General Petraeus and the City of Mosul Iraq.doc - 1 The...

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The Accidental Statesman: General Petraeus and the City of Mosul, Iraq
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Introduction
In April 2003, the city of Mosul in Iraq was conquered by the 101st Airborne Division
that was under the command of Major General David Petraeus. As a result of the comprehension
of the mission command by General Petraeus, this was imperative in the visualization of the
mental process. The development of the situational comprehension and analysis of the
operational as well as mission variables also assisted General Petraeus in the visualization. By
then, the attack in Iraq was already progressing and significant success was being made by the
101 st Airborne Division in the general mission and operation in Mosul. General David Petraeus’
deep comprehension of science and the art of war gave his subordinate commanders a unique
comprehension of Common Operation Picture (COP) and its vision. Because Mosul was the
centre of gravity in making sure the success of the mission, the General had no choice but to
reestablish the sustainability of the mission of the Iraqis through making a command decision
(Kaplan, 2014).
Depicting the Operational Environment using Operational Variables (PMESII-PT)
The PMESII-PT is an acronym advanced by the US military and is utilized by the
soldiers to form a designed approach to the actions in the operational environment whereby a
comprehensive analysis of the external environment is conducted guided by this tool (Kaplan,
2014). The political, Military, Economic, Social, Information, Infrastructure, Physical
environment, and Time aspects of the operational environment are analyzed (Knowlton, 2015).
To understand the operational environment, the Security Force Assistance Read (SFA) has to
scrutinize it from the indigenous viewpoint. Politically, Iraq was under the dictatorship of
Saddam Hussein whom the US military wanted to overthrow. In terms of military, SFA’s tactical
emphasis was to counter insurgency and establish stability and security in Mosul. The people of

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Mosul were divided into seven ethnic groups: Kurds, the Yzidis, Sunnis, the Shubak, Sunni
Turkmen, Shia Turkmen, and Christians. In terms of the economy, Mosul was getting back to its
textile and agricultural past. Likewise, it was a point of transfer for goods from Syria, Iran and
Turkey. In terms of the infrastructure and physical environment, the Tigris River bisects east and
west Mosul. It was also spanned by five bridges within Mosul. These bridges were named by the
Coalition Forces in terms of the order of being built. The variance in the convention was a major