Top U.S. General Is Ensnared in Petraeus Inquiry

The New York Times's Eric Schmitt and Elisabeth Bumiller reported on the widening Petraeus scandal that threatens to tarnish the reputation of Gen. John R. Allen, the top American commander in Afghanistan. The general is under investigation for what the Pentagon called “inappropriate communication” with Jill Kelley, the woman who was seen by Paula Broadwell, Mr. Petraeus's lover, as a rival for his attentions and whose complaint to the F.B.I. set off the inquiry.

“Associates of General Allen said Tuesday that the e-mails were innocuous. Some of them used terms of endearment, but not in a flirtatious way,” they wrote.

A senior Defense Department official told Ms. Bumiller that General Allen had denied having an extramarital affair with Ms. Kelley, and Jay Carney, the White House spokesman, said in a news conference on Tuesday that President Obama still “ha s faith” in the general.

At the request of Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, General Allen's nomination to be the supreme allied commander in Europe has been delayed until the outcome of the investigation.

The New York Times's Scott Shane wrote about the “hazards of the Web as record-keeper.”

“The events of the last few days have shown how law enforcement investigators who plunge into the private territories of cyberspace looking for one thing can find something else altogether, with astonishingly destructive results,” Mr. Shane wrote.