The word “omnishambles” has yet to enter the American lexicon, despite its recent appearance in the OED, but there’s no better way to describe the scandal that began with last week’s resignation of CIA director David Petraeus.
What began as an old-fashioned tale of philandery, reportedly complete with dirty weekends in Paris and emails about liaisons under a desk, turned all Fatal Attraction when it emerged that the FBI was investigating the general’s former mistress, Paula Broadwell, for sending threatening messages to another woman who she suspected had caught his eye.
It became surreal yesterday, when we learned that this woman, Florida housewife Jill Kelley, had up to 30,000 pages of messages from General John Allen, the top US commander in Afghanistan. Investigators described them as “potentially inappropriate” and “flirtatious”. Could things get stranger? Yes. It has also emerged that the FBI disciplined a member of its team working on the case after it emerged that he had seen fit to email Ms Kelley a “shirtless” photograph of himself.
It’s a wonderful mess, full of lurid detail, but petty titillation isn’t the only thing that makes this scandal one for the ages. So does the identity of its key players, who are some of the best-known military men in a nation which venerates its armed forces.
Take Petraeus, architect of the Iraq “surge” and a man so respected that he was mentioned as a presidential candidate in Republican circles. One of his last acts in high office involved presiding over the apparent intelligence failures that led to the Benghazi tragedy. That could now be his professional epitaph.
On Monday it was Veterans Day, when Americans take the day off to honour their troops. Its status as a public holiday speaks to the level of respect the public has for its armed forces. That respect has now been betrayed. This story will run and run and I doubt the guilty parties will be easily forgiven.
