El Paso native Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard tapped to lead U.S. forces in Iraq

Army Maj. Gen. Dana Pittard is the new commander of the U.S. forces in Iraq.

The announcement was included in a Department of Defense news release Thursday about U.S. forces being sent to Iraq to deal with the growing crisis in that country.

Pittard, a native of El Paso and graduate of Eastwood High School, was commanding general of Fort Bliss starting in 2010 and 1 st Armored Division in May starting in 2011. He relinquished both positions in May 2013.

He then became the deputy commander for the Third U.S. Army in Kuwait, where his duties included overseeing the American military operation in Jordan.

Pittard and President Barack Obama have met on at least a couple of occasions when the president visited Fort Bliss in 2010 and 2012. Obama visited the post in Aug. 2010, the same day he announced the end of major combat operations in Iraq.

According to an Armed Forces Press Service release, U.S. forces in Baghdad have opened a joint operations center in the city to assess the security situation in the wake of the rapid territorial gains made by Sunni militants, bringing the number of American service members there to about 500, Defense Department officials said today.

“An additional four teams of U.S. advisors arrived in the Iraqi capital last night,” Pentagon spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren said, bringing the number of teams to six.

Warren described the deployments as enhanced teams commanded by lieutenant colonels that are fanning out across Baghdad and assessing the Iraqi military.

President Barack Obama ordered the teams to Iraq following gains made by Syrian-based Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant who have overrun towns and cities across Iraq’s northern and western provinces as they move closer to Baghdad, facing little or no resistance from Iraqi security forces.

The four teams bring 50 people with them, which puts the number of American assessors on the ground to 90. Warren said an additional 90 personnel have set up the joint operations center in Baghdad, meaning 180 of the possible 300 U.S. service members Obama said he is prepared to send to Iraq have arrived,” according to the release.

Overall, there are approximately 500 American military personnel in Iraq. “Some of them are conducting an advise and assist mission, some are manning the joint operations center, some of them are part of the [Office of Security Cooperation] and yet others are Marines that are part of a [fleet anti-terrorism security team] platoon,” Warren said.

The assessment teams are mostly made up of Army Special Forces personnel. They will advise and assist the Iraqi military at various levels of command.

The teams will take two to three weeks to assess the Iraqi military and make their reports, officials said.

Warren would not comment on reports that Iran is operating drones over Iraq and supplying the Baghdad government with arms. He did however, call on all regional countries to “participate constructively in the situation” in Iraq. The United States does not want ethnic or religious tensions increased.

Warren said the United States will establish another joint operations center in northern Iraq in the coming days or weeks.

Pittard On Leadership And Importance Of International Coalitions

Pittard addressed a class of Kuwaiti and international students at the Mubarak Al-Abdullah Joint Command and Staff College in Kuwait on Dec. 9, 2013.

During his speech, he laid out his tenets for successful leadership and the recipe for cohesive coalition partnerships. He began his remarks by discussing his military experience and the conflicts which shaped both himself and his contemporaries.

In the post-Vietnam military, the Cold War paradigm still remained. Training revolved around potential conflict with the Soviet Union. But the threat evolved, and Pittard and other military leaders learned valuable lessons from engagements in Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Desert Storm and eventually in Afghanistan and Iraq. What remains true, he said, is that the world is dangerous and there are those who would do the United States and its allies harm; therefore, there must be strong coalitions going forward.

“We make mistakes, that is a given, but it’s what you do about those mistakes, what you learn from those mistakes,” said Pittard. “Which is the importance of leading an organization that can be introspective, where you have after active reviews – so that you can constantly be learning, considering, ‘how can we do it better?'”

Pittard described six tenets of strong leadership: provide vision, ensure mission focus, discover and utilize the talents of your subordinates, lead adaptable and innovative units, lead by example and don’t be afraid to make tough decisions.

American Forces Press Service and DVIDs contributed to this report.

LEARN MORE ABOUT PITTARD BY CLICKING LINKS BELOW

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