New US general to take reins in Iraq

BAGHDAD, (AFP)

General David Petraeus, a 54-year-old paratrooper with a doctorate in international relations and a reputation as a deep thinker, was to take on the toughest job in the US military on Saturday.

Petraeus was to be named commander of the 140,000-strong US-led coalition force in Iraq at a ceremony at Camp Victory, a massive American base on the outskirts of Baghdad, the violent epicentre of a bitter sectarian war.

Taking over from outgoing General George Casey, the new commander returns to Iraq tasked with turning around a faltering mission which faces mounting casualties and a dramatic collapse in domestic political support.

His chances of success will hang on the latest in a series of what have so far been failed US attempts to regain control of Baghdad and central Iraq, a region plagued by Shiite militias and roving gangs of Sunni insurgents. Daily attacks on US-led forces and Iraqi civilians have increased steadily since the fall of Saddam Hussein in April 2003, and more than doubled in the 12 months since Sunni bombers destroyed a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra.

Ahead of the ceremony - which was to take place under a crystal chandelier under the grandiose rotunda of one of Saddam's former palaces - Casey was asked what his greatest fear was for the future of Iraq.

He replied: "That Iraqis can't put the past behind them."

"It's no secret that the sectarian attack on the Samarra mosque changed the dynamic," he said, as the clatter of helicopters overhead threatened to drown out his final news conference before returning to Washington and a promotion.

More than 3,100 US soldiers have died in the campaign and support for a continuing US presence in Iraq among American voters is at an all-time low, despite President George W. Bush's promise of a new strategy. One of the architects of the new plan, which will see 21,500 extra US troops flown in to work with Iraqi units trying to pacify Baghdad and Anbar province, Petraeus is now the figurehead for a controversial gamble.

The pressure on him will only have been increased by the extraordinary outpouring of positive media coverage of his career and ideas, which stands out from the increasingly downbeat tone in most recent reporting.

Petraeus - who has spent a total of two-and-a-half years in Iraq since the invasion as commander of the 101 Airborne Division and head of the mission to train Iraqi forces - is hailed as an intellectual and Iraq's best hope.

But critics of the "surge strategy" of pouring in more troops to kill off the sectarian war and impose the Iraqi government's authority warn the situation may already have spun beyond the control of the brightest minds.

"Some disasters are irretrievable," warned a report from the influential Washington think-tank, the Council on Foreign Relations, inauspiciously released on the eve of the handover.