Algeria, Mali deny Panetta a quiet exit

— Leon Panetta’s final week-long trip to the old capitals of Europe initially had the feel of a valedictory lap, one that would nurture the trans-Atlantic alliance and give him the chance to dine in the Italy of his heritage. His staff had to insist it was not a junket.

But by the time Panetta, the defense secretary, arrived in Rome on Wednesday, news had broken about the hostage-taking in Algeria as Pentagon officials, frustrated and alarmed, scrambled to get basic information out of Algiers.

Panetta learned of the seizure of the Algerian gas facility after a meeting Wednesday afternoon with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. He declared it a “terrorist act,” cut short a dinner that night with the Italian defense minister and was up until midnight in his hotel room in briefings.

By Thursday, he was overseeing plans to deploy U.S. military cargo planes to ferry French troops and equipment to Mali, where the government of neighboring Algeria said France’s armed intervention was the cause of the abductions.

On Friday, he trundled into a hastily scheduled meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain as snow fell outside 10 Downing St. “Let’s start with Algeria,” Cameron said.

Earlier, Panetta inserted language into a set-piece speech on the U.S.’ relationship with Europe, telling students at King’s College London that “terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere.”

But the reality is that pursuing those terrorists and any others is now to be the job of the next defense secretary.Chuck Hagel, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the post, is encamped down the corridor from Panetta’s Pentagon office, preparing for his Jan. 31 confirmation hearings. If Hagel, 66, is confirmed, Panetta is likely to exit in mid-February, leaving a NATO meeting later that month in Brussels to his successor.

“The time has come for me to go home,” Panetta told the students in London.

Panetta’s aides say that after nearly a half-century in public service, starting as a first lieutenant in the Army in 1964, Panetta, 74, is more than ready to retire to his walnut farm in Carmel Valley, Calif. There, he will help his wife, Sylvia, run the Panetta Institute, a public policy organization they founded nearby that works to draw students into public service.

He is also likely to make money: In 2008, the year before he became director of the CIA, government disclosure forms show that he made more than $1 million speaking, consulting and serving on corporate boards.

Since becoming CIA director in 2009 and then starting as defense secretary in July 2011, Panetta has commuted nearly every weekend to his home in California.

Aides say he would have preferred to retire after his time at the spy agency and to have had the CIA-run raid that killed Osama bin Laden be the final act of a long career. But the White House persuaded him to take over the Pentagon after Robert Gates retired as defense secretary in June 2011.

Front Section, Pages 2 on 01/21/2013

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