Thursday, 15 November 2012
Tuesday, 13 November 2012
A Who's Who of the US military sex scandal Gen. John Allenand Jill Kelley affair
WASHINGTON — The sex scandal that downed CIA chief David Petraeus has ensnared another top US general and is becoming ever more complex as it reverberates around the corridors of power in Washington.
Here is a look at the main characters and the tangled web of intrigue that links them:
GENERAL DAVID PETRAEUS
The reason this scandal is so explosive is that the man at the center of the storm is David Petraeus, the most celebrated US general of his generation.
Credited with turning around the war in Iraq in 2007, he became the commander of US forces in Afghanistan in 2010 and there was even talk of a tilt for the presidency before he became CIA chief in September 2011.
His stellar military and intelligence career came crashing to a halt on Friday when President Barack Obama accepted his resignation because of an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
The 60-year-old married father of two grown children issued an apologetic message to CIA staff:
"After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair," he said. "Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours."
PAULA BROADWELL
The femme fatale of the drama is Paula Broadwell, a glamorous major in the Army reserve. The 40-year-old counter-terrorism expert lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her radiologist husband and their two young sons.
Petraeus first met Broadwell when he spoke at Harvard University in 2006, handing her his card and offering his help when she told him about her research interests.
Two years later, Broadwell, who had made her dissertation topic a case study on Petraeus' leadership, was invited to join the general for a run along the Potomac River in Washington.
The keen triathlon runner later said this is when she "sealed the deal" with the general, sprinting past the renowned fitness freak to the finish.
In 2010 and 2011, Broadwell made multiple trips to Afghanistan, gaining unprecedented access to Petraeus and his command for her glowing biography: "All In: The Education of General David Petraeus."
Petraeus told friends their affair began in November 2011, two months after he became CIA chief. He says he ended it about four months ago.
JILL KELLEY
The affair may never have come to light if it wasn't for Jill Kelley and Broadwell's apparent fit of jealousy.
Kelley, who is married to an oncologist in Tampa, Florida volunteered as a "social liaison" organizing events at nearby MacDill Air Force Base, home to US Central Command (CENTCOM).
She and husband Scott and their three young children live in a mansion near the base that became a party hotspot for generals and politicians.
From October 2008 until the summer of 2010, Petraeus was head of CENTCOM and the Petraeus and the Kelley families became friends.
In May this year, Jill Kelley told a local FBI agent in Tampa, who was also a friend of hers, that she had received threatening emails from an anonymous sender warning her to keep her hands off Petraeus.
Friends of both Petraeus and Kelley have denied any sexual relationship.
THE ROLE OF 'AGENT SHIRTLESS'
The unidentified FBI agent who Kelley initially went to played a key part in how events unfolded and his actions may even have forced Petraeus' resignation.
He was sidelined as the FBI cybercrime division identified Broadwell as the sender of the threatening emails. Kelley reportedly told investigators she didn't know Broadwell.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the agent was removed from the case because his supervisors were concerned he was becoming "obsessed with the matter, and prohibited him from any role in the investigation."
The agent apparently grew concerned that the FBI was sweeping the matter under the carpet and expressed those concerns at the end of October to a Washington state congressman, Republican David Reichert.
Reichert relayed the information to Republican House majority leader, Eric Cantor, who contacted FBI chief
Robert Mueller on October 31.
The Washington Post has reported that Petraeus initially intended to ride out the storm.
The timeline suggests Petraeus may have changed his mind when he became aware that others in Congress knew, including Cantor, a bitter Obama opponent.
Eight days after the conversation between Cantor's office and Mueller's, and after the presidential election had wrapped up, Petraeus tendered his resignation to Obama.
The FBI operative has been dubbed "Agent Shirtless" after it emerged that he had sent shirtless photos of himself to Kelley, long before the email investigation began.
GENERAL JOHN ALLEN
The latest twist to the tale involves General John Allen, who succeeded Petraeus as US commander in Afghanistan and was deputy head of CENTCOM from July 2008 until June 2011.
Allen is being investigated for "inappropriate communication" with Kelley and the FBI is examining 20,000 to 30,000 pages of documents, many of them emails between the two.
Obama has put Allen's imminent nomination as NATO's supreme commander on hold until the matter is settled.
The Washington Post has reported that Allen also received at least one anonymous email traced back to Broadwell.
And in a further twist, the New York Daily Post revealed that Allen and Petraeus both intervened to try to help Kelley's twin sister Natalie win a bitter custody battle.
Despite Jill Kelly affair, Barack Obama expresses confidence over Gen John Allen
Washington: United States (US)
President Barack Obama has complete trust on Gen John Allen,
top
commander in Afghanistan and he will continue to lead the ISAF force in
the war-torn country,
White House spokesman said on Tuesday.
General John Allen is reportedly being
investigated for alleged “inappropriate communications” with Jill
Kelley, woman who is said to have received threatening emails from Paula
Broadwell.
An extramarital affair between
Broadwell, the author of David Petraeus’ biography, “All In”, and the
CIA chief led to his resignation on Friday.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, the
spokesman Jay Carney rejected the view that President Obama was aware of
the scandal before the presidential elections and said that the
president came to know about the scandals of top US generals after
presidential race.
“President was surprised to know about
the scandals of the top military leaders,” Carney said adding that the
information regarding the scandals would soon be brought before the
nation.
Monday, 12 November 2012
Panetta on staying as Pentagon chief: ‘Who the hell knows?’
Washington: Pentagon chief Leon
Panetta, a longtime veteran of Washington politics, sidestepped
questions Monday about whether he would quit his post as expected and
retire.
“Who the hell knows?” Panetta joked when
asked if he would stay on for another four years through President
Barack Obama’s second term.
He acknowledged he was anxious after a decades-long career in Washington to retire to his native California.
But he suggested he would remain on the
job at least in the short-term with major budget issues and strategic
decisions on the war in Afghanistan pending.
“It’s no secret that at some point I’d
like to get back to California to my home and the institute,” he said,
referring to the think-tank he founded and currently led by his wife.
“But there are a lot of challenges right
now with regards to defense issues in Washington,” said Panetta, citing
planning for a troop drawdown in Afghanistan and a looming deadline on
the country’s budget and debt.
Panetta, 74, served as CIA director for
two years before moving over to the Pentagon in 2011. He was an
influential Democrat in Congress for years and then served as budget
czar and chief-of-staff under former president Bill Clinton
Friday, 9 November 2012
CIA chief allegedly had an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell, Obama prevented FBI from revealing affair
Washington: Resignation of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Director David Petreaus has become the talk of the town in
United States as new revelations have shocked people in the
country.
According to US media reports, Director of the Central Intelligence had an affair with one of his biographers, author Paula Broadwell. Ms. Broadwell co-authored a glowing portrait of Mr. Petraeus titled, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.
According to the biography of Ms. Broadwell on the website of her book, she is a “a research associate at Harvard University’s Center for Public Leadership and a PhD candidate in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London” who spent most of a year in Afghanistan with Mr. Petraeus working on the book.
Her site described the book as having built on her two-year doctoral dissertation, which was “a study in transformational leadership and organizational innovation influenced by U.S. Army General David Petraeus.”
Ms. Broadwell’s book site also identifies her as being married to Scott Broadwell, an interventional radiologist with whom she has two children.
“They love to run, ski, and surf together,” the site says of the couple.
Broadwell is also under investigation by the FBI for trying to access Petraeus’ email and possibly gaining access to classified information.
It was also revealed by US media that Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was informed regarding the extramarital affair of CIA chief and it conveyed the information to US President Barack Obama.
The president prevented FBI from revealing the information and asked them to hold it until the US presidential election passes away.
Although, there were no reports that resignation of CIA chief was due to difference with President Obama over pulling-out of forces from Afghanistan in 2014 but certain elements were linking the resignation with the differences.
It is to be mentioned here that CIA director David Petraeus resigned from the spy agency, citing an extramarital affai
David Petraeus Resigns As CIA Director, Citing Extramarital Affair
Gen. David Petraeus has resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency, MSNBC reports.
MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell broke the news Friday afternoon, reading Petraeus' resignation letter on air.
Petraeus wrote in the letter to the CIA staff on Friday that he had gone to the White House on Thursday and asked the president "for personal reasons" to resign.
"After being married for more than 37 years I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair," Petraeus wrote in his letter. "Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as a leader of an organization such as ours."
Petraeus' wife is Holly Petraeus, whom he met when he was a cadet at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the AP reports. Click here for more on Holly Petraeus.
The retired four-star general led the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Barack Obama appointed him to direct the CIA in September 2011.
Petraeus said that the president accepted his resignation on Thursday.
The full text of Petraeus' resignation letter is below, courtesy of CNN.
According to the New York Times,some senior members of Congress were told about Petraeus' resignation six hours before it was announced. White House officials said they knew he was considering resignation as early as Wednesday night.
The president also released a statement on Petraeus' resignation Friday. "David Petraeus has provided extraordinary service to the United States for decades. By any measure, he was one of the outstanding general officers of his generation, helping our military adapt to new challenges, and leading our men and women in uniform through a remarkable period of service in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he helped our nation put those wars on a path to a responsible end. As Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, he has continued to serve with characteristic intellectual rigor, dedication, and patriotism. By any measure, through his lifetime of service David Petraeus has made our country safer and stronger."
As for who will replace Petraeus in the longterm, a former senior intelligence official told AOL Defense that Mike Vickers is a leading candidate.
"The prevailing wisdom is that Mike Vickers wants this with all his heart and soul," the official told AOL Defense. Vickers, now the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, is the legendary former CIA operative who led the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan chronicled in the book, Charlie Wilson's War. Another candidate is Stephanie O'Sullivan, the principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence.
Petraeus's resignation came at a time when his office was under extraordinary pressure over its role in the attack in Benghazi, Libya, when four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were killed.
For many weeks the White House had come under intense pressure for the attack, before it finally emerged that the CIA had actually played a central role in the episode. Two of the Americans killed were identified as undercover agents for the CIA, and the vast majority of Americans on the ground that night turned out to be with the agency.
In a Wall Street Journal article a week before the election, several administration officials pointed to Petraeus specifically and accused him of mishandling the controversy, by appearing to be aloof and delivering misinformation to the White House in the early days after that attacks.
Congress intends to continue to investigate the incident, and Petraeus was expected to testify during a closed-door hearing next week before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee,released a statement responding to Petraeus' resignation. "I wish President Obama had not accepted this resignation," Feinstein said, "but I understand and respect the decision."
Speaking on CNN, former CIA operative Bob Baer noted that while resignations from extramarital affairs are not unheard of at the agency, they are almost never the announced reason for giving up the post.
Extramarital affair forces CIA Director David Petraeus to resign
Washington: United States (US) Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) director David Petraeus
has resigned from the spy agency, citing an
extramarital affair, US media reported on Friday.
“Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the president to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position as D/CIA,” Petraeus said in a message to CIA staff.
“After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours. This afternoon, the president graciously accepted my resignation.”
Petraeus took over the helm of the Central Intelligence agency just over a year ago in September 2011 after heading US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. He said President Barack Obama had accepted his resignation.
“Dave’s decision to step down represents the loss of one of our nation’s most respected public servants,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in a statement.
“Whether he was in uniform leading our nation’s troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or at CIA headquarters leading the effort to generate intelligence used to keep our nation safe, Dave inspired people who had the privilege of working with him.”
CIA Deputy Director Michael. J. Morell has been appointed as the acting director of CIA.
It is to be mentioned here that resignations of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CIA Director David Patraeus were talk of the town in United States after the re-election of President Barack Obama.
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