David Petraeus apologises publicly for affair
David Petraeus, the disgraced former head of the CIA, has apologised for “slipping my moorings” by embarking on the extra-marital affair whose revelation led to his resignation from office.
David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell Photo: EPA
By Peter Foster, Washington
3:21PM GMT 26 Mar 2013
In his first, tentative step towards a possible return to public life, he will use a speech to be delivered tonight to give an apparently heartfelt “mea culpa” for the hurt he had caused his family.
“I join you keenly aware that I am regarded in a different light now than I was a year ago,” Mr Petraeus said in excerpts from his speech published by The New York Times. “I know that I can never fully assuage the pain that I inflicted on those closest to me and on a number of others.
“I can, however, try to move forward in a manner that is consistent with the values to which I subscribed before slipping my moorings and, as best as possible, to make amends to those I have hurt and let down.”
The 60-year-old former soldie will deliver his speech to an audience at the University of Southern California amid hopes from some that his apology may begin to resuscitate the career of a man once mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate.
Mr Petraeus’s surprise resignation came early last November after an FBI investigation into an email harassment claim uncovered the fact that America’s top spy had been having a six-month affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell.
Since then Mr Petraeus, a celebrated scholar-general who is often credited with being the author of US counter-insurgency doctrine, has kept a deliberately low public profile while behind the scenes, quietly laying the foundations of his rehabilitation.
Within a week of his resignation, Mr Petraeus had hired one of Washington’s sharpest lawyers to help him navigate the fall-out from his disastrous liaison with Ms Broadwell, who triggered the FBI investigation by sending harassing emails to another woman she apparently feared was her rival.
Robert Barnett, who is best known for negotiating book deals for the political elite, from President Barack Obama to one-time vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, said Mr Petraeus “has spent a lot of time with his family, and their collective focus is forward,” the New York Times reported.
“I am also keenly aware that the reason for my recent journey was my own doing,” Mr Petraeus will say. “So please allow me to begin my remarks this evening by reiterating how deeply I regret — and apologise for — the circumstances that led me to resign from the CIA and caused such pain for my family, friends and supporters.”
Mr Petraeus, a fitness fanatic who reportedly first fell for 40-year-old Ms Broadwell as the pair ran along the banks of Washington’s Potomac River, is said to have kept up his own personal routine during his period of purdah, alternating between seven-mile runs and 25-mile bike rides.
As he appeared to acknowledge, the scandal of his affair resignation called into question both his standing as an ascetic, moral leader but also opened the way for detractors to question whether his military legacy — particularly the Iraq "surge" — was really as brilliant as had been suggested.
Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone journalist who triggered the sacking in 2010 of Gen Stanley McChrystal, Gen Petraeus’s predecessor in Afghanistan, accused the US media of 'myth-making’ and described the surge strategy as a “the most impressive con job in recent American history”.
However after Mr Petraeus' resignation, Barack Obama left a deliberate opening for his return by expressing his hopes that the incident would end up being a “single side note on what has otherwise been an extraordinary career.”
Now, less than six months later, during which time Mr Petraeus declined all media requests to tell his story but reportedly quietly talked about possible consultancy work, he has signaled he is ready to return public life — a process he says he fully expects to be difficult.
“There is often a view that, because an individual was a great soldier, he or she will naturally do well in and transition effortlessly to the civilian world,” Mr. Petraeus will say, announcing plans to support veterans groups. “In reality, the transition from military service to civilian pursuits often is quite challenging.”
