osage_18
New Member
There's been a lot of press about this guy lately; He's an advisor on COIN in Iraq to CG, MNFI. If there is any Aussies on here, do you know him personally or what his Reputation is per the Australia Army? Local perspective would be good.
RECENT NEWS:
(Wiki)David Kilcullen, Ph.D. (born 1967) is a leading contemporary practitioner and theorist of counterinsurgency and "counterterrorism". A former Australian Army officer, he left that army as a lieutenant colonel in 2005 and now works for the United States State Department. He is currently serving as the special adviser for counterinsurgency to the United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. During 2007 he served in Iraq as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser, Multi-National Force - Iraq, a civilian position on the personal staff of US army General David Howell Petraeus, responsible for planning and executing the 2007-8 Joint Campaign Plan, which drove the Iraq War troop surge of 2007.
RECENT NEWS:
Spencer Ackerman, in yesterday’s Washington Independent, claims I told him the Iraq war was “f*cking stupid”. He did not seek to clear that quote with me, and I would not have approved it if he had. If he HAD sought a formal comment, I would have told him what I have said publicly before: in my view, the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 was an extremely serious strategic error. But the task of the moment is not to cry over spilt milk, rather to help clean it up: a task in which the surge, the comprehensive counterinsurgency approach, and our troops on the ground are admirably succeeding. Anyone who knows me has been well aware of my position on Iraq for years. When I went to Iraq in 2007 (and on both previous occasions) it was to end the war, by suppressing the violence and defeating the insurgency. (Note: I said END the war, not abandon it half-way through, leaving the Iraqis to be slaughtered. When we invaded Iraq, we took on a moral and legal responsibility for its people’s wellbeing. Regardless of anyone’s position on the decision to invade, those obligations still stand and cannot be wished away merely because they have proven inconvenient)...The question of whether we were right to invade Iraq is a fascinating debate for historians and politicians, and a valid issue for the American people to consider in an election year. As it happens, I think it was a mistake. But that is not my key concern. The issue for practitioners in the field is not to second-guess a decision from six years ago, but to get on with the job at hand which, I believe, is what both Americans and Iraqis expect of us. In that respect, the new strategy and tactics implemented in 2007, and which relied for their effectiveness on the extra troop numbers of the Surge, ARE succeeding and need to be supported.