Interview With Gen. Odierno

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
CBS
September 28, 2008

LESLEY STAHL, co-host: For the last year and a half, General David Petraeus has been the face of the US 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 4th 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. (Footage of David Petraeus and Ray Odierno saluting; ceremony in palace; Iraq; helicopter; Lesley Stahl and Odierno in helicopter; pilots; view from helicopter)
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 US 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...
GEN. RAY ODIERNO: Yeah. It absolutely was one of the very worst parts of Iraq in violence. (Footage of Odierno and Stahl walking in Iraq)
STAHL: 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.
ODIERNO: Yes.
STAHL: And rockets and IEDs.
ODIERNO: Yes.
STAHL: What happened to them? Where have they gone?
ODIERNO: Well, I mean, first off, we've eliminated a lot of them.
STAHL: Killed them.
ODIERNO: Well, we've captured them, killed them, and really what's happened is their passive support base that they got from the population is gone.
STAHL: Is this the first time you've walked down this street?
ODIERNO: Since a long time.
STAHL: What are you thinking as you walk along here?
ODIERNO: I mean, this is amazing. (Footage of Iraqi soldiers; street)
STAHL: 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 100 attacks a week here. Now, there are only two.
ODIERNO: You have about 30,000 people now that help with security where back a year ago you probably had maybe 1,000.
STAHL: So 1,000 to 30,000.
ODIERNO: Right.
STAHL: Well, no wonder it's calmed down. (Footage of soldiers in Iraq; market)
STAHL: Al-Qaeda in Iraq used to extort protection money from these shop owners. Now that that's stopped, too, the local market is flourishing for the first time in years.
ODIERNO: We now have people starting their own businesses. They're now all 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. (Footage of Baghdad; people in markets; family; Baghdad Zoo; building; Odierno; people shooting in street; people cheering with guns; Odierno and Stahl walking with soldiers)
STAHL: 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 Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia in control. The idea of Americans walking around, even with protection, and we had plenty of that, was impossible.
ODIERNO: The last time I was here, I went to visit the police station, we were hit by RPGs and mortars.
STAHL: You? You were?
ODIERNO: Yeah. I was inside the police station. Everybody was OK. (Footage of people unloading produce; people cleaning up street; boy selling bread)
ODIERNO: So to come back now and see the difference, the fact that how much now we've brought life back to the city, this is very swift. (Footage of Boy sitting along wall; troops patrolling; helicopter)
STAHL: But it's still a war zone. Troops patrol and helicopters hover.
If I wanted to come to this market myself.
ODIERNO: Yeah.
STAHL: As an American.
ODIERNO: Yeah.
STAHL: Could I--would I feel safe?
ODIERNO: Well...
STAHL: You've got a lot of power.
ODIERNO: Yeah, yeah.
STAHL: Look. This guy's got a big gun right behind me.
ODIERNO: Yeah, yeah. What I would say is...
STAHL: So do you.
ODIERNO: What I would say is the normal Iraqi citizen would feel safe coming here without a problem. The reason I hesitate about saying an American coming here is because there's still some terrorist groups who just target Americans.
STAHL: Beyond the terrorists, the people we met express little gratitude for the Americans and lots of resentment, like in the Sunni town of Mahmudiyah.
So you want the Americans to leave?
Group: (In unison) Yes. (Footage of shopkeeper)
STAHL: I asked this shopkeeper if he likes the US Army.
Unidentified Shopkeeper: (Through translator) Yes and no.
STAHL: Why yes you like them and why you don't like them?
Shopkeeper: (Through translator) We like them because they help people, they have put a lot of efforts in here. And the reason why I don't like them is because they do raids on houses. (Footage of Odierno)
STAHL: General Odierno interrupted.
ODIERNO: Is it much less now than it was before? The number of raids?
Shopkeeper: (Through translator) Yes, indeed. It's way lesser.
STAHL: But he doesn't forget.
ODIERNO: But he doesn't forget. That's the point. That's the point. (Footage of Stahl walking with Odierno; file footage of tank ramming into building; file footage of raid)
STAHL: 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 4th Infantry Division, whose troops, seen here in 2003, conducted raids into people's homes and held large numbers of detainees, many of them innocent.
Unidentified Soldier #1: He's putting his hands behind his back. I've got his covered.
STAHL: You're targeted...
ODIERNO: Yes.
STAHL: ...as the heavy-handed general. Back then the charge was that your tactics helped fan the insurgency.
ODIERNO: Mm-hmm. 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 mistakes.
STAHL: Those mistakes?
ODIERNO: There's a fine line. You have to determine when you use--you have to be tough and when you're not. So I think sometimes we were very accurate in what we did. But were there mistakes made...(unintelligible)? Yes. Was our intelligence maybe not as good as we would've liked it to have been? Yes.
STAHL: Did these questions, do they bother you?
ODIERNO: Well, I mean, sure. I mean, nobody likes being criticized and I--and the thing about it is 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. (Footage of Odierno walking; photo of Odierno family; Tony and Odierno)
STAHL: He went back to the states in 2004 to do a review and to reflect. If he changed, and there were 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 that Tony, then an Army lieutenant in Iraq, had been ambushed and seriously wounded.
ODIERNO: And it was a tough time for us.
STAHL: Hm.
ODIERNO: Of course, you're a parent then.
STAHL: Yeah.
ODIERNO: You know, you know.
STAHL: Right.
ODIERNO: I'm a father. You know, once we heard he was OK, he'd lost his left arm, but he was OK, of course, the first reaction of any parent is we were glad he was alive.
STAHL: How is he doing?
ODIERNO: He's doing wonderfully. He's run two triathlons. He plays golf regularly. He does...
STAHL: He plays golf?
ODIERNO: He does many things. (Footage of Tony at Yankee Stadium)
STAHL: This Summer, Tony was in intern with the New York Yankees, his dad's favorite team since growing up in New Jersey. On July 4th, Tony threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium.
Sports Announcer: Thank you, Tony. (Footage of Odierno and Stahl walking)
STAHL: Now, General Odierno says he's better at talking to the families of his wounded soldiers.
ODIERNO: 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.
STAHL: Mm-hmm.
ODIERNO: So we could relate to them as a parent. (Footage of helicopter; Stahl and Odierno in helicopter)
STAHL: (Voiceover) 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.
ODIERNO: They were just coming in the country from Kuwait. They were replacing another unit.
STAHL: How many on board?
ODIERNO: Seven.
STAHL: All lost? (Odierno nods yes) (Footage of view from helicopter; helicopter)
STAHL: The burdens of his command weigh heavy. On top of that, he comes into his new job not knowing who is commander in chief is going to be.
Are you a registered Republican, Democrat? Do we know that?
ODIERNO: Well...
STAHL: Can we know that?
ODIERNO: 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.
Good to see you again. How's it going?
Unidentified Soldier #2: Great, sir, great.
ODIERNO: Looks like you lost a little weight out here. (Footage of Odierno with soldiers)
STAHL: 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.
Unidentified Man #1: Specialist Jones. (Footage of soldiers)
STAHL: It's said that he can be charismatic and that his troops love him.
ODIERNO: How you doing?
Unidentified Soldier #3: Good, sir.
ODIERNO: And you've got a damn good haircut, too. I just want to point out.
Soldier #3: Thank you, sir. (Footage of Iraq; Stahl and Odierno in helicopter)
STAHL: 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--I don't want to exaggerate, but he became somewhat of a hero. It has to be a little daunting.
ODIERNO: 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. (Footage of gunner in helicopter; Iraqi city)
STAHL: And 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 vs. when Saddam Hussein was in power. Is it better now?
Unidentified Man #2: (Through translator) Before. Saddam time it used to be better. Essential services were much better.
STAHL: So you liked it better before, after all of this.
Man #2: (Through translator) Freedom is a nice thing, but still, we need some essential services.
STAHL: So, General, what do you think of that?
ODIERNO: Well, 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 I think... (Footage of lights going out in office; trucks; lakes of open sewage; piles of garbage in street; Stahl walking with Odierno; Iraqi men)
STAHL: 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 Sadr City, where there are lakes of open sewage and piles of garbage. The US is spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. General O will be leaning on the Iraqi government with its $80 billion 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.
ODIERNO: 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. (Footage of men chanting; men in streets; truck; oil containers; Odierno)
STAHL: All this requires finesse because with the sectarian rivalries unresolved, the political process has 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.
ODIERNO: (Foreign language spoken) (Footage of Stahl walking with Odierno)
STAHL: 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?
ODIERNO: Yeah.
STAHL: I guess what I'm asking you and it's a tough question, but I'm asking if you think you have the temperament to take this job and you know, handle the soft side of it?
ODIERNO: 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.
 
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