WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus will leave his command in Iraq for a week to help pick new brigadier generals to lead the Army for the next decade or longer.
"It's unprecedented for the commander of an active theater to be brought back to head something like a brigadier generals board," retired Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, former head of the Army War College, told The Washington Post in a story published Saturday.
Petraeus will guide a board of 15 Army generals in selecting about 40 brigadier generals from a pool of more than 1,000 colonels, the newspaper said.
The decision to have Petraeus oversee the process represents a vote of confidence in his conduct of the war and the Army counterinsurgency doctrine he helped rewrite, the Post reported.
Defense officials say Petraeus' involvement is a sign of the Army's commitment to reward innovation, rather than conventional military thinking. Petraeus is expected to return to Baghdad by early next week.
