Posted on 10/20/2005 3:58:37 AM PDT by governsleastgovernsbest
>By Edward Alden in Washington >Published: October 20 2005 00:00 | Last updated: October 20 2005 00:19 >>
Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.
In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.
“Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.”
> Transcript: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson >Click here > Mr Wilkerson said such secret decision-making was responsible for mistakes such as the long refusal to engage with North Korea or to back European efforts on Iran.
It also resulted in bitter battles in the administration among those excluded from the decisions.
“If you're not prepared to stop the feuding elements in the bureaucracy as they carry out your decisions, you are courting disaster. And I would say that we have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran.”
The comments, made at the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, were the harshest attack on the administration by a former senior official since criticisms by Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism czar, and Paul O'Neill, former Treasury secretary, early last year.
Mr Wilkerson said his decision to go public had led to a personal falling out with Mr Powell, whom he served for 16 years at the Pentagon and the State Department.
“He's not happy with my speaking out because, and I admire this in him, he is the world's most loyal soldier."
Among his other charges:
■ The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was “a concrete example” of the decision-making problem, with the president and other top officials in effect giving the green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. “You don't have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you've condoned it.”
■ Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser and now secretary of state, was “part of the problem”. Instead of ensuring that Mr Bush received the best possible advice, “she would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president”.
■ The military, particularly the army and marine corps, is overstretched and demoralised. Officers, Mr Wilkerson claimed, “start voting with their feet, as they did in Vietnam. . . and all of a sudden your military begins to unravel”.
Mr Wilkerson said former president George H.W. Bush “one of the finest presidents we have ever had” understood how to make foreign policy work. In contrast, he said, his son was “not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either”.
“There's a vast difference between the way George H.W. Bush dealt with major challenges, some of the greatest challenges at the end of the 20th century, and effected positive results in my view, and the way we conduct diplomacy today.”
www.newamerica.net
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GHWB believed in multilaterism, the UN, the good-old boy network, personal friendships, yada yada. In this aspect, not much difference between him and John F'in Kerry
http://www.unc.edu/depts/diplomat/archives_roll/2003_07-09/gingrich_reform/gingrich_reform.html
Long but good read..
Out of Sync
snip
Some critics, including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and former Republican Rep. Jack Kemp of New York, have taken me to task for my remarks at the American Enterprise Institute on April 22, 2003, where I argued that the State Department was engaging in a “deliberate and systematic effort” to undermine Bush’s foreign policy. Yet that charge has proved true historically, and additional examples have emerged even since the speech.
Only six days following my remarks, Bush made the following statement to a group of Iraqi Americans in Dearborn, Michigan: “I have confidence in the future of a free Iraq. The Iraqi people are fully capable of self-government.” He also told them that “You are living proof the Iraqi people love freedom and living proof the Iraqi people can flourish in democracy. People who live in Iraq deserve the same freedom that you and I enjoy here in America.”
Contrast that vision with a recent classified report by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research titled “Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes,” which was leaked in March 2003 to the Los Angeles Times. As reported by that newspaper, the document stated that “liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve [in Iraq] . . . Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements.” And according to an anonymous intelligence source interviewed by the newspaper, the thrust of the report argued that “this idea that you’re going to transform the Middle East and fundamentally alter its trajectory is not credible.”
snip
I take it this man is retired military..... Notice how they refer to him as Colonel to project moral authority over the military matters and omit it for Powell rank even though he was the Chairman JCS.
With an officer core as honorable as the KGB, there is no doubt taking care of the presidents business was the last thing on his agenda. He and weasly clark should be ashamed, I always thought you should be working for the commander or get out.
Anyone catch what's wrong with this? Sounds like a good way to proceed to me! ;-)
Lawrence Wilkerson...this is the bum that was at the foundation of the 'Bolton is too tough on his peers' crowd.
Interesting to note, however, that everyone that he complains about are still in their jobs (except Powell) and he's long gone.
What a complete joke. Colin Powell never had his hands around all the liberals and back stabbers at the State Dept. from day one until he stepped down. First you have to control your people, and then you worry about what others in the Administration might be doing.
The dynamics reported between senior staff members is typical in the executive level of any large organization. The only thing different here is that the office politics are being played out in the MSM.
Yawn.
You mean whine.
Just what we need - traitors in the ranks of the President's men. Oh, but wait, when one works for the Sec of State - Powell - we must remember that it is Powell who counts - his wishes, feelings, etc. The President doesn't matter. He is just some guy in a suit who lives in the White House.
"Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus"
And thank God they did since Powell was determined to do nothing to offend The French and Germans who were obviously on the take from Sadam.
Lynne Cheney was on FNC yesterday or the day before and indicated that her husband was rooting for the Astros. Last night we saw that the St. Louis Cardinals took the hint. Some people know better than to cross Dick Cheney.
Sounds like there are unhappy campers at both State and CIA. What these people need to realize is that there is a lot more at stake in American foreign policy than their career futures.
True, but it's still not good.
And, of course, the invasion of Afghanistan was for the purpose of allowing -
The cabal of kabbalists to meet in Kabul.
I thought he was at the time but have since determined that he was not the right man for the call to war re our so-called allies after 9/11. He is a good and decent man and I am sorry to see him giving interviews/statements to the press.....the msm will use him badly.
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