USA — Petraeus Blames Dehydration for Temporary Illness

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2010 — Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, com­man­der of U.S. Cen­tral Com­mand, blamed dehy­dra­tion for caus­ing him to take ill this morn­ing dur­ing a Sen­ate hear­ing.

Petraeus and Michele Flournoy, under­sec­re­tary of defense for pol­i­cy, were tes­ti­fy­ing before the Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee about mil­i­tary oper­a­tions in Afghanistan when he sud­den­ly became light­head­ed and had to be ush­ered from the hear­ing room. 

Petraeus returned about a half hour lat­er, telling the sen­a­tors he felt bet­ter after drink­ing sev­er­al glass­es of water and eat­ing a banana. “I was just dehy­drat­ed,” he said, jok­ing that his tem­po­rary ill­ness had noth­ing to do with the sen­a­tors’ questioning. 

Although Petraeus offered to con­tin­ue the ses­sion, the hear­ing was can­celled for the day and resched­uled for tomorrow. 

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)