Sex Scandal, U.s. Military | featured news

U.S. defense officials say Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has been cleared of allegations of sending potentially inappropriate emails to a civilian woman linked to the sex scandal that ousted David Petraeus as CIA director.

Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Sinclair, fired from his command in Afghanistan last May and now facing a court-martial on charges of sodomy, adultery and pornography and more, is just one in a long line of commanders whose careers were ended because of possible sexual misconduct.

Jill Kelley, the Tampa socialite who triggered the scandal that brought down CIA director David Petraeus, viewed the e-mails that she got anonymously from Paula Broadwell, Petraeus' mistress, as "death threats" from someone "clearly unhinged," according to a close friend of Kelley's, the Daily News reported Tuesday.

Citing a string of ethical lapses by senior military officers, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has asked the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review ethics training and to brainstorm on ways to steer officers away from trouble.

On the march to Baghdad in 2003, back when many Americans expected the Iraq war to last weeks and not years, a little-known two-star Army general named David H. Petraeus posed a question to a reporter accompanying him that would come to define the grueling U.S. combat mission there: “Tell me how this ends.”

The Air Force is investigating a growing sexual-misconduct scandal in its basic-training operations, with a dozen male boot-camp instructors under suspicion of assaulting, harassing or having sex with female recruits.

Twenty or 21 women were brought back to a hotel in Colombia by U.S. Secret Service and military personnel in an incident last week involving alleged misconduct with prostitutes, U.S. Senator Susan Collins said on Tuesday.