PoliticsPaula Broadwelljill kelleyPolitics

David Petraeus Letter To Friend: 'I Screwed Up Royally'

Petreaus: 'I Screwed Up'
Paige Lavender
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Senior Editor, Breaking News, HuffPost

FILE - This Feb. 2, 2012 file photo shows CIA Director David Petraeus testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington. When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta pointedly warned young troops last spring to mind their ways, he may have been lecturing the wrong audience. The culture of military misconduct starts at the top. At least five current and former U.S. general officers have been reprimanded or investigated for possible misconduct in the past two weeks _ a startling run of embarrassment for a military whose stock among Americans rose so high during a decade of war that its leaders seemed almost untouchable. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
FILE - This Feb. 2, 2012 file photo shows CIA Director David Petraeus testifying on Capitol Hill in Washington. When Defense Secretary Leon Panetta pointedly warned young troops last spring to mind their ways, he may have been lecturing the wrong audience. The culture of military misconduct starts at the top. At least five current and former U.S. general officers have been reprimanded or investigated for possible misconduct in the past two weeks _ a startling run of embarrassment for a military whose stock among Americans rose so high during a decade of war that its leaders seemed almost untouchable. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

Ex-CIA chief David Petraeus admitted he "screwed up royally" in a letter to a friend, the New York Post reports.

“I paid the price (appropriately) and I sought to do the right thing at the end of the day,” Petraeus wrote to retired Brig. Gen. James Shelton.

Petraeus also reportedly addressed his wife Holly in the letter, written November 20.

“Team Petraeus will survive though [I] have obviously created enormous difficulty for us," Petraeus wrote. "Holly is, however, once again demonstrating how incredibly fortunate I was to marry her.”

Shelton dismissed the scandal to the Post, blaming it on Petraeus' "Achilles' heel."

“He's a man, and all men have an Achilles' heel,” Shelton said.

Television evangelist Pat Robertson expressed the same view weeks before on his show, "The 700 Club."

"Who knows?" Robertson said. "The man's off in a foreign land and he's lonely and here's a good looking lady throwing herself at him. I mean, he's a man."

Petraeus resigned in early November after admitting to an extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.

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