The general’s duty
Last Updated: 11:04 PM, November 13, 2012
Posted: November 14, 2012


It turns out then-CIA Director David Petraeus made an unannounced trip to Libya last month to personally investigate the 9/11 Benghazi consulate debacle.

All the more reason, then, for Petraeus to be front and center when Congress takes up the matter, starting tomorrow.

But the former general has told friends he doesn’t want to testify, that any public appearance by him would turn into a media circus.

Too bad.

It’s his duty to do so — a word that once meant something to America’s military leaders, but apparently no longer.

Besides which, his testimony would almost certainly be private — which is why lawmakers are, on a bipartisan basis, losing patience with Petraeus.

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David Petraeus

Indeed, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) says the CIA won’t even let her see the field report he prepared on his Libya trip.

“We have asked to see the trip report,” she said. “One person tells me he’s read it, and then we try and get it and they tell me it hasn’t been done.

“That’s unacceptable,” Feinstein added. “It may have very relevant information to what happened in Benghazi.”

“May have” is putting it mildly.

Sen. Susan Collins, the Homeland Security Committee’s ranking Republican, calls it “absolutely imperative” that Petraeus testify, given all the “unanswered questions.”

That seems to be the sentiment — and Feinstein says she may subpoena Petraeus’ report if the CIA doesn’t turn it over.

Looks like the Obama stone wall is crumbling even before it’s fully built.

Good.