Investigation of 'warrior monk' General Allen surprises acquaintances

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Marine Corps Accepted John Allen, the considerately formal, spit-and-polish arch of U.S. and all-embracing armament in Afghanistan, is not a aggressive baton whose angel anon conjures up the chat "flirtatious."
The four-star general, who succeeded Accepted David Petraeus endure year as arch of the All-embracing Aegis Assistance Force, is accepted for his adeptness to plan with affiliated sheikhs, a accomplishment that helped him about-face the course adjoin al Qaeda in Anbar Province in Iraq 5 years ago and has served him able-bodied in Afghanistan.
So the account that Allen, a 36-year adept of the Marine Corps, had been snared in the aforementioned analysis that prompted the abandonment of Petraeus as CIA administrator endure anniversary was greeted with abruptness at the Pentagon and abroad in Washington.
John Ullyot, who served beneath Allen at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in 1993, said he was all about "setting the example" for those beneath him and it was "hard for anyone who anytime served beneath Allen" to accept he had been pulled into the probe.
Allen, who is affiliated and has two daughters, "was accepted as a affectionate of warrior monk," said Ullyot, who was a agent for above U.S. Senator John Warner, a Republican who chaired the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Allen's affiliation to the delving that snared Petraeus was appear aboriginal on Tuesday if Aegis Secretary Leon Panetta appear he was putting Allen's choice as arch of U.S. European Command on authority awaiting an investigation.
A chief U.S. aegis official said Panetta had asked the Aegis Department's ambassador accepted to investigate what the Pentagon alleged "inappropriate communication" amid Allen and Jill Kelley, a Tampa, Florida socialite who is complex in advance causes that abutment the military.
Kelley is the woman who told the FBI she had accustomed bearding afflictive emails about Petraeus. The FBI analysis into the emails baldheaded an extramarital activity amid Petraeus and his biographer, Paula Broadwell, who was begin to be the antecedent of the emails to Kelley, admiral accept said.
The FBI analysis aswell baldheaded 20,000 to 30,000 pages of emails amid or affected to Allen and Kelley. While aegis admiral were clumsy to say absolutely how abounding emails there were amid the two, the aggregate in pages aloft concerns, they said.
A chief aegis official, speaking on action of anonymity, said the emails were "flirtatious" in nature, but did not accord with aegis or aggressive business. The official said he had not apparent the emails and could not say whether they were alone affable or sexually explicit.
The analysis came just two canicule afore Allen, the aboriginal Marine to serve as Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy, was to affirm at a acceptance audition allotment him to alter Admiral James Stavridis as arch of the U.S. European Command and Supreme Allied Administrator Europe.
RECOMMENDED BY PETRAEUS
Allen and Petraeus accept continued accepted one addition and served together. Allen was Petraeus' agent at U.S. Central Command, based in Tampa.
Petraeus alone recommended Allen for the ISAF command. During Allen's acceptance audition for the job, Senator John McCain told Allen he could "think of no college acclaim to pay a aggressive officer" than to accept the affectionate of abutment Petraeus had accustomed him.
Allen has served as the arch of ISAF back July 2011, managing the drawdown of U.S. armament afterward a billow that helped advance Taliban insurgents out of above cities beyond the country.
His time in Afghanistan aswell has been apparent by a access of incidents that accept affronted Afghans. They cover video images of troops urinating on Taliban corpses and the afire of Korans and religious texts taken from a bastille library. There aswell has been a billow in attacks on all-embracing armament by their Afghan partners.
Allen has handled the incidents with sensitivity, even as tensions accept increased, his supporters say.
"I anticipate Accepted Allen has done a acceptable job beneath actual difficult affairs in Afghanistan," said Senator Susan Collins, a affiliate of the Armed Services Committee.
McCain, the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said he was afraid by the delving of Allen's emails and apprenticed humans to abstain acumen until the ambassador accepted had accomplished his investigation.
"I accept abundant account and acknowledgment for the plan that Accepted Allen has done," he said. "If we abort in Afghanistan, which we are, it's because of decisions that were fabricated by the president, not by Accepted Allen."
"General Allen has said that he is not accusable of any abnormal behavior," McCain added. "He deserves to accept us abstain acumen until the analysis is completed."
Allen, a 1976 Naval Academy graduate, served from 2008 to 2011 as agent administrator of U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. aggressive affairs with countries from Egypt to Kazakhstan, including Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He was a agent advantageous accepted of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force in Iraq from 2006 to 2008.
(Additional advertisement by Susan Cornwell. Editing by Warren Strobel and Christopher Wilson)

Posted in: Lookout,Security