Posted on 11/29/2005 5:32:50 AM PST by ChuckShick
Col Wilkerson has been critical of Mr Cheney in the past A top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell has launched a stinging attack on US Vice-President Dick Cheney over abuse of prisoners by US troops. Col Lawrence Wilkerson accused Mr Cheney of ignoring a decision by President Bush on the treatment of prisoners in the war on terror.
Asked by the BBC's Today if Mr Cheney could be accused of war crimes, he said: "It's an interesting question."
"Certainly it is a domestic crime to advocate terror," he added.
"And I would suspect, for whatever it's worth, it's an international crime as well."
This is an extraordinary attack by a man who until earlier in the year was Mr Cheney's colleague in the senior reaches of the Bush team, the BBC's Justin Webb in Washington says.
Col Wilkerson has in the past accused the vice-president of responsibility for the conditions which led to the abuse of prisoners.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
Been thinking about this situation where someone almost daily makes an unfounded, bizarre, out of the blue claim of some kind of wrongdoing by the Administration. It is seeming that this is the modern day fate of a politician that will never again run for office. The power vested in Bush and his team by the people is gone. Even Republicans like McCain are putting wedges between Bush and his ability to accomplish anything.
Bush 43 is effectively over.
They finally caught him with the rubber hose.
Maybe he thought he saw Cheney shopping for panties at Harrods.
Rumsfeld and Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said they had no recollection of Wilkerson having attended meetings with Rumsfeld or Cheney.
"In terms of having first-hand information, I just can't imagine that he does," said Rumsfeld. "The allegation is ridiculous."
"I was in every meeting with the joint chiefs. I was in every meeting with the combatant commanders. I went to the White House multiple times to meet with the National Security Council and with the president of the United States. I have never seen that colonel," added Pace.
He is a pis*ed off 0-6 who was 2 pay grades above where he should have been and now he is playing the role of somebody who matters. Pathetic!
"BushCheneyRummy cabal co-opted our foreign policy away from the 'diplomats'? "
Wasn't that Colin Powell's chief of staf?
Do you know what it would do for morale if Mr. Cheney would abuse say this bin laden guy?
I mean whip him on the capital lawn and televise it.
Hell I'm talking pay per view.
"Do you know what it would do for morale if Mr. Cheney would abuse say this bin laden guy?
I mean whip him on the capital lawn and televise it.
Hell I'm talking pay per view."
LOL! I like the way you think. Hell I would even bring my teen daughters to see this.
Notice, too, that it continues to come from off-shore interviews.
Wilkerson is a coward if he doesn't have the balls to say it while standing on US soil.
I think his last speech was in Berzerkeley, another foreign terrortory.
This is the problem with "big tent" Republicans. Powell was the most liberal of the major cabinet secretaries. He brought with him like-minded functionaries. They worked to foster their own foreign policy objectives, not those of the President. Once out they trash the Administration conservatives.
His title is Vice President Cheney, not Mr Cheney. I'm also tired of the intentional disrespect to President Bush when the liberals call him Mr Bush.
Oh come on, we all know his name is Dick Cheney, former CEO of Halliburton. And President Bush is Bushitler. *sarcasm*
Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired) Larry Wilkerson joined General Colin L. Powell in March 1989 at the U.S. Army’s Forces Command in Atlanta, Georgia as his Deputy Executive Officer. He followed the General to his next position as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving as his special assistant. Upon Powell's retirement from active service in 1993, Colonel Wilkerson served as the Deputy Director and Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia. Upon Wilkerson’s retirement from active service in 1997, he began working for General Powell in a private capacity as a consultant and advisor.
In December 2000, Secretary of State-designate Powell asked Wilkerson to join him in the Transition Office at the U.S. State Department and, later, upon his confirmation as Secretary of State, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to his Policy Planning Staff with responsibilities for East Asia and the Pacific, and legislative and political-military affairs. In June of 2002, the Director for Policy Planning, Ambassador Richard Haass, made Wilkerson the associate director. In August of 2002, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to the position of Chief of Staff of the Department.
Wilkerson is a veteran of the Vietnam war as well as a U.S. Army “Pacific hand,” having served in Korea, Japan, and Hawaii and participated in military exercises throughout the Pacific. Moreover, Wilkerson was Executive Assistant to US Navy Admiral Stewart A. Ring, Director for Strategy and Policy (J5) USCINCPAC, from 1984-87. Wilkerson also served on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, RI and holds two advanced degrees, one in International Relations and the other in National Security Studies. He has written extensively on military and national security affairs–especially for college-level curricula--and been published in a number of professional journals, including the Naval Institute’s Proceedings, The Naval War College Review, Military Review, and Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ).
He supposedly resigned over the Iraq war and has been outspoken ever since. He has called Cheney "a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard" and accused him of war crimes. He accused Bush of 'cowboyism' and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as 'extremely weak. Three Washington Post articles are here and here and here, a BBC article is here Links to more articles can be found at this blog, where he was a suspect in the leaking of Plame's name, which he has since denied.
Here is a CNN transcript with Wilkerson. Rummy and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Peter Pace both indicated that they had never seen him before this interview.
IOW, he's a legend in his own mind.
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