CIA Director Petraeus quits: extramarital affair

This Feb. 2, 2012, photo shows CIA Direc­tor David Petraeus tes­ti­fy­ing on Capi­tol Hill in Wash­ing­ton. Petraeus has resigned because of an extra­mar­i­tal affair. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

CONNIE CASS, KIMBERLY DOZIER

Asso­ci­ated Press

WASHINGTON — David Petraeus, the retired four-star gen­eral renowned for tak­ing charge of the mil­i­tary cam­paigns in Iraq and then Afghanistan, abruptly resigned Fri­day as direc­tor of the CIA, admit­ting to an extra­mar­i­tal affair.

The affair was dis­cov­ered dur­ing an FBI inves­ti­ga­tion, accord­ing to offi­cials briefed on the devel­op­ments. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymity because they were not autho­rized to pub­licly dis­cuss the mat­ter. It was unclear what the FBI was inves­ti­gat­ing or when it became aware of the affair.

Petraeus’ res­ig­na­tion shocked Washington’s intel­li­gence and polit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ties. It was a sud­den end to the pub­lic career of the best-known gen­eral of the post 9/11 wars, a man some­times men­tioned as a poten­tial Repub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. His ser­vice was effu­sively praised Fri­day in state­ments from law­mak­ers of both parties.

Petraeus, who turned 60 on Wednes­day, told CIA employ­ees in a state­ment that he had met with Pres­i­dent Barack Obama at the White House on Thurs­day and asked to be allowed to resign. On Fri­day, the pres­i­dent accepted.

Petraeus told his staffers he was guilty of “extremely poor judg­ment” in the affair. “Such behav­ior is unac­cept­able, both as a hus­band and as the leader of an orga­ni­za­tion such as ours.”

He has been mar­ried for 38 years to Holly Petraeus, whom he met when he was a cadet at the U.S. Mil­i­tary Acad­emy at West Point, N.Y. She was the daugh­ter of the acad­emy super­in­ten­dent. They have two chil­dren, and their son led an infantry pla­toon in Afghanistan.

Obama said in a state­ment that the retired gen­eral had pro­vided “extra­or­di­nary ser­vice to the United States for decades” and had given a life­time of ser­vice that “made our coun­try safer and stronger.” Obama called him “one of the out­stand­ing gen­eral offi­cers of his generation.”

The pres­i­dent said that CIA Deputy Direc­tor Michael Morell would serve as act­ing direc­tor. Morell was the key CIA aide in the White House to Pres­i­dent George W. Bush dur­ing the Sept. 11, 2001, ter­ror attacks.

“I am com­pletely con­fi­dent that the CIA will con­tinue to thrive and carry out its essen­tial mis­sion,” Obama said.

The Sen­ate and House intel­li­gence com­mit­tees were briefed on Petraeus’ res­ig­na­tion only after the news was reported in the media, said a con­gres­sional staffer, speak­ing anony­mously because the staffer was not autho­rized to pub­licly dis­cuss the sen­si­tive briefings.

The res­ig­na­tion comes at a sen­si­tive time. The admin­is­tra­tion and the CIA have strug­gled to defend secu­rity and intel­li­gence lapses before the attack that killed the U.S. ambas­sador to Libya and three oth­ers. It was an issue dur­ing the pres­i­den­tial cam­paign that ended with Obama’s re-election Tuesday.

The CIA has come under intense scrutiny for pro­vid­ing the White House and other admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials with talk­ing points that led them to say the Beng­hazi attack was a result of a film protest, not a mil­i­tant ter­ror attack. It has become clear that the CIA was aware the attack was dis­tinct from the film protests roil­ing across other parts of the Mus­lim world.

Morell rather than Petraeus now is expected to tes­tify at closed con­gres­sional brief­ings next week on the Sept. 11 attacks on the con­sulate in Benghazi.

For the direc­tor of the CIA, being engaged in an extra­mar­i­tal affair is con­sid­ered a seri­ous breach of secu­rity and a coun­ter­in­tel­li­gence threat. If a for­eign gov­ern­ment had learned of the affair, the rea­son­ing goes, Petraeus or the per­son with whom he was involved could have been black­mailed or oth­er­wise com­pro­mised. Mil­i­tary jus­tice con­sid­ers con­duct such as an extra­mar­i­tal affair to be pos­si­ble grounds for court-martial.

Fail­ure to resign also could cre­ate the per­cep­tion for the rank and file that such behav­ior is acceptable.

At FBI head­quar­ters, spokesman Paul Bres­son declined to com­ment on the infor­ma­tion that the affair had been dis­cov­ered in the course of an inves­ti­ga­tion by the bureau.

Holly Petraeus is known for her work help­ing mil­i­tary fam­i­lies. She joined the new Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau to set up an office ded­i­cated to help­ing ser­vice mem­bers with finan­cial issues.

Though Obama made no direct men­tion of Petraeus’ rea­son for resign­ing, he offered his thoughts and prayers to the gen­eral and his wife, say­ing that Holly Petraeus had “done so much to help mil­i­tary fam­i­lies through her own work. I wish them the very best at this dif­fi­cult time.”

Petraeus, who became CIA direc­tor in Sep­tem­ber 2011, was known as a shrewd thinker and hard-charging com­peti­tor. His man­age­ment style was recently lauded in a Newsweek arti­cle by Paula Broad­well, co-author of the biog­ra­phy, “All In: The Edu­ca­tion of Gen­eral David Petraeus.”

The arti­cle listed Petraeus’ “rules for liv­ing.” No. 5 was: “We all make mis­takes. The key is to rec­og­nize them, to learn from them, and to take off the rear view mir­rors — drive on and avoid mak­ing them again.”

Petraeus told his CIA employ­ees that he trea­sured his work with them “and I will always regret the cir­cum­stances that brought that work with you to an end.”

The direc­tor of national intel­li­gence, James Clap­per, said Petraeus’ depar­ture rep­re­sented “the loss of one of our nation’s most respected pub­lic ser­vants. From his long, illus­tri­ous Army career to his lead­er­ship at the helm of CIA, Dave has rede­fined what it means to serve and sac­ri­fice for one’s country.”

Other CIA direc­tors have resigned under unflat­ter­ing circumstances.

CIA Direc­tor Jim Woolsey left over the dis­cov­ery of a KGB mole and direc­tor John Deutch left after the rev­e­la­tion that he had kept clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion on his home computer.

Before Obama brought Petraeus to the CIA, the gen­eral was cred­ited with sal­vaging the U.S. war in Iraq.

“His inspi­ra­tional lead­er­ship and his genius were directly respon­si­ble — after years of fail­ure — for the suc­cess of the surge in Iraq,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Friday.

Pres­i­dent George W. Bush sent Petraeus to Iraq in Feb­ru­ary 2007, at the peak of sec­tar­ian vio­lence, to turn things around as head of U.S. forces. He over­saw an influx of 30,000 U.S. troops and moved troops out of big bases so they could work more closely with Iraqi forces scat­tered through­out Baghdad.

Petraeus’ suc­cess was cred­ited with paving the way for the even­tual U.S. withdrawal.

After Iraq, Bush made Petraeus com­man­der of U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand, over­see­ing all U.S. mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in the greater Mid­dle East, includ­ing Afghanistan and Pakistan.

When the top U.S. com­man­der in Afghanistan, Gen. Stan­ley McChrys­tal, was relieved of duty in June 2010 for com­ments in a mag­a­zine story, Obama asked Petraeus to take over in Kabul and the gen­eral quickly agreed.

In the months that fol­lowed, Petraeus helped lead the push to add more U.S. troops to that war and dra­mat­i­cally boost the effort to train Afghan sol­diers and police.

House Home­land Secu­rity Chair­man Peter King, R-N.Y., said he regret­ted Petraeus’ res­ig­na­tion, call­ing him “one of America’s most out­stand­ing and dis­tin­guished mil­i­tary lead­ers and a true Amer­i­can patriot.”

Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair­man Dianne Fein­stein also regret­ted the res­ig­na­tion but gave Morell high marks, too.

Morell had served as deputy direc­tor since May 2010, after hold­ing a num­ber of top roles, includ­ing direc­tor for the agency’s ana­lyt­i­cal arm, which helps feed intel­li­gence into the president’s daily brief. He also worked as an aide to for­mer CIA direc­tor George Tenet.

“I wish Pres­i­dent Obama had not accepted this res­ig­na­tion,” Fein­stein said of Petraeus, “but I under­stand and respect the decision.”

Posted by AP News on Nov 9 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.