Petraeus to take over CIA, Panetta to replace Gates

This three photo combo shows CIA director Leon Panetta (L) who will become the new US defense secretary this summer, a US official told AFP April 27, replacing current defense secretary Robert Gates(C), amid reports that General David Petraeus(R) would replace him as the head of the US spy agency. – File Photo by AFP

WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama has decided to bring Gen David Petraeus from Afghanistan and place him at the CIA whose director Leon Panetta will now be the new US Defence Secretary, officials said on Wednesday.
Lt-Gen. John Allen, Deputy Commander of US Central Command, is to receive a fourth star and assume command from Gen Petraeus in Kabul. Additionally, former US ambassador to Pakistan and Iraq Ryan Crocker will be sent to Afghanistan as ambassador.
All four men need to be confirmed by the Senate before assuming their new positions. Congressional aides say that their nomination should be a smooth process as all four are known faces on the Hill.
Mr Panetta, 72, a former Democratic congressman, chief of staff to President Bill Clinton and an army intelligence officer, will succeed another former CIA director, current Defence Secretary Robert Gates.
American scholars on South Asian affairs told the media that the changes would not affect America’s current Pak-Afghan strategy.
“I don’t see any sign in this of upheaval in US-Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy” and probably not a major reduction in forces this year, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and White House official, said.
Mr Riedel, who helped develop the Obama administration’s first Af-Pak strategy in 2009, however, warned that “Mr Panetta and Petraeus both “have a pretty deep scepticism about Pakistan’s commitment” to press the offensive against Taliban.
“There’s a lot of tension in the relationship” between Pakistan and the US, he said.
The US media described the decision to send Ambassador Crocker and Gen Allen to Kabul as “the Obama administration’s most significant move in months to shuffle the ranks of its Afghan war team”.
Mr Crocker is credited with shaping up a policy, which allowed the Iraqi government to rise above the country’s sectarian divide and reach out to all factions.
As a former ambassador to Pakistan, he also has good relations with the current military and political leaderships in Islamabad.
The Obama administration appears keen to start withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan in June this year, plans to complete the process by 2014 and hand over effective control to the government in Kabul.
Ambassador Crocker’s experiences in Iraq and Pakistan could be useful for the Obama administration during this process.