In a major U.S. 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 on Thursday, also will include a new ambassador and war commander in Afghanistan. However, they do not signal any major adjustment in the president's Afghan strategy or the fight against violent extremism.
The moves cement a planned reduction 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 W. 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 on 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.
Stay-the-course approach
