Global Policy Forum

General Ray Odierno, a US military commander known for his aggressive tactics, has taken command of US-led forces in Iraq, replacing General David Petraeus. Petraeus handed over to Odierno, who had been his deputy, at a ceremony presided over by Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, in Baghdad on Tuesday. Gates said the two generals had formed an "incredible team" during the deployment of 30,000 extra US troops to Iraq last year. Towering and shaven-headed, Odierno served as the number two US commander in Iraq for 15 months until February.

He will now oversee the US war in Iraq at a time when American troop levels are being reduced. "He [Odierno] knows that we are at a pivotal moment, where progress remains fragile and caution should be the order of the day," Gates said at the ceremony, held in the halls - now a military base - of one of the palaces of Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi president ousted in the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Iron-fisted approach

Odierno said that despite the fall in violence in Iraq, which Washington attributes to its so-called "surge" strategy, any gains could be reversed. "Iraq is now a different country from the one I had seen first. However, we must realise that these gains are fragile and reversible," Odierno said. But Odierno has been criticised for running roughshod over civilians during his first tour to Iraq in 2003-2004. Some say Odierno's unit, the 4th Infantry division, which is in fact an artillery unit, used a heavy-handed strategy that has been accused of devastating large parts of the Iraqi population.

It was Odierno's soldiers who captured Saddam in December 2003. But later he appeared to have adopted Petraeus's approach. From December 2006 to March 2008, Odierno implemented the US "surge" strategy, which Gates said made him the right person to replace Petraeus. When he ended his second tour in March, Odierno said: "Just as important as the surge was the change in our tactics, techniques and procedures that got us back out in the neighbourhoods."

Petraeus role

He has argued consistently against sharp cutbacks in troop levels in Iraq, which is negotiating a controversial security pact with Washington to determine troop levels that will remain in Iraq after a UN mandate expires at the end of the year. Iraq currently handles security in 11 of its 18 provinces with plans to take over a couple more by the end of the year. Petraeus will become the new chief of US central command with responsibility for US troops from the Horn of Africa to Central Asia, including overall charge of the conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Iraq was spiralling into all-out civil war when Petraeus took over as commander in February 2007, almost four years after Saddam was toppled from power. David Mack, the former US assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, told Al Jazeera: "This is going to be basic continuity with the counter insurgency strategy that was developed intellectually by General Petraeus. "Ray Odierno is really a convert to this strategy ... which is basically comprehensive; it doesn't only include the surge in numbers of US forces but is based on an entirely different concept ... to protect and defend local communities, and to nurture not only central government forces but to nurture local community forces - militias if you will - in the Sunni Arab community. Violence in Iraq lessened last year and has now fallen to a four year low, something many analysts have attributed to the counter-insurgency strategies of Petraeus.