The timing of CIA Director (Gen.) David Petraeus’ resignation Friday raises several troubling questions the American people deserve to have answered.
Gen. David Petraeus
Did the timing of General Petraeus’ resignation have something to do with the Nov. 6 election?
Knowing President Barack Obama‘s propensity to do anything to save his own hide, one has to believe it played a part in the saga. According to a report by Ronald Kessler, it came months after the FBI began investigating his relationship with Paula Broadwell, the author of his biography, “All In,” and it left some FBI agents fuming.
Did it have something to do with the House Intelligence Committee’s upcoming hearing about the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya?
General Petraeus’ resignation came only days before he was — and, some say, still is — expected to testify Nov. 15 at a closed-door hearing during which members of the committee are expected to ask tough questions and demand truthful answers about the CIA‘s role in events before, during and after the attack which left Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three others dead. One has to believe it played a part as well.
Did it have anything to do with the fact that, by virtue of his position atop the CIA, he knew he would be subjected to periodic, in-depth polygraph examinations and face questions regarding, among other things, his personal conduct?
As a high-ranking government employee privy to classified information of the highest order, General Petraeus falls into the category of people who expected to be subjected to polygraph examinations on an annual basis. As a retired Army four-star general with more than three decades in uniform, he also knows that a host of countermeasures are available to anyone wanting to defeat the polygraph; therefore, I doubt he had any concerns about undergoing such an examination.
Did it have anything to do with General Petraeus believing foreign intelligence agents might try to compromise him if they became aware of his clandestine activities with Mrs. Broadwell, the married mother of two is not his wife?
Well-schooled in all manner of intelligence-gathering operations, General Petraeus knows that foreign intelligence agents keep watchful eyes on people like him with the hope of finding information they might use in attempts to compromise him at some future date; therefore, I’m sure he limited his reckless behavior with his mistress to environments where none of the “bad guys” could catch him in the act. Likewise, he probably trusted his extramarital lover.
Unfortunately, General Petraeus must have known he could not hide his affair from FBI agents able to install wiretaps and conduct surveillance activities not available to foreign agents. In knowing those agents’ chain of command leads to Attorney General Eric Holder, the general also knew that the information would likely be seen by President Obama and held over his head as a bargaining chip of sorts for use at some point in the future when the president was in trouble and needed his CIA director to be his “fall guy.”
Understandably, General Petraeus decided he would rather face the wrath of his wife now than end up “under the bus” at some time in the future on trumped-up circumstances.
Though I don’t condone the general’s pre-resignation actions in any way and despise him for the role he’s played in shaping DoD’s severely-flawed “catch-and-release” policies which have turned many battlefields into untenable environments for warfighters, I can’t say I blame him from protecting himself from his boss.
Hopefully, the whole truth will come out during this week’s hearings and beyond.
Bob McCarty is the author of “Three Days In August: A U.S. Army Special Forces Soldier’s Fight For Military Justice,” a nonfiction book that’s available in paperback and ebook via most online booksellers, including Amazon.com. His second book, “The CLAPPER MEMO,” is set for release this fall.
