âWhat 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."
âNow it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.â http://news.ft.com/cms/s/afdb7b0c-40f3-11da-b3f9-00000e2511c8,ft_acl=,s01=1.html âCheney cabal hijacked US foreign policyâ 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: âWhat 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. âNow it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.â > 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. âIf 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.â 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. âHe'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: â The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was âa concrete exampleâ of the decision-making problem, with the president and other top officials in effect giving the green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. âYou don't have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you've condoned it.â â Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser and now secretary of state, was âpart of the problemâ. Instead of ensuring that Mr Bush received the best possible advice, âshe would side with the president to build her intimacy with the presidentâ. â The military, particularly the army and marine corps, is overstretched and demoralised. Officers, Mr Wilkerson claimed, âstart voting with their feet, as they did in Vietnam. . . and all of a sudden your military begins to unravelâ. Mr Wilkerson said former president George H.W. Bush âone of the finest presidents we have ever hadâ understood how to make foreign policy work. In contrast, he said, his son was ânot versed in international relations and not too much interested in them eitherâ. âThere'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.â ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Get fast access to your favorite Yahoo! Groups. Make Yahoo! your home page http://us.click.yahoo.com/dpRU5A/wUILAA/yQLSAA/TySplB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. 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