The most celebrated military officer of his generation, Petraeus took over at the CIA a little more than a year ago. He was credited by some with rescuing a failing US war effort in Iraq in 2007, after then president George W. Bush ordered a surge of troops into the country.
Speculation is already rife about who will succeed Clinton, who has stressed she wants to reclaim a private life put on hold by decades in the spotlight.
Now, adding to the rumor mill is talk of who might follow in the footsteps of Petraeus, a 60-year-old former paratrooper credited with turning around the Iraq war.
His deputy Michael Morell will serve as acting CIA director, and is expected to fill in for Petraeus at an upcoming congressional hearing about the CIA’s alleged failure to protect a US consulate in Libya from a deadly September 11 attack that left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.
One name being floated as a possible Petraeus replacement is John Brennan, the White House counter-terrorism adviser and a CIA veteran who has played an instrumental role in Obama’s drone war against Al-Qaeda militants.
Others, according to the Wall Street Journal, include Michael Vickers, undersecretary of defense for intelligence, and Congressman Michael Rogers, a Republican who heads the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
“It needs to be someone who has a lot of credibility… and doesn’t have a partisan reputation,” Georgetown University professor Stephen Wayne told AFP.
Wayne also floated the name of former Republican senator Chuck Hagel but said his guess would be that Morell will stay put permanently if he does well in the interim.
The most celebrated military officer of his generation, Petraeus took over at the CIA a little more than a year ago. He was credited by some with rescuing a failing US war effort in Iraq in 2007, after then president George W. Bush ordered a surge of troops into the country.
Obama later asked Petraeus to lead a similar surge of US forces in Afghanistan in 2010, leaving a top post as commander of all US forces in the Middle East to do so.
His military background, however, sometimes clashed with the CIA’s culture and there was some friction with the congressional committees that oversee the spy services.
In this case, however, the liaison raises potential security concerns in light of Petraeus’s highly sensitive position.
Still, the journal Foreign Policy, in a blog post, called his downfall a “huge loss for the United States.”
“Petraeus’s exit leaves a bitter taste. We all make mistakes. Here’s hoping he makes a comeback,” it said.
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