Odierno Ready For New Post-Surge Mission

For the last year and half, General David Petraeus has been the face of the U.S. war effort in Iraq. He led the surge that contributed to bringing the level of violence down in much of the country.

Now, as the challenges change from military, to economic and political, a new man is taking over - he is General Ray Odierno, known as "General O."

This is his third tour of duty in Iraq. In 2003 he led the 4th Infantry Division that captured Saddam Hussein. In 2007, he became Gen. Petraeus' number two. And now, after seven months in the States, he's back and in command.

So on day two as commander, he began a tour to establish his authority and make his first battlefield assessment, flying south to the so-called "Triangle of Death."

"Would you go so far as to say this was one of the absolute worst parts of Iraq in terms of violence?" correspondent Lesley Stahl asked.

"Yeah, it absolutely was one of the very worst parts of Iraq in violence," Odierno replied.

The general surveyed a quiet neighborhood in the Triangle of Death. The area, just south of Baghdad, was tamed with the help of former Sunni insurgents who the Americans paid to change sides and turn their guns against al Qaeda in Iraq.

"This was where al Qaeda staged a lot of its raids and rockets and IEDs. What happened to them? Where have they gone?" Stahl asked.

"Well, I mean, first off, we've eliminated a lot of them," Odierno replied.

"Killed 'em," Stahl remarked.

"Well, we've captured 'em, killed 'em," Odierno said, walking with Stahl. "And really what's happened is their passive support base, that they got from the population, is gone."

Odierno said he hadn't walked down this neighborhood street in a long time.

"I mean, this is amazing," he told Stahl.

He should feel good: he was the one who devised the battle plan for the Triangle of Death. Now there are Iraqi army troops and Sunni civilian patrols everywhere. A year ago, there were about 100 attacks a week there. Now, there are only two.

"You have about 30,000 people now that help with security, where back a year ago you probably had maybe a thousand," Odierno told Stahl.

"So a thousand to 30,000. Well, no wonder it's calmed down," she remarked.

Al Qaeda in Iraq used to extort protection money from the local shop owners. Now that that has stopped, too, the local market is flourishing for the first time in years.

"We now have people starting their own businesses. They're now able to earn a living, an honorable living for their family. They're not afraid to come out. I would say 75 percent of the country, maybe even more, is more like this," Odierno told Stahl.

In Baghdad, for instance, where car bombs and corpses in the streets had become a way of life, you see things the Iraqis thought they'd never see again: laughter in the markets that are crowded and thriving. Nightlife has returned, and people who used to live in fear, take their children to the zoo.

And even the Shia slum of Sadr City seemed calm. Odierno went to see for himself on his third day as commander. Just four months ago, this was a no man's land, with Muqtada al-Sadr's Shiite militia in control. The idea of Americans walking around, even with protection (and the general had plenty of that), was impossible.

"The last time I was here, when I went to visit the police station, we were hit by RPGs and mortars," Odierno told Stahl. "I mean I was inside the police station. Everyone was okay. So to come back now and see the difference. The fact how much now we've brought life back to the city is very significant."

But it's still a war zone: troops patrol, and helicopters hover.

"If I wanted to come to this market myself, as an American, would I feel safe?" Stahl asked. "You got a lot of power. Look, this guy's got a big gun right behind."

"What I would say is the normal Iraqi citizen would feel safe coming here without a problem. The reason I hesitate about saying an American coming here is because there's still some terrorist groups who just target Americans," Odierno said.

Beyond the terrorists, the people we met expressed little gratitude for the Americans, and lots of resentment, like in the Sunni town of Mahmudiyah.

A group of men told Stahl they want the Americans to leave.

When she asked a shopkeeper if he likes the U.S. Army, he told Stahl with the help of a translator, "Yes and no. We like them because they help people. They have put a lot of efforts in here. And the reason why I don't like them because they do raids on houses."

General Odierno interrupted. "But is it much less now than it was before, the number of raids?"

"Yes, indeed. It's very, very less, sir," the shopkeeper said.

"But he doesn't forget," Stahl remarked.

"That's the point. That's the point," Odierno said.

The irony is it was Gen. Odierno himself who may have caused some of the resentment he is now charged with alleviating, when he commanded the 4th Infantry Division whose troops conducted raids into peoples' homes, and held large numbers of detainees, many of them innocent.

"You're targeted as the heavy-handed general. Back then, the charge was that your tactics helped fan the insurgency," Stahl pointed out.

"I think that that depiction is grossly exaggerated. But what I would say is first off, the area I was in was a very complex area. I was in the center of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I was where he was from. But don't get me wrong. We made some mistakes," Odierno replied.

"Those mistakes?" Stahl asked.

"There's a fine line you have to determine when you have to be tough, when you're not. And so I think sometimes we were very accurate in what we did. But were there mistakes made when something weren't--Yes. Was our intelligence maybe not as good as we would've liked it to have been? Yes," he told Stahl.

Asked if these questions bothered him, Odierno told Stahl, "Well, I mean, sure. I mean, you know, nobody likes being criticized. And the thing about it is, I feel that I am somebody who learns very well. I'm about trying to be flexible, adaptable. And so the accusation that I might not be, bothers me."

He went back to the States in 2004 to do a review, and to reflect. If he changed - and there are those who think he did - what happened to his 26-year-old son Tony may have contributed. When he was home, he got a phone call that Tony, then an Army lieutenant in Iraq, had been ambushed and seriously wounded.

"It was a tough time for us," Odierno recalled. "[Of] course you're a parent then, you know? You know, I'm a father. You know, once we heard he was okay, he'd lost his left arm, but he was okay. 'Course the first reaction of any parent was we were glad he was alive."

Odierno says Tony is doing "wonderfully." "He's run two triathlons. He plays golf regularly."

This summer, Tony was an intern with the New York Yankees, his dad's favorite team since growing up in New Jersey. On July 4, Tony threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium.

Now Gen. Odierno says he's better at talking to the families of his wounded soldiers. "Sometimes as a commander, you feel uncomfortable in those situations. And I think I felt a bit more comfortable, because we had been through it a little bit. So we could relate to them as a parent."

As commanding general, he'll need that ability to "relate." An army helicopter had just gone down over Basra. It was the third day of his new job. "They were just coming into country from Kuwait. They were replacing another unit," Odierno explained.

Odierno said there were seven on board, all lost.

The burdens of his command weigh heavy. On top of that, he comes into his new job not knowing who his commander-in-chief is going to be.

Asked if he is a registered Republican or Democrat, Odierno told Stahl, "I will say this. I made a decision when I got promoted to colonel that I would no longer vote in national elections because I feel it's my job to serve the commander-in-chief. So I have not voted. Probably a bad American for not voting, but I made that decision because of the position that I have."

In his new position, he knows he has to quickly assert himself as the "leader." It doesn't hurt that he's real tall, at 6'5". It's said that he can be charismatic, and that his troops love him.

But when Stahl asked about the difficulty of following General Petraeus, the "warrior intellectual," he seemed a little touchy on the subject.

"I don't want to exaggerate, but he became somewhat of a hero. It has to be a little daunting," Stahl said.

"It's not uncomfortable for me to be here and feel that I have to, you know, live up to General Petraeus. I mean, I feel like I was also part of the success and part of the improvement that we made," Odierno replied.

An improvement that he says is "fragile" and so he must convince Iraqi leaders to do a better job of governing. If they don't, he fears a return to violence.

"Let me ask you about now, versus when Saddam Hussein was in power, is it better now?" Stahl asked an Iraqi man.

"Before Saddam time it used to be better," he said, with the help of a translator. "Essential services were much better, like power, electricity, water and something like that."

"So you liked it better before, after all of this?" Stahl asked.

"Of course, freedom is a nice thing, but still, we need some essential services," the Iraqi man replied.

Stahl asked what General Odierno thought of that.

"Well, I think if you don't have electricity, you don't have water, you don't have…it's pretty difficult," he said.

Some Iraqis get only one or two hours a day of electricity. It's not much better for a division commander in the Iraqi army, who also has to deal with power outages. The worst situation may be in Sadr City, where there are lakes of open sewage and piles of garbage.

The U.S. is spending $10 billion a month in Iraq. General Odierno will be leaning on the Iraqi government, with its $80 billion surplus, to clean things up, restore electricity and do something about the unemployment rate of upwards of 50 percent, as he becomes the general in charge of nation building.

"You're almost like a shadow secretary of labor and a minister of public works and talking to them about construction projects and engineering projects and jobs," Stahl commented.

"Yeah. As we make progress, you know, the problems become actually more complex. And so we have to learn to work with many other agencies in order to do the kind of things we're talking about," he replied.

All this requires finesse, because with the sectarian rivalries unresolved, the political process is stalemated over a number of crucial issues like oil revenue sharing. It's part of Odierno's portfolio now to coax and cajole the Iraqis to compromise.

But does this general - with his old reputation of an iron fist - have the delicacy this phase of the war requires?

"Do you think that you're going to be able to put on a velvet glove? I guess what I'm asking you, and it's a tough question, but I'm asking if you think you have the temperament to take this job and, you know, handle the soft side of it?" Stahl asked.

"Sure. Sure, I do," Odierno replied. "I understand the complexities of what we're doing. I understand what it takes in order to be successful. I understand what we need to do. And I'll do whatever I can to make sure we're successful."

Produced by Rich Bonin