General Petraeus Mission Command Essay

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General Petraeus used the Army’s V Corps three strategic goals and began the process of bringing life back to a dismal and dilapidated Mosul. The strategic goals he used to execute his commander’s intent are, provide a secure environment, restore basic life services, and facilitate a return to normalcy. Gen. Petraeus accomplished these tasks by executing “Missions Command,” through Directing, Leading and Assessing.
In 2003, the war-ravaged city of Mosul, Iraq experienced looting and riots on a regular basis. This was due to the fact the Iraq war had just begun and no effort was put into reconciliation yet. (Lunberg, 2006). The city’s overall infrastructure was nonexistent and its people have seen better days.
Prior to General Petraeus arriving …show more content…

This was the initial step needed for the positive progress of Mosul as a whole. Petraeus executed the mission through various types of leadership styles and a constant reassessment of the situation.
Some might say a stern leadership stance would be necessary to pull off the elections within Mosul. However, he chose to use a more fluid type of leadership approach. On some aspects of the planning and execution, he gave leeway to his commanders, while others required more involvement (Lunberg, 2006). This approach allowed General Petraeus’ subordinate commanders to issue their own commander’s intent to facilitate the same end state. As demonstrated, leadership is adaptive to the current situation.
General Petreaus chose to have more involvement with is the selection of the potential candidates and the style in which the election would take place. This proved to be a challenging task. He had to constantly reassess and reexamine the possible candidates due to past ties that would resurface during subsequent interviews. In addition, the democratic style of elections is something new to Iraqis at this time, and this proved to be the biggest challenge. (Lunberg,