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.”
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Thank you for your opinions, Mr. Wilkerson. Now the news media will start reporting them as facts.
"If you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog." - Harry Truman
A cabal? Cheney and Bush were elected!!! Anonymous State Department careerists were NOT elected!!
This freak is basically saying that our elected officials had the temerity to override the entrenched, unelected bureaucracy. He's basically admitting that there was a cabal in the bureaucracy working at odds with our elected government, but he's calling the elected government the cabal. He sounds like a very dangerous man, the kind of man who would be in cahoots with Joseph Wilson.
If Wilkerson writes like he talks - see transcript - not even liberal publishers will touch it.
Excerpt: "In May 2003, after his mission to Niger BUT before his July 6, 2003, Times Op-Ed Piece, Mr. Wilson began working for Kerry......
Don't tell me that Wilson published that article without the Dems permission. He was "ordered" to publish it and the whole plot began. Kerry lived off of Wilson's Niger mission for quite a while.
Then Berger (also on Kerry's campaign) got caught. Berger was "fired" and within a few days, Wilson got fired.
P.S. If Wilson is going to sue the Whitehouse, he better think twice because his paychecks all comes from and go to the Dems.
There's another that that I remember. Hillary was asked about Berger. Because it was during the 9-11 Commission crapola, Hillary said: "The timing speaks for itself". She didn't answer the question!!
'Cabal'
This fool subscribes to the Al Franken/Michael Moore view of the world.
He forgot to call it "a neo-con cabal," and then drop names like Perle, Wolfowitz and Kristol. Tsk, tsk - Pat Buchanan doesn't make that mistake!
I wonder if Lawrence Wilkerson knows the fictional Terrance Wilkinson?
The link in post #50 goes to a July 8, 2003 post exposing a fictional source who claimed President Bush directly ordered intelligence be fixed.
The date of the original article was right around Joe Wilson's July 6, 2003 op-ed.
Secretary of State trumps Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff in rank. S of S is in line for succession to the Presidency. The C of JCS is not. So it is correct to refer to Powell as former S of S, rather than General (retd.) or C of JCS.
totally. sounds like another richard clarke, joe wilson, what's his name Snow and others.
when's tenents book coming out?
totally. sounds like another richard clarke, joe wilson, what's his name Snow and others.
when's tenents book coming out?
Absolutely...Wilson was not a one man show.
Hmmm, I guess now we know who the "leak" was..
I suspect that the source of the article was talking about how Rumsfeld and Cheney conspired to change all the toilet paper used in the White House and the Pentagon in order to save money, and how they circumnavigated the normal bureaucracy to save time.
You mean to tell me that executives made decisions without a vote from the working bureaucrats!
Why am I not astounded!
Then why in the hell has Bush not withdrawn form the UN?
I am highly critical of Bush's leftist moves, Miers, et al. but if Bush is so "uninterested" in international crap, then why has he kept the US in the corrupt, anti-American UN?
Why did he give $15 billion to Africa to maintain female genital mutilation and bad sex practices?
Why does he give billions to anti-American nations who then get it to corrupt dictators?
I differ greatly with the opinion of this guy. George Bush has played ass-kisser #1 to the UN and other international global welfare conduits. He has not showed that he is "uninterested" but quite the opposite--Bush has placed global welfare as a priority over the defense and security needs of our nation.
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