WASHINGTON (May 24, 2010) -- President Barack Obama has nominated Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the present commander of U.S. Forces Iraq, to head U.S. Joint Forces Command, Pentagon officials announced today.
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates announced that Obama has nominated Odierno for reappointment to the rank of four-star general and assignment as commander of Jfcom, based at Norfolk, Va.
Before assuming command of U.S. Forces Iraq in September 2008, Odierno was commanding general of U.S. Army III Corps, at which time he served a 15-month deployment as commanding general of Multinational Corps Iraq. At that time Odierno was the operational architect of the U.S. troop surge in Iraq that led to a dramatic decrease in violence there.
Odierno, a 1976 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., is known as one of the few Army generals ever to command a division, corps and an entire theater-of-operations in the same conflict.
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