Petraeus: 'I Screwed Up Royally'

Disgraced CIA chief David Petraeus admitted he “screwed up royally” in a letter he sent to a friend following the revelation of his affair with his biographer.

“I paid the price (appropriately) and I sought to do the right thing at the end of the day,” Petraues said in the letter to retired Brig. Gen. James Shelton, the MailOnline website reports.

“Team Petraeus will survive though have obviously created enormous difficulty for us,” he added, adding that his wife Holly is “once again demonstrating how incredibly fortunate I was to marry her.”

Alert: Hurricane Proves You Need Emergency Radio, Save $25

Petraeus resigned from his post as director of the CIA earlier this month after his affair with biographer Paula Broadwell were revealed. He had previously commanded U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

MailOnline said the letter was sent to Shelton, a friend of three decades, on Nov. 20, 11 days after Petraeus stepped down from his CIA role.

Shelton blamed Broadwell for the affair in an interview with the website, saying Petraeus “was the innocent one when it came to relationships.”

“Paula was more savvy than Dave about the nature of the things that they got involved with,” Shelton said.

“She was a beautiful woman, very intelligent and if David would say something she would know what he was talking about. They were both West Point Academy graduates, that’s what put them together. She had a lot of the qualities that he had.

“She’s also a savvy woman. She’s not a kid. In a lot of ways I think she knows more about the world than Dave — I’m talking about sex.

“I don’t think Dave ever thought about that too much, he only thought about the Army and gave it everything he had.”

Alert: Hurricane Proves You Need Emergency Radio, Save $25