White House Staffing, David Petraeus | featured news

Roger Ailes, the longtime Republican media guru, founder of Fox News and its current chairman, had some advice last year for then-Gen. David H. Petraeus. So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.

U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, once the top commander in Iraq and then Afghanistan, will leave the Pentagon Wednesday for the halls of the CIA next week.

General David Petraeus, the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, handed over command of U.S. and NATO-led troops in Afghanistan on Monday, a day after a gradual process of transferring security to Afghan forces began.

With the departure of Robert Gates at the Pentagon, the pending shakeup of the national security team would move Gen. David Petraeus to the CIA. Lt. Gen. John Allen would then replace Petraeus, officials say. President Obama is expected to name CIA Director Leon Panetta as his new Defense secretary and is expected to make David Petraeus, the general now commanding troops in Afghanistan, head of the CIA, according to U.S.