An end of a remarkable career of service to our country. This is the man who…while Democrats were running around in circles with their heads cut off screaming that we couldn’t possibly win in Iraq, and that it was a lost cause…said, “Bullshit. Get out of my way and let me show you how this is done.” (I’m paraphrasing)
Thank you for your service, sir. I hope your tenure in the CIA is filled with as much success as your Army career:
Gen. David Petraeus is bidding farewell to the Army that has been his life and the troops that have been his family for 37 years.
America’s best-known general is taking off his uniform before starting a new chapter as the 20th director of the CIA next week, where he will keep waging war on al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, but in a far different manner.
The soldier-scholar-statesman is to be sworn in as the nation’s spy chief on Sept. 6, less than a week before the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
It’s a sharp and unexpected career turn for the man many thought would ultimately become the top officer in the land — chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — after six command assignments, including four in war zones. He is credited with turning around the Iraq war and helping pivot the still uncertain campaign in Afghanistan.
Instead, President Barack Obama asked him to take over at CIA as part of a major shuffle of top national security officials that included Leon Panetta moving from CIA director to succeed the retiring Robert Gates as defense secretary.
Close friends and colleagues of Petraeus say that when he realized the White House would not make him chairman of the Joint Chiefs, he saw the CIA as the best alternative.
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