How Did Petraeus Use Mission Command To Stabilize South Iraq

Mission Command: Using Command and Control (C2) to stabilize Northern Iraq
As defined by the Department of the Army, Mission command is the is the exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct of unified land operations (Headquarters, 2012, p. 1). Major General David Petraeus took the 101st Airborne Division into Iraq and initially set up in Baghdad. Not too long after arriving in Baghdad, he received an order to move his Division north to Mosul, Iraq. While in Mosul, General Petraeus faced a slew of complications ranging from the obvious to the not so obvious. With no clear-cut direction from higher command to fix the situation, he was on his own. Immediately he began to assess the variety of problems to implement a solution one at a time. This paper will discuss how General Petraeus used mission command authority to overarch and influence command and control to accomplish his mission in northern Iraq without proper civilian agencies and local support.
Civilian Agencies
Not long after setting up the headquarters in one of Saddam Hussein palaces just north of
General Petraeus again carefully used his mission command authority to force the Kurds to draw back and dismantle key checkpoints they set up all over the north. Additionally, the Peshmerga (Kurd’s elite fighters) are to limit their operational authority in Mosul as well. After the meeting, only a few more incidences occurred with the Kurds, which allowed the newly formed Iraqi police do their jobs without interference and the people were no longer muddled. During this time, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) announced they were going to take over General Petraeus’s payments to the government