Petraeus leaves behind a legacy as general

WASHINGTON -- David Petraeus, America's best-known general and the wartime model of a soldier-scholar-statesman, is retiring as arguably the most consequential Army leader of his generation.

Petraeus is bidding an official farewell to the Army today, then opening a new chapter as director of the CIA, where he will try to keep up the pressure on al-Qaida and other terrorists plotting attacks from havens in Pakistan and beyond.

He is to be sworn in as the nation's spy chief on Sept. 6, less than one week before the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

After a series of six command assignments as a general officer, including three in Iraq, many expected Petraeus would ascend to the military's top post, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Instead, President Barack Obama asked him to take over at the Central Intelligence Agency as part of a shuffle of top national security officials that included Leon Panetta moving from CIA director to succeed the retiring Robert Gates as secretary of defense.

Close friends and colleagues say that when Petraeus realized the White House would not make him Joint Chiefs chairman, he saw CIA as the best alternative.

"I wanted this job," he told senators at his confirmation hearing, saying he had discussed the CIA post with the Obama administration for months. Although he could have stayed in uniform at CIA, Petraeus, 58, has chosen to shed it to avoid what some might see as the militarization of intelligence.

"I have a certain profile in various parts of the world," he told the Pentagon Channel in an interview Aug. 18. "And were I to travel there in uniform, it might create some confusion, frankly, as, you know, 'Who is this guy? He's still in uniform. Is he the director of the CIA or is he actually something else?' "

Petraeus soared to public acclaim in 2007-08 with his surprising success in reversing an escalation of insurgent violence in Iraq. At a September 2008 ceremony in Baghdad marking the end of Petraeus's 19 months in command, Gates credited him with dealing a "tremendous, if not mortal, blow" to an insurgency that two years earlier seemed beyond U.S. or Iraqi government control.

"I believe history will regard you as one of our nation's great battle captains," Gates told Petraeus.

He also is seen as one of the Army's most accomplished accumulators of personal publicity.

Petraeus is sometimes mentioned as a potential GOP presidential candidate, although he has said he has no interest in politics.