President reshuffles Panetta, Petraeus

Associated Press

WASHINGTON

In a major national security reshuffle, President Barack Obama is sending CIA Director Leon Panetta to the Pentagon to replace Robert Gates, a widely praised Bush holdover, and replacing Panetta at the spy agency with Gen. David Petraeus, the high-profile commander of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Obama’s changes, expected to be announced at the White House today, also will include a new ambassador and war commander in Afghanistan. However, they don’t signal any major adjustment in the president’s Afghan strategy or the fight against violent extremism.

The moves cement a planned drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in July and allow Obama to replace Gates, a Republican, with a Democrat with partisan credentials. That appointment also diminishes speculation that Petraeus might become a Republican presidential challenger in 2012.

In the largest change, Gates would step down after managing the turnaround of the Iraq war under President George Bush and the expansion of the Afghanistan war under Obama. He told top Pentagon staff Wednesday that he had recommended Panetta as his successor six months ago.

Gates plans to retire June 30, officials said, and the White House hopes to win Senate confirmation for Panetta before then. Petraeus would remain in his battlefield job for a few months while the first of the approximately 100,000 U.S. forces in Afghanistan withdraw. Petraeus plans to retire from the Army before assuming the CIA job in the fall, officials said.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Allen will move from his post as deputy commander of U.S. Central Command in Florida to take over the Afghan campaign, and veteran diplomat Ryan Crocker will become U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, officials said.

All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the changes had not yet been announced by the White House.

The appointments point to a stay-the-course approach in national security strategy over its next two years, especially in two key areas: the war in Afghanistan in what is expected to be a make-or-break year, and the counterterrorism fight in Pakistan.

Allen and Crocker will be charged with managing a gradual lessening of the U.S. role and a transition to Afghan leadership. Petraeus would take the helm at the CIA against the backdrop of a fractious relationship with Pakistan, which wants a greater say in U.S. counterterrorism actions in Pakistan’s frontier regions.

“The White House is maintaining broad continuity,” said John Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security and member of the Defense Policy Board. “Everyone who is coming in are all current in the game. They’ve been working these issues.”

Panetta and Petraeus already have worked closely together and have spent time with military and intelligence leaders in both countries.

A U.S. official who confirmed Panetta’s move to the Pentagon said the White House chose him in large part because of his extensive experience in the field during his time as CIA director. The official said Panetta had traveled more than 200,000 miles to more than 40 CIA stations and bases and more than 30 countries.