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| Petraeus Successor |
America's top commander in Afghanistan is under investigation for
alleged "inappropriate communications" with a woman, in the latest
twist to the scandal surrounding the CIA's ex-director.
General David Petraeus resigned as CIA chief last week over his
extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, his biographer. Now the Pentagon has
acknowledged that General John Allen had been in communication with Jill
Kelley, who is said to have received threatening emails from Ms Broadwell. Gen
Allen succeeded Gen Petraeus as the top American commander in Afghanistan in
July 2011.
The FBI referred the matter involving Gen Allen to the Pentagon on
Sunday, and a Pentagon investigation into his conduct was ordered on Monday. Ms
Kelley has been described as an unpaid social liaison at MacDill Air Force
Base, Florida, which is headquarters to the US Central Command. She is not a US
government employee. Meanwhile, the CIA has dismissed as "baseless"
claims by Ms Broadwell that Libyan militants were held in covert prisons before
a deadly attack on the Benghazi US consulate on September 11.
She alleged in a speech that the attack on the base, in which US
ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed, was part of an attempt to free
prisoners. She also claimed that Gen Petraeus knew of the hidden cells -
even though Barack Obama took away the CIA’s power to take prisoners soon after
he was inaugurated in January 2009. Her comments were recorded on video and put
on YouTube, but the clip has since been taken down. A spokesman for the CIA
said: "Any suggestion that the agency is still in the detention business
is uninformed and baseless."
The nature of the alleged communications between Gen Allen and Ms Kelley
has not been disclosed. An official said they ran to as many as 30,000 pages of
emails and other documents dated from 2010 to 2012. "General Allen
disputes that he has engaged in any wrongdoing in this matter," the
unnamed official told the AP news agency. Gen Allen remains in his post as
commander of the International Security Assistance Force, based in Kabul. It is
thought the FBI's decision to refer the matter to the Pentagon, rather than
deal with it itself, along with the move to let Gen Allen continue in his job
without suspension, mean his alleged actions may be viewed as breaking military
rules rather than any criminal laws.
Source: Yahoo News
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