Monday, July 18, 2011 – Gen. David Petraeus, Top commander of US forces in Afghanistan on Monday officially handed over NATO-led International Security Forces commandment to Marine Lt. John Allen.
He is going to take over responsibilities of Leon Panetta as CIA chief in coming September.
In a report issued by CNN, Gen. Patreus said, “I am taking off the uniform I have worn for 37 years to do this the right way.”
It is said that he wanted to take the responsibility as CIA chief during the senate confirmation hearing.
He has been named among the most influential people of the 21st century by Esquire magazine.
Mr Petraeus took over as the commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan in July last year after Gen. Stanley McChrystal resigned over an article published by the Rolling Stone magazine.
Gen. Patreus assessed the results of his strategy in Afghanistan ahead of his departure this week.
While speaking with NATO-TV, he said, “What we have done is implement the so-called Nato comprehensive approach, a civil-military campaign that does indeed embody many of the principles of the counterinsurgency field manual that we developed back in 2006, and which we employed in Iraq in the surge of 2007-2008,”
He said, coalition forces have broken Taliban’s momentum in many parts of the country and in the meantime he described Afghan mission a difficult journey.
Petraeus’ experience in working with the CIA on counterinsurgency efforts in the field was cited as a reason for his nomination as the spy agency’s director.
But Gen. Petraeus’s legacy in Afghanistan remains in question as violence continues to rage, underscored by the shock killings of two of Karzai’s top allies in the south – his brother last Tuesday and a senior adviser on Sunday.
