Posted on 10/20/2005 6:46:14 PM PDT by blam
Cowboy president is courting disaster, says Powell's man
By Francis Harris
(Filed: 21/10/2005)
Colin Powell's right-hand man has launched a blistering attack on the White House, describing President George W Bush as "cowboyish", his secretary of state Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak" and American foreign policy as "courting disaster".
The attack came from Col Larry Wilkerson, who for four years was Mr Powell's chief of staff at the state department during the first Bush administration.
In a sometimes savagely phrased speech at a Washington think-tank, the former US marine said that the Bush team had so damaged the country's foreign policy machine that he was "not sure that the state department even exists any more".
The result was that America's relations with the world had taken a pounding. Asked about the efforts by Mr Bush's key aide Karen Hughes to sell America to the Muslim world he said: "It's hard to sell shit." In remarks quoted by the Washington Post, Col Wilkerson said: "If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences."
The speech lifted the lid on the disagreements that were hinted at but rarely admitted for most of the first Bush term.
Mr Powell was known to feel that he was cut out of foreign policy-making by the vice-president, Dick Cheney, and the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.
Col Wilkerson said that had damaged America's foreign policy. "What I saw was a cabal," he said. Bypassing the state department, America had "courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran".
He added: "You've got a president who is not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either."
Sounds like sour grapes to me:
Cheney 'cabal' hijacked US foreign policy
By Edward Alden in Washington
Published: October 20 2005 00:00 | Last updated: October 20 2005 00:19
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/afdb7b0c-40f3-11da-b3f9-00000e2511c8.html
Dick Cheney
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.”
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.”
How totally tacky!!
Castor oil.
LOL!
Well, for five years, I've been hearing all about how Bush "should have gotten rid" of these people.
And I've yet to hear anybody say HOW he could do it.
The State Department, Department of Education, and the Department of the Interior, America's internal axis of no good.
As an afterthought: perhaps this should be posted alongside Congressman Weldon's speech on the Able Danger coverup.
The State Department, Department of Education, and the Department of the Interior, America's internal axis of no good.
------
Washington is totally out of control.
Reorganize and abolish their job...and it would not be hard weeding out the fat in Washington.
Making their life miserable and pushing through the NSPS system will soon eliminate the automatic pay raises and bonuses.
The deadwood will soon depart. There are many young stars waiting in the wings -- stymied in part by a few diehards.
Government is headed for Performance based pay system, and it is none to soon.
Ashcroft tried that; even tried moving some of them laterally. CONGRESS wouldn't let them.
Making their life miserable
"Bush Administration Punishes Those Who Disagee With Them."
Apparently the article is wrong (what a surprise). According to his bio, Wilkerson was in the Army, not Marine Corps (thank God).
Semper fi!
Larry Wilkerson Quote:
[Regarding sanctions on Cuba] “Dumbest policy on the face of the earth. It's crazy.” [Gentlemen's Quarterly (GQ), 4/29/2004]
"I call them utopians," explained Wilkerson of the war party seeking a mini-America in the Middle East. "I don't care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin on a sealed train to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz. Utopians, I don't like. You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process of trying to do it."
Wilkerson previously told reporters that Bolton would make an "abyssmal" UN Ambassador.
Thursday, 6 May, 2004
Wilkerson said the Secretary of State had spent much of his time doing damage control around the world for the actions of his colleagues.
Mr Wilkerson attacked those he said were making cavalier decisions about sending men and women out to die.
He compared the Deputy Defence Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, to the Russian revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin, describing them both as Utopians.
"When all you use is a stick," he pointed out, "you're not going to get too far."
On the US policy towards Cuba, it was the "dumbest policy on the face of the earth," he said. "It's crazy."
As to his boss, Mr Wilkerson said Colin Powell was mentally and physically tired.
He said he was unlikely to serve out a second term if President Bush was re-elected.
May 12, 2005
Secretary of State Powell's Chief of Staff Larry Wilkerson, who told the Committee staff, "when people ignore diplomacy that is aimed at dealing with that [referring to North Korea's nuclear weapons development] problem in order to push their pet rocks in other areas, it bothers me, as a diplomat, and as a citizen of this country." When asked specifically if he thought that Mr. Bolton had done that, Wilkerson said, "Absolutely." Mr. Wilkerson ended his interview with the Committee with the following:
I don't have a large problem with Under Secretary Bolton serving our country. My objections to what we've been talking about here -- that is, him being our ambassador at the United Nations -- stem from two basic things. One, I think he's a lousy leader. And there are 100 to 150 people up there that have to be led; they have to be led well, and they have to be led properly. And I think, in that capacity, if he goes up there, you'll see the proof of the pudding in a year. Second, I differ from a lot of people in Washington, both friend and foe of Under Secretary Bolton, as to his, quote, "brilliance," unquote. I didn't see it. I saw a man who counted beans, who said, "98 today, 99 tomorrow, 100 the next day," and had no willingness -- and, in many cases, no capacity -- to understand the other things that were happening around those beans. And that is just a recipe for problems at the United Nations. And that's the only reason that I said anything."
Or consider the unnamed State Department official who recently told Newsweek that in November 2003, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw had complained personally to Mr. Powell that his Undersecretary was taking too tough a line on Iran's nuclear weapons program. "Get a different view of [the Iranian problem]," Mr. Powell is reported to have told the aide. "Bolton is being too tough." Remember that at the time, Britain, along with France and Germany, had recently negotiated a nuclear-freeze deal with Iran, a deal Iran violated within months. (For the record, Mr. Straw denies Newsweek's report.)
May 2001
Thomas White, expected to bring a new style of management to the Pentagon.
Retired Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, a recent appointee to the policy and planning staff of the secretary of state, served with White at the Pentagon in 1989 and 1990. According to Wilkerson, White was “one of the finest armored commanders the Army had at the time.” Noting that White commanded the armored cavalry for Powell’s team during the Gulf War, Wilkerson said White is a “fantastic gentleman, very plain-spoken and a very optimistic and confident guy. Of all the people at the joint chiefs, on staff at the time, White was head-and-shoulders above the rest.”
At Enron, White helped bring the energy industry into the 21st century, Wilkerson said.
The NYT has more on Bolton's bizarre fixation with ElBaradei, as witnessed by Powell's chief of staff Larry Wilkerson:
Mr. Wilkerson said that Mr. Bolton had been a major cause of tension and resentment at the highest levels of the State Department because of his temperament, his treatment of subordinates and the fact that he had "overstepped his bounds" on a number of occasions, including what Mr. Wilkerson called "his moves and gyrations" aimed at preventing Mohamed ElBaradei from being reappointed as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear monitoring body.
"Now, what do I mean by that?" Mr. Wilkerson said. "I mean, going out of his way to bad-mouth him, to make sure that everybody knew that the maximum power of the United States would be brought to bear against them if he were brought back in," Mr. Wilkerson said of Mr. Bolton's approach to Dr. ElBaradei.
George H W Bush may have known how to make foreign policy work...but, if he had taken Saddam out, perhaps his son wouldn't have had to..
Answers that question.
This guy calls Bush's foreign policy "shit". I guess he longs for the days when Clinton was President and our foreign policy consisted of accepting campaign funds from the People's Republic of China, inviting their nuclear war ships into San Francisco bay for six weeks, turning over operation of the Panama Canal to them, selling them sophisticated satellite and guidance technology (closing their 10 year technology gap to almost nothing) and pushing for America to be bound by international treaties and accept international laws as our own in direct conflict with our own national interest. This guy has a degree in International what?
Nuclear forecast
Amid the Bush administration's tough talk toward North Korea, a new fear is emerging: Could Pyongyang test a nuclear weapon this year? Some insiders think so. "Knowing Kim Jong Il 's track record for brinksmanship, I'd bet on it," says Larry Wilkerson , who worked the North Korea issue as former Secretary of State Colin Powell 's chief of staff. "If we don't resume negotiations, I'd give it a 70-30 chance." The CIA is not predicting anything imminent. But then again, it missed India's nuke test in 1998. "The only thing that would preclude this," says Wilkerson, "is if they don't have a bomb."
Impressed by his military credentials...but something funny happens when joining the State Dep't. National interests get supplanted by a love for international law, Blame America First, and the desire to be loved by the MSM.
Larry Wilkerson, long-time chief of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who called Katrina a "crucial insight" into the likely aftermath of a large-scale terrorist attack. "It's also given high visibility to a department of over 70,000 individuals (Homeland Security) that in my view is dysfunctional," he said.
Larry Wilkerson, claims to have had a falling out with him (Powell) over his unwillingess to go public about the neocon "cabal".
Powell’s chief of staff Larry Wilkerson says the US sanctions policy against countries such as Pakistan and Cuba is "the dumbest policy on the face of the Earth".
As Colin Powell's right-hand man at the State Department, Larry Wilkerson seethed quietly during President Bush's first term. Yesterday, Colonel Wilkerson made up for lost time.
He said the vice president and the secretary of defense created a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal" that hijacked U.S. foreign policy. He said of former defense undersecretary Douglas Feith: "Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man." Addressing scholars, journalists and others at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson accused Bush of "cowboyism" and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak." Of American diplomacy, he fretted, "I'm not sure the State Department even exists anymore."
And how about Karen Hughes's efforts to boost the country's image abroad? "It's hard to sell [manure]," Wilkerson said, quoting an Egyptian friend.
"If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences."
A 31-year military veteran and former director of the Marine Corps War College, he worked for Powell in the public and private sectors for much of the past 16 years, and he was often described by colleagues as the man who would say what Powell was thinking but was too discreet to say.
" If there is a nuclear terrorist attack or a major pandemic, Wilkerson continued, "you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that'll take you back to the Declaration of Independence."
He blamed Rice for dropping her role as honest broker to "build her intimacy with the president." And he blamed whoever gave Feith "carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw itself."
He said top officials "condoned" prisoner abuse and left the Army "truly in bad shape."
"You and I and every other citizen like us is paying the consequences," he said, "whether it was a response to Katrina that was less than adequate certainly, or the situation in Iraq which still goes unexplained."
******
New America Foundation
Transcript: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
http://tinyurl.com/bb6v6
******
New America Foundation Board of Directors
James Fallows
Chairman, New America Foundation
James Fallows, founding Chairman of New America’s Board of Directors, is a highly acclaimed author, journalist, editor, and media commentator. Currently a National Correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly and formerly Editor of U.S. News & World Report, Mr. Fallows is also well known to National Public Radio listeners through his weekly commentaries on Morning Edition.
Ted Halstead
Founding President & CEO, New America Foundation
Ted Halstead, founding President and CEO of the New America Foundation, is a frequent public speaker and media commentator, having appeared as a guest on Nightline, ABC's World News Tonight, CNN, CNBC, C-SPAN, and PBS. He has published broadly, including two cover stories in The Atlantic Monthly, and numerous opinion articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. He is co-author with Michael Lind of The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics. Previously, Mr. Halstead was Executive Director of Redefining Progress, another public policy institute that he founded to promote new approaches to economic and environmental policy. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Dartmouth College, and received his Master's degree from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
Eric Schmidt
As Chairman & CEO of Google, Dr. Eric Schmidt is responsible for the overall strategy and direction of the world’s largest search engine. Prior to joining Google in August 2001, Dr. Schmidt was Chairman & CEO of Novell, Inc. and from 1983-1997 was Chief Technology Officer at Sun Microsystems, where he earned international recognition as an Internet pioneer. He was also instrumental in the development and widespread acceptance of Java – Sun’s programming language. Dr. Schmidt, who regularly participates in the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has long been interested in public policy matters. He holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.
Bernard L. Schwartz
Bernard L. Schwartz is Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Loral Space & Communications, Ltd., one of the world’s largest satellite manufacturing and satellite services companies. Prior to the company’s formation in 1996, he served for 24 years as Chairman of Loral Corporation. Mr. Schwartz is one of the nation’s leading philanthropists in the realms of medical research, higher education, foreign affairs, and public policy. In recent years, he has established endowed programs at the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, at the Graduate Faculty at the New School University, and at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is also a member of the founding committee of City Year New York.
Anne-Marie Slaughter
Anne-Marie Slaughter is Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Prior to that, Dr. Slaughter was a professor at Harvard Law School and its Director of Graduate and International Legal Studies. She writes regularly on law and international relations for Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Financial Times. She is the President of the American Society of International Law, and in 2000 delivered a series of lectures as part of the Millennial Lectures at the Hague Academy of International Law. A graduate of Princeton University, she also holds an M.Phil. and a D.Phil. from Oxford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Laura D'Andrea Tyson
Laura D'Andrea Tyson was the first woman to hold the post of Chairperson of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and subsequently that of National Economic Adviser to the President. Currently Dean of the London Business School, Dr. Tyson was previously Dean of the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, prior to which she was Professor of Economics and Business Administration at the University of California. An international authority on US competitiveness, high-tech industries, trade policy, and US-Japan economic relations, Ms. Tyson is known for focusing on "real world" economic problems that confront the nation and its international trading partners. She has published widely, including a book entitled, Who's Bashing Whom? Trade Conflicts in High-Tech Industries.
Christine Todd Whitman
Christine Todd Whitman was the first woman elected governor of New Jersey, serving two terms, from 1993 to 2000. While governor, she was instrumental in bringing about educational, environmental, and insurance reforms. Governor Whitman also served in the cabinet of George W. Bush as EPA Administrator from January 2001 to May 2003. She is currently co-chair of the National Smart Growth Council, serves as presidential appointee to the Millennium Challenge Corp., serves on the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, and is President of the Whitman Strategy Group, an environmental consulting firm. Known as one of the leading moderates in the Republican party, Governor Whitman is author of the recently released book It's My Party Too: The Battle For the Heart of the GOP and the Future of America."
Fareed Zakaria
Fareed Zakaria is Editor of Newsweek International. He co-edited The American Encounter: The United States and the Making of the Modern World and is the author of From Wealth to Power: The Unusual Origins of America’s World Role. Dr. Zakaria writes frequently in such publications as Newsweek, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and is the recipient of several journalism awards. Prior to joining Newsweek International, Mr. Zakaria was Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs magazine. Before that, Mr. Zakaria ran the Project on the Changing Security Environment and American National Interests at Harvard University, where he also taught international relations and political philosophy. His most recent book, The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad, was published in 2003.
Steven Rattner
Steven Rattner is Founder and Managing Principal of Quadrangle Group, a private investment firm based in New York. Previously, Mr. Rattner was the Deputy Chairman and Deputy CEO at Lazard Freres, and before that an economic correspondent for The New York Times in New York, Washington, and London. He continues to write regularly on economics and public policy matters for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times. He is Chairman of the Educational Broadcast Corporation, Chairman of the Brown University Budget and Finance Committee, and a Trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Television and Radio, and the Brookings Institution. He graduated from Brown University.
Walter Russell Mead
Walter Mead is Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a political economist who studies the global economy and its impact on American policy and society. Mr. Mead is a Senior Contributing Editor at Worth, and a Contributing Editor at the Los Angeles Times. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, and Le Monde. The New York Times called his book Mortal Splendor: The American Empire in Transition “required reading for presidential candidates and their staffs.” His latest book, Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World, won the Gelber Prize, one of the most prestigious awards for foreign policy writing
Kati Marton
Author and journalist Kati Marton was born in Hungary and has spent two decades writing and reporting from the United States, Europe, and the Far East. Ms. Marton, who has received several prestigious honors and awards for her reporting, has published five books, and contributed as a reporter to numerous news organizations including ABC News, Public Broadcasting Services, National Public Radio, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Newsweek. From 1995-97, she hosted America and the World, a weekly broadcast on international affairs from NPR, produced by the Council on Foreign Relations. Ms. Marton is also a director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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