For much of his Army career, Petraeus was known best for his staff work, for his Washington savvy and for his service to a long list of important generals. But his reputation grew during the first phase of the Iraq war, when Petraeus also proved himself one of the most successful and adaptable division commanders in the U.S. military.
"Petraeus is a true intellect, perhaps the purest soldier-scholar there is," said Lt. Col. John Nagl, one of the Army's top experts on fighting insurgencies.
When Petraeus finished his first Iraq tour in 2005, making his name as a division commander and then overseeing the training of the Iraqi military, he went to Ft. Leavenworth, home of a key Army training operation called the Combined Arms Center.
Petraeus was able to use the Ft. Leavenworth position, once considered something of a backwater post, to focus Army attention on counterinsurgency -- essentially getting the force ready to execute the strategy he would bring to Iraq in 2007.
For instance, Petraeus overhauled the curriculum of Army schools to ensure that Army majors were trained in counterinsurgency operations. He remade the Army's journal, Military Review, into a periodical focused on the best ways to fight nontraditional wars.
Perhaps most important, Petraeus ordered a complete rewriting of the Army's counterinsurgency manual. The manual, overseen by Petraeus, is considered the most important piece of Army doctrine in two decades, officers said.
"He was getting the Army focused on not only what he saw as the most likely form of war in the future, but also the kind of war we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan," Nagl said.
So from the relative obscurity of Ft. Leavenworth, officers say, Petraeus managed to spark an "intellectual revitalization" of the Army.
"He was very clear in his own mind: This fight was very different than what we had done in the past," said the officer who worked with Petraeus at Ft. Leavenworth, who discussed Petraeus' thinking on the condition of anonymity. "And he pulled all of the levers at Leavenworth to get the Army ready."
From Ft. Leavenworth, Petraeus also helped develop the troop-buildup strategy that Bush publicly embraced eight months ago. Petraeus was given the chance to refine and execute the strategy when he succeeded Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. as the top commander in Iraq in February.
