McCain said he wants to see McChrystal use the same aggressive approach employed during the troop surge in Iraq.
The troop surge, and new tactics of holding areas after insurgents were expelled, brought a measure of calm to parts of Baghdad and other areas of Iraq.
General Odierno says the troop surge and the new approach to fighting the Iraqi insurgency are making progress, with increases in the number of coalition operations that find weapons caches, bomb factories and insurgent cells.
Since they left, a US troop surge and heightened counterinsurgency efforts have led to a substantial drop in violence – and a drop in front-page news stories covering the side-effects of the Iraq war.
