General Petraeus Retires

America's most famous general heads to the CIA.

Gen. David Petraeus is bidding farewell to the Army that has been his life and the troops that have been his family for 37 years.
America's best-known general is taking off his uniform before starting a new chapter as the 20th director of the CIA next week, where he will keep waging war on al-Qaida and other terrorist groups, but in a far different form.
The soldier-scholar-statesman is to be sworn in as the nation's spy chief on Sept. 6, less than a week before the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
It's a sharp and unexpected career turn for the man many thought would ultimately become the top officer in the land — chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — after six command assignments, including four in war zones. He is credited with turning around the Iraq war and helping pivot the still uncertain campaign in Afghanistan.
Instead, President Barack Obama asked him to take over at CIA as part of a major shuffle of top national security officials that included Leon Panetta moving from CIA director to succeed the retiring Robert Gates at the Pentagon.
Close friends and colleagues of Petraeus say that when he realized the White House would not make him chairman of the Joint Chiefs, 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 the CIA, Petraeus, 58, chose to shed it to avoid what some might see as the militarization of intelligence.

What do you think was General Petraeus' greatest accomplishment in uniform? His success as 101st commander? FM 3-24? The Afghan surge? Something else? Give us your thoughts on the general below.

By: Brant