Wilkerson Speaks

Mikaela says:
There is such an important article in today's Washington Post -- (tellingly buried in the "Style" section) about Larry Wilkerson, Col. Powell's former chief of staff, who recently lambasted the Bush administration in several interviews, most famously calling Cheney and Rumsfeld a "cabal" that hijacked the government.

What could his motives possibly be? Well, consider that he may be the finest patriot we are likely to see for years to come. If only if only if only there were more like him willing to tell the truth about the dangerous power brewing in Washington and spilling over into the blood of citizens in foreign countries across the globe (see Swiss investigation confirming secret CIA prisons).

Sorry for the long excerpting, but this shit is HISTORIC and VITAL information we should ALL KNOW and REMEMBER!!! (Order of quotes shifted for organization)

On the cabal:
Wilkerson calls Bush an unsophisticated leader who has been easily swayed by "messianic" neoconservatives and power-hungry, secretive schemers in the administration. In a landmark speech in October, Wilkerson 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."

...
Powell did address Wilkerson's central charge of secretive White House decision-making in an interview with the BBC in December. "I wouldn't characterize it the way Larry has, calling it a cabal," Powell said. "Now what Larry is suggesting in his comments is that very often maybe Mr. Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney would take decisions in to the president that the rest of us weren't aware of. That did happen, on a number of occasions."
...

On Iraq:
[Wilkerson] is particularly appalled by U.S. treatment of enemy detainees, counting at least 100 deaths in custody during the course of the war on terrorism -- 27 of them ruled homicides. "Murder is torture," he says. "It's not torture lite."
...

As for the invasion of Iraq? A blunder of historic proportions, he believes.

"This is really a very inept administration," says Wilkerson, who has credentials not only as an insider in the Bush I, Clinton and Bush II presidencies but also as a former professor at two of the nation's war colleges. "As a teacher who's studied every administration since 1945, I think this is probably the worst ineptitude in governance, decision-making and leadership I've seen in 50-plus years. You've got to go back and think about that. That includes the Bay of Pigs, that includes -- oh my God, Vietnam. That includes Iran-contra, Watergate."

...

"Here we are with a failure in Iraq, a massive failure. Not only an intelligence failure, but it looks like it's gonna be a real failure on the ground. How do you suddenly transform that? Well, you suddenly become a Jacobin yourself, you're suddenly for this messianic spread of freedom and democracy around the world. You're suddenly an advocate of all things that John F. Kennedy was an advocate of: 'We will bear any burden, pay any price.' You've discarded John Quincy Adams, who said we're the friends of liberty everywhere, the custodians only of our own. And you've suddenly said, 'I'm the custodian of the whole world's liberty, and by God if you don't realize it I'm going to bring it to you -- and if I have to bring it to you at the point of a gun, that's the way I'm going to bring it to you!' "
...

On Bush's Lying to Get Us into War (Using Powell to Do It):
Wilkerson won't say outright that he and Powell were deliberately snowed by intelligence reports tailored to fit a political push for war, but he has edged closer to that view, noting, "I've begun to wonder." It turns out that the administration relied on fabricators' claims about Hussein's illusory WMD programs and, in one case, an al Qaeda suspect whom the CIA turned over to alleged torturers in Egypt.

"I kick myself in the ass," Wilkerson says. "How did we ever get to that place?"

The speech tarnished Powell's gold-plated reputation, but he has never publicly pointed a finger at then-CIA Director George Tenet or the White House.

"Nothing was spun to me," Powell told David Frost in a BBC television interview last month. "What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced up to us."

Why didn't the doubts reach Powell? Perhaps because then he wouldn't have given the speech at all?

"That's right," Wilkerson says, shooting a hard, solemn stare across the restaurant table. "That's right."

He also says, "I am prepared to entertain the idea that they used him."
...

On Why He's Speaking Out & Why Others Aren't

"Combine the detainee abuse issue with the ineptitude of post-invasion planning for Iraq, wrap both in this blanket of secretive decision-making . . . and you get the overall reason for my speaking out," Wilkerson says.

"It never became personal for Powell, because he believed in the process," says Robert Charles, a former assistant secretary of state who worked with both men. "I believe it was harder for Larry, because he felt such great empathy for the boss, the most seasoned military officer he had ever served with."
...

Wilkerson, on this period with Powell: "I can say in all truth that in 16 years he never blew his stack. He got mad at me one time and asked me to leave the office -- told me to leave the office -- and that was towards the end when he was truly embattled, embittered and besieged, in my view. And even though it made me a little angry, I didn't take it that seriously because I knew at that point he was not a happy camper.")

Wilkerson went so far as to draft a letter of resignation to Bush. He never sent it and now wonders whether he should have come out guns blazing before the 2004 election. But becoming a vocal political defector in Washington can mean lonely exile, a loss of stature and income.

"I know it's very hard to put kids, job security and all that sort of stuff aside. I think that's the answer to why more people don't speak out."

...
Evidence of Patriot Sainthood:

Wilkerson has no intention of cashing in as a Bush critic. He hasn't joined a think tank or become a cable news pundit-for-hire. He has turned down publishers who want him to write a tell-all book for big money.

Wilkerson says he may write an academic text about presidential decision-making. This month he began supplementing his retirement with part-time teaching jobs at George Washington University and the College of William & Mary.

Recently a speakers bureau called Wilkerson to ask what fee he would want for a speech to a corporate audience. "I said I'd speak for the highest fee they'd pay," he recalls.

But there was a condition: The money couldn't go to him. He said he wanted it all donated to scholarships for children in the Colin L. Powell Leadership Club.