Posted on 12/24/2005 3:18:34 PM PST by pittsburgh gop guy
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The former top aide to then-secretary of state Colin Powell has reportedly emerged as an increasingly high-profile and vocal critic of US administration policy at home and abroad.
Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Powell's chief-of-staff, "says his decision to speak in the open about the policy wars of the first Bush term was slow in coming, but a major factor was the revelations about Abu Ghraib, which he said he realized ... had resulted from decisions on prisoner treatment and intelligence set shortly after September 11, 2001," the New York Times reported.
"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," the paper recalled Wilkerson saying in a speech at the New America Foundation in October.
"And you've got a president who is not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either," he added, according to the Times.
The report said Wilkerson has been "assailing the president as amateurish, especially compared to the first President Bush, and describing the administration as secretive, inept and courting disaster at home and abroad. Nor has he spared his former boss, who he says was overly preoccupied with 'damage control' for policies set by others."
A retired Army colonel, Wilkerson "has also attacked the Bush administration for allegedly condoning torture and setting lax policies on treatment of detainees that led, he charges, to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and the black eye they gave to the United States Army," the report said.
Though Powell has kept mum about his former aide, "he has let it be known through friends that he objects to the charges, especially the suggestion that he was overly loyal to President Bush," the report said.
"It's very painful for me," Wilkerson told the daily. "I've lost a friend of 16 years. I won't say I've lost him, but the estrangement is palpable." One e-mail message the Times said he says he received from Powell grumbled: "Don't characterize my loyalty."
Wilkerson argues that Powell won key policy battles in making sure that the issue of Iraq was taken to the United Nations and in battling Rumsfeld and Cheney for the cause of improving relations with Europe, encouraging negotiations with North Korea and Iraq, and avoiding confrontations with Russia and China, the report said.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1536332/posts
More evidence the MSM will run with anything that is anti-W.
Who the hell makes the choice of what articles are featured in Yahoo In the News?
And I love this comment: "And you've got a president who is not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either," - yeah, ever hear of Bill Clinton, oh, I forgot his foreign policy expertise of leading anti-American rallies in foreign countries.
I heard that Clinton had a flair for French and Greek...or maybe that was Barney Frank. I get them confused.
Larry's getting snippy again. Working up a bio to attract moonbat speakers' fees or is it that Plame thingy?
That damed cabal again. You'd think they were elected or something.
If there is anything new here it's Powell distancing himself from Wilkenson.
In the RATs zeal to retake the house in '06 we are going to see more and more of this as the year goes by, until late summer the RATs and the MSM will be at a fever pitch. They are going to draft articles of impeachment and actually use them in their summer '06 campaign - "A vote for the RAT party will get Bush out of the WH". That is all they have - they have no agenda other than to take the house and impeach that evil Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rove.
In other words, you keep publishing stories about his opinions.
What the heck does "reportedly emerged" mean?
I am a little behind in my wacko conspiracy speak. Is cabal code for jooooos, the CFR these days?
...the New York Times reported.
...the paper recalled Wilkerson saying in a speech at the New America Foundation in October.
...according to the Times.
...the report said. [#1]
...the report said. [#2]
...the report said. [#3]
Perhaps the RAT sheeple have such short attentions spans that they need to be constantly reminded why they are so miserable?
I think readers need to know whether Wilkerson, is perhaps one of the leaks.
He's totally in bed with the media, hates Bush, and is quoted about every 2 months this way. It's either Bolton, or Cheney, or cabal this, or whatever.
I wouldn't be surprized if he was the original Plame leak. Heck, he might even be leaking other stuff. Definately A-list on the MSM Bush-bashing media quote rotations, anyway.
Always keep this in mind:
William Tecumseh Sherman
"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."
Just more evidence that the State Department is a Rogue agency. They need a knot jerked in them real bad.
"If there is anything new here it's Powell distancing himself from Wilkenson"
Yeah - don't you think that would be the headline? No? Instead they go with an anti-W headline...
Horrific. How dare they. Sounds like the ultimate CYA guy. Good thing he wasn't out there commanding troops where he probably would have got a lot killed while deliberating what was the PC thing to do.
Ol' Lar seems to be closely allied with Wilson/Plame and the CIA 'cabal'.
He also evidently suffers from LOAS (Lack of Attention Syndrome), a condition which can only be treated by SOV therapy (Sound of Own Voice).
If I were conducting an investigation into the activities of this group, I would be careful to attend every public appearance by Messrs. Wilson and Wilkinson...and just listen to them talk.
It'd take a man with a strong stomach to sit through that :-)
Seriesly, good thought. There are also a lot of Wilson TV appearance transcripts that could probably be dug up. I have a few I've been meaning to post.
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