but what i would say is first off the area i was in was a very complex area i was in
the center of saddam hussein's iraq i was where he was from but don't get me wrong we made some
some mistakes those mistakes is a fine line you have to determine when you use
you have to be tough when you're not and so i think sometimes we were very accurate in what
we did but were there mistakes made when something weren't yes was our intelligence
maybe not as good as we would like to have been yes did these questions did do they bother you
well i mean sure i mean you know nobody likes being criticized and i and the thing about it is
i i feel that i am somebody who learns very well i'm about trying to be flexible adaptable and so
the accusation that i might not be bothers me he went back to the states in 2004 to do a review
and to reflect if he changed and there are those who think he did what happened to his
26 year old son tony may have contributed when he was home he got a phone call the tony then
an army lieutenant in iraq had been ambushed and seriously wounded and it was a tough time for us
of course you're a parent then you know you know i'm a father you know once we heard he
was okay he'd lost his left arm but he was okay of course the first reaction of any parent is we
were glad he was alive how is he doing he's doing wonderfully he's run two triathlons he plays golf
regularly plays golf he does many things now general odierno says he's better at talking to
the families of his wounded soldiers sometimes as a commander you feel uncomfortable in those
situations i think i felt a bit more comfortable because we had been through it a little bit so we
could relate to them as a parent as commanding general he'll be needing that ability to relate
an army helicopter had just gone down over basra it was the third day of his new job
they were just coming in the country from the way they were replacing another unit how many on board
the burdens of his command weigh heavy on top of that he comes into his new job
not knowing who his commander in chief is going to be
are you a registered republican democrat do we know that can we know that well i will say this
i made a decision when i got promoted to colonel that i would no longer
vote in national elections because i feel it's my job to serve the commander-in-chief
so i have not voted probably a bad american for not voting but i made
that decision because of the position that i have the story will continue after this
good to see you again how's it going graces are great look like you've lost a little weight out
here in his new position he knows he has to quickly assert himself as the leader
and it doesn't hurt that he's real tall six foot five
it's said that he can be charismatic and that his troops love him how you doing good stuff and you
got a damn good haircut too thank you sir but when i asked about the difficulty of following general
petraeus the warrior intellectual he seemed a little touchy on the subject i don't want to
exaggerate but he became somewhat of a hero and it has to be a little daunting it's not uncomfortable
for me to be here and feel that i have to you know live up to general petraeus i mean i feel
like i was also part of the success and part of the improvement that we made an improvement that
he says is fragile and so he must convince iraqi leaders to do a better job of governing if they
don't he fears a return to violence let me ask you about now versus when saddam hussein was in power
is it better now before it's the downtime is it needs to be better
essential services were much better so you liked it better before after all of this
freedom is a nice thing but still we need some essential services so general what do you think
of that well i i don't i think if you don't have electricity you don't have water you don't have
it's pretty difficult but some iraqis get only one or two hours a day of electricity it's not
much better for a division commander in the iraqi army watch as the lights go out in his office the
worst situation may be in solder city where there are lakes of open sewage and piles of garbage
the u.s is spending 10 billion dollars a month in iraq general all will be leaning on
the iraqi government with its 80 billion dollar surplus to clean things up restore electricity
and do something about the unemployment rate of upwards of 50 percent as he becomes the general
in charge of nation building you're almost like a shadow secretary of labor and a minister of public
works and talking to them about construction projects and engineering projects and jobs
yeah as we make progress you know the problems become actually more complex and so we have to
learn to work with many other agencies in order to do the kind of things we're talking about
all this requires finesse because with the sectarian rivalries unresolved
the political process is stalemated over a number of crucial issues like oil revenue
sharing it's part of odierno's portfolio now to coax and cajole the iraqis to compromise
does this general with his old reputation of an iron fist have the delicacy this phase of the
war requires do you think that you're going to be able to put on a velvet glove i i guess what what
i'm asking you and and it's a tough question but i i'm asking if you think you have the temperament
to take this job and and you know handle the soft side of sure i do i understand the
complexities of what we're doing i understand what it takes in order to be successful
i understand what we need to do and i'll do whatever i can to make sure we're successful