Petraeus sunk by subordinates?
The UK’s Daily Mail Online writes today that General David Petraeus who was ousted from the CIA because of an illicit affair he conducted with his biographer while he headed the CIA, was unmasked by subordinates who didn’t like that he was focusing on direct covert actions rather than intelligence analysis.
The plot to unseat Petraeus was supposedly uncover by two special operators who had been investigating the attack on the Benghazi consulate on September 11th, 2012.
‘It was high-level career officers on the CIA who got the ball rolling on the investigation. It was basically a palace coupe to get Petraeus out of there,’ Jack Murphy, one of the authors, told MailOnline.
Murphy and co-author Brandon Webb also revealed that the September 11 Benghazi terrorist attack that killed four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, was retaliation by Islamist militants who had been targeted by covert U.S. military operations.
The book claims that neither Stevens nor even Petraeus knew about the raids by American special operations troops, which had ‘kicked a hornet’s nest’ among the heavily-armed fighters after the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
I don’t doubt it, however, there would have been nothing to use against Petraeus if he’d kept to thinking with his big head.
Webb and Murphy said the CIA bureaucracy wanted Petraeus out of the CIA. Senior officials were furious over the way he had been running the agency since he was appointed in September 2011.
He was turning the agency’s focus from intelligence gathering and analysis to paramilitary operations, including drone strikes.
Additionally, he ran the CIA like a four-star general, instead of treating it like a political institution, the authors say. His management style made countless powerful enemies within the CIA.
Who would have thought that a four-star general would have the management style of a four-star general?
Thanks to Parachute Cutie for the link.
Category: Terror War
I wonder where we’d be if the prima donna’s at the CIA actually did their jobs and didn’t worry about palace politics?
knee deep in broadwell guts i suppose
Damn that’s funny….. That’s for the great reading. Keep it up.
“I don’t doubt it, however, there would have been nothing to use against Petraeus if he’d kept to thinking with his big head.”
Well, there’s that, and the Flag Officer Cloak Of Personal Invulnerability.
In one of his novels, author W.E.B. Griffin referred to the CIA as a handful of good, hard-working people drowning in a sea of bureaucrats. Sounds like an apt description, in this case.
Don’t say anything critical of Petraeus over on SOFREP, Jack Murphy will bit your head off.
Brandon Webb was one of Glen Dougherty’s best friends.
It’s still not clear to me where Petraeus was during the attack. There’s been a lot of focus on why the State Dept didn’t ask for military help at the mission, but the other facility where they retreated to was CIA. Where was Petraeus’ call for help? Was he monitoring the situation? With his background, you would think that he would have had a good idea of what resources were available and who to call.
It will be interesting to see what the SOFREP guys have to say. I wonder if they updated the book to include the testimony from last week where it was made clear that Obama was nowhere to be found during the attack. Maybe they already knew.
@1 — Nailed it in one!! Little more need be said.
Oh, yeah. How come we learn more about U.S. current events from Brit news sources than from our our domestic Ministry of Truth?
Just curious.
The source of this is interesting and it just shows a culture of more people talking about stuff that use to not be talked about. SOFREP is all over the place when it comes to whether operators should be disclosing things publicly but now that they are using their own connections to publicly disclose I was surprised.
#5: That is an apt description of a lot of agencies. I know it is of DHS and its subordinate agencies.
I tend to take anything the Daily Fail says with a huge grain of salt.
@8. The Brits have a thing for sex scandals. But I was wondering that same thing myself.
I like this anonymous stuff. It happened that I accidentally posted once or twice today w/o filling in the little box. After that, I said to heck with it. I think maybe there should be an anonymous day here where everyone posts with the screen nmae Anonymous. Then we can play guess who I am.
tis a crazy society now,,when i was in the army 30yrs ago,,we never heard about the exploits of any of our shadow warriors missions. nowadays,,when one farts,,the whole world needs to know about it or,,they write a book about it! WTF? greed and accolades are gonna get these people in a world of hurt. IMHO
“It was high-level career officers on the CIA….” So reads the quote attributed to Author Murphy. Notice the subject and verb disagreement. Notice, too, the adjective career. As opposed to what, the part-time agents at CIA? And, finally, there’s the prepositional phrase, “on the CIA.” Really? What do the officers do, sit on the roof at Langley? I hope that Murphy has a good editor if he writes as poorly as he speaks.
English Nazi out.
@15 you sir,,are a moron
CIA’s been a law unto itself since Carter tried to do it in in late 1970s. All the leaks and whatnots during Bush-43 weren’t acts of patriotism, as the Prognazis would have us believe, but pure self interest and self protection.
If the Prez ever wanted to save money and improve National Security, s/he’d do away with the CIA right after being sworn in.
I’m a moron, pete? Why is that?
[…] Ain’t Hell has a bunch of great posts up today but I like this one by Jonn called “Petraeus sunk by subordinates?” Go […]
@18 because you attack the way someone wrote something. i just have a problem with the grammar police trolling on internet threads acting all high and mighty thinking they are all superior too us,,dumbasses!
Fuck bureaucrats!!!!!! The agency is too full of them. Ughhhh, also, I had to refrain from vomiting yesterday at an Army board, when I had to answer a current event question with the ‘honorable’ John Kerry…
Okay, pete, fair enough. I don’t normally do that but because Murphy is an “author” I made an exception. All of my points, by the way, were valid ones. And I’m not a troll. I’m a regular.
One other thing, pete, you went from calling me a moron to calling me a dumbass. Is that a step up? I’m not sure.
Pete, stop being a bitch
As pointed out earlier, Petraeus’ boat was sunk by a hole poked in it by his own dick.
YMMV.
@22,,i believe i called myself a dumbass sir! i shall now stand down and shut-up! i’m just pissed at this never ending crap that is happening on a daily basis without pause..i’m just worried for some of my family members overseas. my bad