David Petraeus, Central Command Chief: General Tapped For New Position

*** UPDATES BELOW ***

The Associated Press is reporting that Gen. David Petraeus has been nominated as the next Chief of Cental Command for the United States:

Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday.

Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Petraeus will be replacing Adm. William Fallon, who resigned last month after Esquire reported that he was at odds with President Bush over Iran policy. Fallon denied the substance of the report, but said it had become a distraction to his job. Read HuffPost's full coverage of William Fallon's resignation.

Former intelligence analyst William Arkin noted the role that Petraeus likely played in Fallon's resignation:

The man most responsible for the departure of Fallon is Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, the savior of the war and the Bush administration with the surge, the counter-insurgency genius, the Washington-savvy Princeton grad, and a pretty boy called "King David" by many. His boss in the military is Fallon, commander of the Central Command, but from day one of his assignment to Iraq, Petraeus reported directly to the White House, thus circumventing the chain of command and virtually ignoring the views of his superior officer.

As my friend Fred Kaplan reports in Slate: "It is well-known that Fallon has long been at odds with Gen. David Petraeus.... I have heard from several sources that the two men dislike each other and that their disagreements have been tense, sometimes fierce."

Read about Petraeus' replacement, Gen. Ray Odierno.

UPDATE: Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid has issued the following statement:

"The next CENTCOM commander and field commander in Iraq will have to help the next President with a number of critically important challenges: making America more secure, restoring America's power and influence in the world, fixing our costly strategy in Iraq, and articulating a more effective strategy for winning in Afghanistan and defeating Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

"Our ground forces' readiness and the battles in Afghanistan and against al Qaeda in Pakistan have suffered as a result of the current costly Iraq strategy. These challenges will require fresh, independent and creative thinking and, if directed to by a new President, a commitment to implementing major changes in strategy.

"The Senate will carefully examine these nominations and I will be looking for credible assurances of a strong commitment to implementing a more effective national security strategy."