Key to Iraq Surge Success? Petraeus says "big ideas"

In a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, GEN Petraeus says it was a "surge of ideas" that turned the tide in Iraq. Of course, this doesn't completely give credit to the idea that the Iraqis were done self-segregating by the time the surge ran its course.

The US troop surge succeeded in Iraq because the army embraced new ideas about waging war against insurgents, focusing on winning the trust of local people, top commander General David Petraeus said.
Credited for helping turn around the US war effort in Iraq, Petraeus said at an awards ceremony that it was an earlier "surge of ideas" that laid the foundation for military progress.
Petraeus described his effort along with fellow officers to change the US Army's thinking about warfare, including drafting a new counter-insurgency manual in the midst of the Iraq conflict.
He said that "the most important surge in Iraq was not the surge of forces; rather, it was the surge of ideas that guided the employment of our forces in Iraq."
"Without these ideas on the conduct of counterinsurgency operations, we would not have achieved the gains that were made during the surge and beyond," he said.
Petraeus, the former US commander in Iraq who took over amid spiraling violence, now leads US Central Command, overseeing both the Iraq and Afghan wars.

By: Brant