http://lobelog.com/leaker-speaker-soldier-spy/#more-35277

Leaker, Speaker, Soldier, Spy

By Nick Turse
I ran into David Petraeus the other night. Or rather, I ran after him.
It’s been more than a year since I first tried to connect with the retired four-star general and ex-CIA director — and no luck yet. On a recent evening, as the sky was turning from a crisp ice blue into a host of Easter-egg hues, I missed him again. Led from a curtained “backstage” area where he had retreated after a midtown Manhattan event, Petraeus moved briskly to a staff-only room, then into a tightly packed elevator, and momentarily out onto the street before being quickly ushered into a waiting late-model, black Mercedes S550.
And then he was gone, whisked into the warm New York night, companions in tow.
For the previous hour, Petraeus had been in conversation with Peter Bergen, a journalist, CNN analyst, and vice president at New America, the think tank sponsoring the event. Looking fit and well-rested in a smart dark-blue suit, the former four-star offered palatable, pat, and — judging from the approving murmurs of the audience — popular answers to a host of questions about national security issues ranging from the fight against the Islamic State to domestic gun control. While voicing support for the Second Amendment, for example, he spoke about implementing “common sense solutions to the availability of weapons,” specifically keeping guns out of the hands of “domestic abusers” and those on the no-fly list.  Even as he expressed “great respect” for those who carried out acts of torture in the wake of 9/11, he denounced its use — except in the case of a “ticking time bomb.”  In an era when victory hasn’t been a word much used in relation to the American military, he even predicted something close to it on the horizon.  “I’ve said from the very beginning, even in the darkest days, the Islamic State would be defeated in Iraq,” he told the appreciative crowd.
I went to the event hoping to ask Petraeus a question or two, but Bergen never called on me during the Q & A portion of the evening. My attendance was not, however, a total loss.http://lobelog.com/leaker-speaker-soldier-spy/#more-35277