I have never been a critic of David Petraeus. I opposed the war in Iraq but I was pleased that we had at least one general who seemed to know what he was doing. About the only thing George W. Bush ever did right was recognize that Petraeus was his best general and to give him more and more responsibility. He didn’t perform any miracles training the Iraqi Army or fixing the mess in Afghanistan, but he distinguished himself as a competent leader who never made things worse.
I thought that Obama made him the Director of Central Intelligence to keep him on the inside rather than on the outside as a potential critic or even presidential opponent. It’s strange that his career ended the second he stopped being useful in that regard. I’m sure the conspiracies will be flowing for a long time. Could Obama really be that ruthless?
According to the New York Times, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper was only informed about Petraeus’s affair at 5pm on election day, and Obama didn’t learn of it until Wednesday evening. The timing is just amazing. I am not sure quite what to think.
The basic story line is pretty mundane. The FBI was notified that Petraeus’s lover was sending harassing emails to some women and began an investigation which revealed the affair. Then they decided to check into whether Petraeus’s email had been compromised and determined that it was not. But things are pretty murky after that. How did this information travel up the chain of command? Who made the decision to confront Petraeus with the information?
I love a good spy story. But I doubt we’ll ever know what really happened.
I’m all for blaming the seductress.
Oh, I bet that is coming. ‘slut’ in 3,2,1….
The Freepers blazed that trail hours ago.
LOL!
Like they say, everything moves faster these days. What cretins.
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But… even if Obama selected Petraeus to head the CIA to keep him on the inside, why not just keep him there? Or at least wait a couple months? Then he could still be “ruthless” but not be so obvious about it. Doesn’t make sense to me.
You can’t have a CIA Director who has compromised secure communications or presented the possibility of blackmail.
Obama could have moved him into a position in government that did not require those clearances, but that would have raised more eyebrows than having him resign for cause did.
Obama did keep his failures under wraps three times–planning the surge, executing the surge, and running the CIA.
And then he conveniently does not have to testify before congress about Libya. Why he is now exempt from that testimony is a mystery to me. Very strange.
I am not suggesting some sort of scandal he did not want to explain, but it seems a convenient way to avoid being questioned by republicans, and maybe having to disagree with them.
I bet in the end a simple explanation is the most likely. A security breach so egregious that he had to go immediately. I don’t think an affair ruins a political career, but telling your mistress secrets? Your dead.
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Is there anything stopping him from still testifying? Isn’t anyone subject to being called before a congressional committee to testify? I don’t know, I’m just asking.
That as a former employee he is constrained by a non-disclosure agreement with the Agency. Also he can plead the Fifth.
Convenient.
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Thanks. Was not aware of that.
Unless Congress immunizes him from legal consequences.
I don’t think anyone except Darrell Issa wants to go through the details about Benghazi. That’s what Obama would like to avoid–not because he’s involved, but just to avoid unnecessary political embarrassment.
Benghazi was a security mistake as well as a tragedy. The GOP is trying to use it. Obama is trying to avoid it. He will, because there’s something there, but nothing that deserves any especial and unnecessary condemnation of anyone.
Like I said elsewhere, Obama is having Petraeus take the fall for Benghazi. Bush would have given him a medal, like he did to Tenet.
In the early 70’s I was formally interviewed by the FBI dealing with a very serious national security breach, and let me tell you, they are thorough. It’s a freak inducing, scary experience. I got one smile from one of them, the other never said a word, and just watched my eyes.
I am willing to bet anything that they interviewed Broadwell, whether they admit it or not. And reading about all this I bet she spilled everything to them, including under the sheets bragging about something.
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Yes — note that they say the email was compromised, but it’s not clear Petraeus was not. He might have revealed info he shouldn’t have.
Even for security clearance interviews. You can try and get a feel for how the interview is going; to try and get a smile, a laugh…SOMETHING! Nope. They usually keep a straight face, and just write stuff down on their notepads.
After it was over? “Hey what you doing this weekend?” as if we’re best pals.
Oh ya, watched my eyes, and wrote in his note book.
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I watched his eyes and they reminded me of some Mafia guys that I met by accident in a restaurant. And the father of one of my classmates who was reputed to be a button man. There is a thin line between lawmen and outlaws.
The thing that gives shivers up your spine is the realization that a pheasant looking at a hunter pointing a shotgun would see the same eyes. The realization that you are meat to be harvested. Cold. Impersonal. Ruthless. The special horror of cold blooded murder as opposed to a killing in anger which is a human emotion. The total lack of emotion.
I went thru the same thing for 3 some time ago. 4 hour “interviews” with the FBI, SecretService, NCIS (yes, Virginia there really IS an NCIS), and so other alphabet soup, gun carrying types.
Cold eyed is the best you can say for them. Its why I so despise the “obstruction of Justice” felony. There is no way you can go thru a 2+ hour interrogation with these guys and NOT commit obstruction of justice.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
The latest NYTimes storyline works. Explains why the FBI was involved and why Petraeus would throw Broadwell under the bus in his resignation letter instead of the using the mundane “more time with family” to protect her and his family. But the “time with family” excuse implies being fired for job related cause; better to be seen as an adulterer than an incompetent.
And as the folks over at Mondoweiss point out, this isn’t the first “Oh, crap!!!” incident with Petraeus and email.
And yet, I’m not satisfied with the current story. It’s just a little to pat.
Bull. Shit. The FBI director, the Attorney General, they knew for month(s) before the election and they kept it a secret from anyone else in the intelligence community or the White House? At a time when CIA employees were blown up dead in Libya, and everybody was covering their asses left and right?
Heck no. But you know what? I don’t care. We won Florida and Virginia and Ohio. Salud. Fuck Mitt Romney and a big lol to him for not being able to use the info in any of his failed debate attacks or anywhere else.
Seems curious; it has all the hallmarks of a covert operation which went ‘tits up’ unexpectedly. If we learned one thing from the Bay of Pigs aftermath it is that the compartments within the CIA operate with jealous, and sometimes zealous, concealment from other departments and agencies.
Whenever there are mixed messages from the executive branch in such a crisis it is a pretty telling sign that they are getting conflicting stories from below. I wouldn’t be surprised if State, the FBI and others weren’t institutionally frustrated by the opacity of a botched CIA operation to traffic arms collected in Libya to the Syrian rebels or some such controversial activity.
As for Petraeus it would seem he fell for a honey trap of one kind or another; this Paula seems a player herself. The investigation of Petraeus by the FBI rather than the CIA’s own counter-intelligence branch tells us something. How far the intrigue extends into the executive branch is questionable but there have been more than one president left on the horns of a dilemma by the covert activities of a CIA which could neither be adequately controlled nor prudently exposed.
Richard Engel on Rachel Maddow said he believes that someone in the CIA ratted Patreus out to the FBI.
That was my first thought when I heard the news.
This would have been really awkward if Romney had won. Maybe they told the administration at 5pm as a hedge.
Do you remember the old Massa allegations that everyone dismissed because Massa was coming unraveled at the time? Makes me want to go back and read what he was saying then.
And good luck with it. I’m just re-reading it now myself.
Despite the TradMed giving Petraeus constant BJ’s, he had a lot of enemies in the military and elsewhere in the MIC.
CIA vs FBI
The real Cold War
I think the timing is just Patreus’ and others’ ability to professionally keep it quiet until Obama’s election was over to avoid messing things up for the president with a distraction like that. Job well done.
However, I think Obama’s eventual acceptance of the resignation, and Patreus’ purported insistence on resigning, may have more to do with the Benghazi attacks. After all, it appears that a CIA base was successfully, and embarrassingly, taken out by Al Qaeda on 9/11 also resulting in the death of two US diplomats who happened to show up there. And President Obama ended up with egg on his face for trying to cover for it, probably as asked to do by the CIA to protect the secrecy of having set up a CIA base(!) in a newly friendly country, probably without permission of the Libyan government. The failings here, if there are any, point to Patreus.
That is a plausible story. Something to understand about Petraeus … he is an extremely professional military man, with all the good and that bad that comes with that. He follows orders from superiors because he must but he also can distinguish a good leader from a bad leader. And while, in interviews, he has been extremely guarded about assessing either GWB or Obama he nevertheless has indicated that GWB (and his henchmen Dumbsfeld, Cheney, and Rove) were idiots and Obama, while he paid close attention and asked lots of probing questions, basically supported what the brass recommended given the general policy guidelines.
In other words, Petraeus is the type of soldier who would take actions to support a competent leader who helped the military, regardless of party or race. And given that Obama’s opponent, Romney, showed all the signs of being another overprivileged Dumsfeld I wouldn’t be surprised if Petraeus helped Obama out in this case.
It’s funning that General BlackHead — I mean Schwartzkopf (translates to blackhead in German) was ultra pro-reich for GWB in 2000 but wouldn’t come close to an endorsement in 2004. In his own memoir he blasted an unnamed superior for making the 1991 operation much harder with really stupid suggestions – and later that was revealed to be Sec of Defense Cheney.
Could it be that the folks trying to gin up indignation over Benghazi were pressuring Petraeus to contribute? That they kept up pressure to the 11th hour, but he refused to play ball?
I couldn’t agree more. And to express this opinion is hard for lefties, Dems or progressives, to say that Benghazi was a security fuckup, because we start sounding like fucking Glenn Beck, et al.
It was, of course, not an impeachable crime, as Beck would naturally insist. And the blame, as I see it, has fallen where it should have. Little to no security on the anniversary of 9-11? Is it Obama’s job to PERSONALLY make sure every embassy is safe? Of course not…
“I was pleased that we had at least one general who seemed to know what he was doing…he distinguished himself as a competent leader who never made things worse.“
David Petraeus was good at self-promotion and having his mistakes slide off his hide as if it were made of teflon. And apparently he has quite a bit of charm.
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Petraeus made many enemies, possibly as military ambassador got involved in intenational intrigues. Did the general pulled a MacArthur in White House foreign policy involving Libya, Syria or Iran. Someone needed to get rid of David Petraeus?
I wouldn’t weep too much for Petraeus. The military bloggers I follow do not have a very high opinion of him. He has a terrible reputation for egomania and self promotion. A pure career climber who has – yes – climbed over quite a few people.
Naturally this makes guessing who dimed him out rather interesting. It could be the husband of his lover, a fellow soldier (Petraeus is still subject to the USMJ), or the FBI. I would say the FBI is the most likely bet. They have the authority to investigate anyone in government and delight in doing so, a habit that goes back to the Hoover days.
I’d love to share more of what I’ve heard/read about Petraeus but I’m afraid I’d just come across as vindictive. Besides its getting late and I’m fuzzy headed. I’ll just leave a few assertions and observations for now:
Putting two and two together and then applying Occam’s Razor… yeah, I’d say Obama is exactly ruthless enough to kick Petraeus to the curb once he’s no longer a threat. But justifiably so in this case. You have to understand that Petraeus engaging in a little adultery isn’t a scandal or an averted “October Surprise”, it is in fact a security fault. Neither the military or the CIA allows someone with security clearance to cheat on a spouse and keep their job. Leverage like that is exactly how people can get compromised, either by design or accident. Petraeus was foolish to behave like this.
Oh… yeah… and the woman he was having an affair with was also a reservist, a Major I believe. So technically his subordinate as well.
Just so ethically dodgy on multiple levels. What a mess.
I think she has a lot of military experience and maybe even a West Point grad. Wonder if this is going to affect her career as well.
The woman always gets hurt worse.
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Most strange opinion by the BooMan. Waiting for David’s new biography written by Holly.
William Fallon once called Petraeus “an ass-kissing little chickenshit”
You beat me to it, Oui. How Booman could miss this obvious political hustler in the uniform of a military man is beyond me. A couple of days before this latest hottest-thing-ever story broke I was watching a film from about 2000 called “Men of Honor.” It’s not a great film by any means, but it allows Robert DeNiro to do a scenery chewing turn as a tough old Navy diver from the south who has to deal with a serious, driven young black candidate in diver’s school at the beginning of the Civil Rights era. The film is totally predictable Hollywood trash but any time DeNiro gets a chance to strut his stuff it’s entertaining at the very least.
Anyway…a main character in the film is a youngish, up-and-coming Navy flag officer who’s basically a political hack who is successfully on the make. My first thought? “Oh look!!! It’s Petraeus in Navy drag.”
Like dat.
It’s been obvious where Petraeus is coming from since he first appeared on the scene.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
I don’t see where Obama having a history of bringing people into his Administration so as to neutralize necessarily implies that he is “ruthless” enough to now get rid of Petraeus. That may be what happened, but I’m not seeing the “necessarily follows” connection. Could you share more of your thinking on this?
A fair question–I suppose I should be more precise.
I don’t think that Obama’s decision is necessarily ruthless. Petraeus has failed at his appointed position by an established metric. Sacking him is really the only thing to do at this point.
All of my blathering about Occam’s Razor is just my way of pointing out how there is very little mystery behind the timing and nature of Petraeus’ dismissal. The behavior of the White House is pretty easily read in this case.
Right on. As I have said, Petraeus is a weasel whose only real skill is self promotion. His actual record belies his much-vaunted competence.
That’s debatable. “Left the scene before things blew up” is closer to the situation.
Petraeus was the most PR-savvy general since William Westmoreland. Had Obama not been President, he likely would already be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Petraeus was wired into Congress and encouraged rumors of a Presidential run.
His record runs like that of Douglas MacArthur, William Westmoreland, and other politically wired generals. A series of fuck-ups.
His great surge in Afghanistan depended on ethnic cleansing of Sunni areas by the Maliki government; the consequences of that are still unfolding and revenge killings are a major political problem for the Iraq government.
As head of CENTCOM, he was asked to provide three plans for Afghanistan. He submitted only one – surge – and was not sufficiently detailed of practical for the President to approve. The President’s national security staff did its best to put practical objectives around it and asked Petraeus what resources he needed to accomplish it. He got the resources and was asked to have his commander in the field McChrystal get the results. Instead, McChrystal goes to the press begging for more resources and implying that the President was not supporting the effort. McChrystal got quietly cashiered (retired to be with his family); Petraeus got demoted to McChrystal’s job and told to accomplish the plan.
The plan wouldn’t work because the whole war was founded on a false premise. Petraeus started extensively attacking all over the country, which wound up killing innocents and angering the Karzai government. Petraeus likely blamed the CIA for faulty intelligence; Obama appoints him to CIA to fix it (relations between CIA and DoD are traditional rivalries for resources) and to backfill Panetta’s replacing Gates as Secretary DoD.
In September in Benghazi a CIA station is attacked resulting in the death of the ambassador. It is in the middle of a campaign and someone inside the CIA leaks to Darrell Issa through whatever go-betweens that requests to beef up security had been denied. This becomes a political football in the debates. Short of the chief DNI and the President, Petraeus is the guy responsible for CIA station security. The complaint about denial of resources has all the marks of McChrystal’s complaint about resources. Then Petraeus is reported to be asking for ten more drones for CIA. Was the Benghazi leak pressure for more drones? We’ll never know.
But the idea that Petraeus is competent is part of his PR narrative often repeated by the Wall Street media.
So what brought him down. Having an adulterous affair puts a spook potentially in the position to be blackmailed for additional information about CIA operations. In principle, it should be cause for immediate dismissal for cause and usually is.
President Obama IMO showed his outstanding administrative talents in the way he handled General Petraeus, demanding performance and shifting responsibilities to find out where the guy could actually deliver results. Turns out he is all PR and inside politics. MacArthur, Westmoreland, Petraeus–all imagined they were American Caesars.
Thank you for writing this, TarheelDem. This is what I’ve heard about Petraeus too. He is a clever political operator but categorically not a warrior-statesman in the mold of Gen Marshall, though it has been his intention to appear that way. It may turn out to be a fortuitous turn of events that he has engineered his own exit from public service in such a sordid fashion.
Right on TarhellDem! And the items you mention are only the tip of the iceberg of incompetencemfor this ruthless, über-ambitious incompetent weasel.
You should read what Hastings(the guy whose reporting got McChrystal cashiered) wrote over at Buzzfeed. That place is like a mini Drudgico, but this is worth reading:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/mhastings/the-sins-of-general-david-petraeus
This entire story is long. By necessity.
If I were to condense it, I would say Obama forced him out because of Benghazi. Like most of the crazy conservatives, I have NEVER understood how an embassy or a CIA base could be left vulnerable to any kind of attack on the anniversary of 9-11. Somebody fucked up big time, simple as that, or maybe not–but Benghazi was a fuckup as well as a tragedy.
Somebody had to take the fall, even if it were not publicly announced as such. That’s my best guess–that Obama decided to fire him instead of giving him a medal, a la Bush and Tenet.
The sad truth behind the Benghazi attack is that there may not even be something akin to a “fuckup” behind the tragedy. The vulnerability of public servants abroad representing US national interests is the same as its been since the 60s and probably longer. Sometimes the risks inherit to the job are realized and sometimes the public hears about it.
I like to think certain security precautions can be implemented-heightened alertness on certain dates (like 9/11), more fortifications on sites in troubled areas, or maybe a refocusing of the Marine Corps mission at consulates-but truthfully there are limits to what can be done. It is hard (and expensive) to fortify a site to resist assault from 100+ jihadis armed with RPGs and contra to what they think in the right-wing fever swamps the US cannot have AC-130s in a holding pattern over every foreign mission.
The idea that with proper precautions and due diligence the US will never lose good men overseas is a fairy-tale. The real question that needs answering is what were they doing there at that time and was it worth the risks they were taking.
“The vulnerability of public servants abroad representing US national interests is the same as its been since the 60s and probably longer. Sometimes the risks inherit to the job are realized and sometimes the public hears about it.“
One day in the mid-’60’s a new family rented the house next door to us and moved into our Baghdad neighborhood. The father had light brown hair – not THAT unusual for an Iraqi – there are even red-headed Iraqis, after all. The mother, who was very pregnant, had very blonde hair, and so did their adorable apple-cheeked two year old daughter. They turned out to be an Americans, and the father was an employee at the U.S. embassy. They were the only foreigners in the neighborhood.
They lived there happily and peacefully until May, 1967 when all embassy staff were evacuated due to the pending June, 1967 war. The husband got into his car every morning and drove to the embassy to work, then came home. The wife gave birth in an Iraqi maternity hospital – the same one used by my family, attended by an Iraqi obstetrician, and Iraqi nurses. They used the same water supply (which in those days was clean, safe, and always available), the same electrical, and the same phone system everyone else in Baghdad did (electricity was no problem, the phone system sucked). They could shop for American goods at the commissary, but they bought fresh fruits, vegetables, and other goods from the same shops and stands we did. I borrowed their cook on occasion when I needed extra help for a big dinner party (and yes, I paid him for his services).
In those days the embassy was just a building, not an isolated, self-contained, heavily fortified modern-day imperial citadel.
The only thing that has changed is what parts of the world are considered dangerous. But I don’t mean to minimize; much could be written about the changed auspices of Americans living abroad and “transformation” of the Middle East in the last decade.
None of this happens in a vacuum. Iraq is considered a dangerous assignment because the United States government has made it a dangerous assignment.
Iraq has gone from an emerging first-world country with a first-class medical and educational system, and excellent infrastructure to a broken, unhealthy, dangerous place for Iraqis (everything is fine and healthy inside the imperial citadel because the empire has insulated themselves from the real country they created) because the United States has made it so. It has gone from the best country in the Arab world to be a woman to one of the worst; Iraqi society, once one of the most diverse in the region, is becoming more and more monolithic; the very important ancient Christian communities and the tiny, ancient, but very important Mandaean community are all but gone now, driven out by the extreme religious elements empowered – I believe inadvertently out of ignorance – by the United States; the Shi`a and Sunni communities that lived together harmoniously and cooperatively for well over a thousand years now live divided by walls constructed by the American empire.
Since Bashshar Al Asad took over the presidency of Syria the United States as rebuffed his numerous attempts to reach out. Now the United States is taking the dangerous step of attempting to “support” the rebels” against the regime without having a clue who those rebels are, and what they might be setting in motion.
Let the United States get over itself, act like a normal country, and stop destroying life in other countries.
Yes, I agree with most of what you say. You’ll get no argument from me on the historic failure that was the US’s Iraq misadventure. In a broad sense, not rending apart foreign countries and killing their citizens is the best security US personnel can get.
But seeing that the US crossed that river some time ago, I like to point out that there aren’t enough bunkers and hellfire drones to provide perfect security.
Yes, your initial main point was correct. The U.S. has created some pretty serious enemies, and appears bent on continuing that process ad infinitum.
Oh yeah!
“…then I will crush them”:
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2011/12/then-i-will-crush-them.html