Petraeus’s Lower C.I.A. Profile Leaves Benghazi Void





WASHINGTON — In 14 months as C.I.A. director, David H. Petraeus has shunned the spotlight he once courted as America’s most famous general. His low-profile style has won the loyalty of the White House, easing old tensions with President Obama, and he has overcome some of the skepticism he faced from the agency’s work force, which is always wary of the military brass.







Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

The low-profile style of David H. Petraeus, right, has won the loyalty of the White House, easing old tensions with President Obama.








Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

C.I.A. director, David H. Petraeus, right, appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in Washington in January.






But since an attack killed four Americans seven weeks ago in Benghazi, Libya, his deliberately low profile, and the C.I.A.’s penchant for secrecy, have left a void that has been filled by a news media and Congressional furor over whether it could have been prevented. Rather than acknowledge the C.I.A.’s presence in Benghazi, Mr. Petraeus and other agency officials fought a losing battle to keep it secret, even as the events there became a point of contention in the presidential campaign.


Finally, on Thursday, with Mr. Petraeus away on a visit to the Middle East, pressure from critics prompted intelligence officials to give their own account of the chaotic night when two security officers died along with the American ambassador, J. Christopher Stevens, and another diplomat. The officials acknowledged for the first time that the security officers, both former members of the Navy SEALs, worked on contract for the C.I.A., which occupied one of the buildings that were attacked.


The Benghazi crisis is the biggest challenge so far in the first civilian job held by Mr. Petraeus, who retired from the Army and dropped the “General” when he went to the C.I.A. He gets mostly high marks from government colleagues and outside experts for his overall performance. But the transition has meant learning a markedly different culture, at an agency famously resistant to outsiders.


“I think he’s a brilliant man, but he’s also a four-star general,” said Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Four-stars are saluted, not questioned. He’s now running an agency where everything is questioned, whether you’re a four-star or a senator. It’s a culture change.”


Mr. Petraeus, who turns 60 next week, has had to learn that C.I.A. officers will not automatically defer to his judgments, as military subordinates often did. “The attitude at the agency is, ‘You may be the director, but I’m the Thailand analyst,’ ” said one C.I.A. veteran.


Long a media star as the most prominent military leader of his generation, Mr. Petraeus abruptly abandoned that style at the C.I.A. Operating amid widespread complaints about leaks of classified information, he has stopped giving interviews, speaks to Congress in closed sessions and travels the globe to consult with foreign spy services with little news media notice.


“He thinks he has to be very discreet and let others in the government do the talking,” said Michael E. O’Hanlon, a Brookings Institution scholar who is a friend of Mr. Petraeus’s and a member of the C.I.A.’s advisory board.


Mr. Petraeus’s no-news, no-nonsense style stands out especially starkly against that of his effusive predecessor, Leon E. Panetta, who is now the defense secretary.


Mr. Panetta, a gregarious politician by profession, was unusually open with Congress and sometimes with the public — to a fault, some might say, when he spoke candidly after leaving the C.I.A. about a Pakistani doctor’s role in helping hunt for Osama bin Laden, or about the agency’s drone operations.


Mr. Petraeus’s discretion and relentless work ethic have had a positive side for him: old tensions with Mr. Obama, which grew out of differing views on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, appear to be gone. Mr. Petraeus is at the White House several times a week, attending National Security Council sessions and meeting weekly with James R. Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, and Thomas E. Donilon, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser. Mr. Donilon said recently that the C.I.A. director “has done an exceptional job,” bringing “deep experience, intellectual rigor and enthusiasm” to his work.


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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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NYC Marathon is canceled following storm damage

NEW YORK (AP) — With the runners ready but ravaged residents still recovering from Sandy, this weekend's New York City Marathon was canceled Friday when Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed himself and yielded to mounting criticism that this was no time to run a race.

The death toll in the city stood at 41 and thousands of shivering people were without electricity, making many New Yorkers recoil at the idea of assigning police officers to protect a foot race and evicting storm victims from hotels to make way for runners.

Bloomberg, who as late as Friday morning insisted that the world's largest marathon should go on as scheduled Sunday, changed course hours later after intensifying opposition from the city comptroller, the Manhattan borough president and sanitation workers unhappy that they had volunteered to help storm victims but were assigned to the race instead. The mayor said he would not want "a cloud to hang over the race or its participants."

"We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event — even one as meaningful as this — to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track," the mayor said.

Around 47,500 runners — 30,000 of them out-of-towners, many of them from other countries — had been expected to take part in the 26.2-mile event, with more than 1 million spectators usually lining the route.

The race had been scheduled to start in Staten Island, one of the storm's hardest-hit places, and wind through all of the city's five boroughs. The nationally televised race has been held annually since 1970, including 2001, about two months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

For runners, the cancellation was a devastating disappointment.

At the midtown New Yorker Hotel, the lobby was filled with anguished runners, some crying and others with puffy eyes. In one corner, a group of Italian runners watched the news with blank looks.

"I have no words," said Roberto Dell'Olmo, from Vercelli, Italy. Then later: "I would like that the money I give from the marathon goes to victims."

Elsewhere across the metro area Friday, the recovery made slow progress. Companies turned the lights back on, and many employees returned to their desks. Many major retailers also reopened.

But patience was wearing thin among New Yorkers who had been without power for most of the week.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo told utilities to step up power repair work or risk losing business in the state. And officials said the cost of the storm could exceed $18 billion in New York alone.

From storm-scarred New Jersey to parts of Connecticut, a widespread lack of gasoline frustrated people who were just trying to get to work or pick up a load of groceries.

Lines of cars, and in many places queues of people on foot carrying bright red jerry cans, waited for hours for precious fuel. And those were the lucky ones. Other customers gave up after finding only closed stations or dry pumps marked with yellow tape or "No Gas" signs.

Bloomberg called the marathon an "integral part of New York City's life for 40 years" and insisted that holding the race would not require resources to be diverted from the recovery effort. But, he said, he understood the doubts.

"We would not want a cloud to hang over the race or its participants, and so we have decided to cancel it," Bloomberg said in a statement. "We cannot allow a controversy over an athletic event — even one as meaningful as this — to distract attention away from all the critically important work that is being done to recover from the storm and get our city back on track."

City and race officials considered several alternatives: a modified course, postponement or an elite runners-only race. But they decided cancellation was the best option.

Organizers will donate various items that had been brought in for the race to relief efforts, from food, blankets and portable toilets to generators already set up on Staten Island.

The cancellation means there won't be another NYC Marathon until next year.

"I understand why it cannot be held under the current circumstances," Meb Keflezighi, the 2009 men's champion and a former Olympic silver medalist, said in a statement. "Any inconveniences the cancellation causes me or the thousands of runners who trained and traveled for this race pales in comparison to the challenges faced by people in NYC and its vicinity."

"Bloomberg's decision came just a day after he appealed to the grit and resiliency of New Yorkers, saying, "This city is a city where we have to go on."

Mary Wittenberg, president of the New York Road Runners, the group that organizes the marathon, said canceling was the right move.

"This is what we need to do and the right thing at this time," she said.

"It's been a week where we worked very closely with the mayor's office and felt very strongly, both of us together, that on Tuesday, it seemed that the best thing for New York on Sunday would be moving forward. As the days went on, just today it got to the point where that was no longer the case."

Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association — the police department's largest union — called the decision to cancel the marathon "a wise choice."

ING, the financial company that is the title sponsor of the marathon, said it also supported the decision to cancel. The firm's charitable giving arm has made a $500,000 contribution to help with relief and recovery efforts, and is matching employee donations.

Wittenberg said about 10,000 runners were expected to drop out after the storm arrived.

For now, marathon organizers are sticking to their policy of no refunds for runners, but they will guarantee entry to next year's marathon. However, Wittenberg said the group would review the refund policy.

Eric Jones said he was part of a group from the Netherlands that collected $1.5 million to donate to a children's cancer charity if the runners competed.

"We understand, but maybe the decision could have been made earlier, before we traveled this far," said Jones, whose group came to New York a day earlier.

Steve Brune, a Manhattan entrepreneur, was set to run his fourth New York City Marathon.

"I'm disappointed, but I can understand why it's more important to use our resources for those who have lost a lot," he said.

Brune said he thinks foreign runners who traveled for the race will be even more disappointed.

"When you have a significant amount of people voicing real pain and unhappiness over its running, you have to hear that. You have to take that into consideration," said Howard Wolfson, deputy mayor for government affairs and communications.

"Something that is such a celebration of the best of New York can't become divisive. That is not good for the city now as we try to complete our recovery effort, and it is not good for the marathon in the long run," he said.

Earlier in the day, race preparations seemed under way as normal.

White tents where the runners would meet were already erected. Plastic crates lined the park's wall for two blocks, with tangles of electric wires and other setup equipment where workers buzzed around. A few TV news crews set up camp.

Along the race route in Queens, a couple of marathon banners hung from street lamps.

"I'm not a fan of what he's doing," Manhattan resident Michael Folickman said of Bloomberg's decision. "I think that if the bridge is cleared and the streets are clear, I don't think it'll wreak any more havoc than what's already been wreaked."

"And I think it could be an uplifting experience for the city to have something exciting like that happen on top of this terrible hurricane," he said.

In Staten Island, Eddie Kleydman said the marathon wasn't important amid all the storm's devastation.

"Look at this," he said, motioning toward the huge piles of discarded furniture and household items that line his street. "Who cares about the marathon? We need garbage trucks, we need FEMA to act quicker. He's worried about the marathon; I'm worried about getting power."

At the midtown New Yorker Hotel, Gisela Clausen of Munich, Germany, told her fellow runners about the cancellation as they walked in.

"You don't understand. We spend a year on this. We don't eat what we want. We don't drink what we want. And we're on the streets for hours. We live for this marathon, but we understand," she said.

___

Associated Press writers Cara Anna, Verena Dobnik, Melissa Murphy, Christina Rexrode and Michael Rubinkam in New York contributed to this report.

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Second Illness Infects Meningitis Sufferers





Just when they might have thought they were in the clear, people recovering from meningitis in an outbreak caused by a contaminated steroid drug have been struck by a second illness.




The new problem, called an epidural abscess, is an infection near the spine at the site where the drug — contaminated by a fungus — was injected to treat back or neck pain. The abscesses are a localized infection, different from meningitis, which affects the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. But in some cases, an untreated abscess can cause meningitis. The abscesses have formed even while patients were taking powerful antifungal medicines, putting them back in the hospital for more treatment, often with surgery.


The problem has just begun to emerge, so far mostly in Michigan, which has had more people sickened by the drug — 112 out of 404 nationwide — than any other state.


“We’re hearing about it in Michigan and other locations as well,” said Dr. Tom M. Chiller, the deputy chief of the mycotic diseases branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We don’t have a good handle on how many people are coming back.”


He added, “We are just learning about this and trying to assess how best to manage these patients. They’re very complicated.”


In the last few days, about a third of the 53 patients treated for meningitis at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Mich., have returned with abscesses, said Dr. Lakshmi K. Halasyamani, the chief medical officer.


“This is a significant shift in the presentation of this fungal infection, and quite concerning,” she said. “An epidural abscess is very serious. It’s not something we expected.”


She and other experts said they were especially puzzled that the infections could occur even though patients were taking drugs that, at least in tests, appeared to work against the fungus causing the infection, a type of black mold called Exserohilum.


The main symptom is severe pain near the injection site. But the abscesses are internal, with no visible signs on the skin, so it takes an M.R.I. scan to make the diagnosis. Some patients have more than one abscess. In some cases, the infection can be drained or cleaned out by a neurosurgeon.


But sometimes fungal strands and abnormal tissue are wrapped around nerves and cannot be surgically removed, said Dr. Carol A. Kauffman, an expert on fungal diseases at the University of Michigan. In such cases, all doctors can do is give a combination of antifungal drugs and hope for the best. They have very little experience with this type of infection.


Some patients have had epidural abscesses without meningitis; St. Joseph Mercy Hospital has had 34 such cases.


A spokesman for the health department in Tennessee, which has had 78 meningitis cases, said that a few cases of epidural abscess had also occurred there, and that the state was trying to assess the extent of the problem.


Dr. Chiller said doctors were also reporting that some patients exposed to the tainted drug had arachnoiditis, a nerve inflammation near the spine that can cause intense pain, bladder problems and numbness.


“Unfortunately, we know from the rare cases of fungal meningitis that occur, that you can have complicated courses for this disease, and it requires prolonged therapy and can have some devastating consequences,” he said.


The meningitis outbreak, first recognized in late September, is one of the worst public health disasters ever caused by a contaminated drug. So far, 29 people have died, often from strokes caused by the infection. The case count is continuing to rise. The drug was a steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, made by the New England Compounding Center in Framingham, Mass. Three contaminated lots of the drug, more than 17,000 vials, were shipped around the country, and about 14,000 people were injected with the drug, mostly for neck and back pain. But some received injections for arthritic joints and have developed joint infections.


Inspections of the compounding center have revealed extensive contamination. It has been shut down, as has another Massachusetts company, Ameridose, with some of the same owners. Both companies have had their products recalled.


Compounding pharmacies, which mix their own drugs, have had little regulation from either states or the federal government, and several others have been shut down recently after inspections found sanitation problems.


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