Wilkerson speaks out in the LA Times

dmc · Oct 27, 2005

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Saw this in my local rag yesterday and thought it actually was worth reading.

(By the way, Wilkerson is Colin Powell's former chief of staff when Powell was Sec'y of State)

Op Ed Piece

Some highlights:

IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
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I watched these dual decision-making processes operate for four years at the State Department. As chief of staff for 27 months, I had a door adjoining the secretary of State's office. I read virtually every document he read. I read the intelligence briefings and spoke daily with people from all across government.

I knew that what I was observing was not what Congress intended when it passed the 1947 National Security Act. The law created the National Security Council — consisting of the president, vice president and the secretaries of State and Defense — to make sure the nation's vital national security decisions were thoroughly vetted. The NSC has often been expanded, depending on the president in office, to include the CIA director, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Treasury secretary and others, and it has accumulated a staff of sometimes more than 100 people.

But many of the most crucial decisions from 2001 to 2005 were not made within the traditional NSC process.
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Discounting the professional experience available within the federal bureaucracy — and ignoring entirely the inevitable but often frustrating dissent that often arises therein — makes for quick and painless decisions. But when government agencies are confronted with decisions in which they did not participate and with which they frequently disagree, their implementation of those decisions is fractured, uncoordinated and inefficient. This is particularly the case if the bureaucracies called upon to execute the decisions are in strong competition with one another over scarce money, talented people, "turf" or power.

It takes firm leadership to preside over the bureaucracy. But it also takes a willingness to listen to dissenting opinions. It requires leaders who can analyze, synthesize, ponder and decide.

The administration's performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it. And he did — everything from a serious crisis with China when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was struck by a Chinese F-8 fighter jet in April 2001, to the secretary's constant reassurances to European leaders following the bitter breach in relations over the Iraq war. It wasn't enough, of course, but it helped.

Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time.
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Seems that Bush not only makes bad decisions when he decides, he makes worse ones when he delegates. The hubris of the members of this particular group is especially galling when you look at the inevitable results in Iraq.

(*Props to Ragusa, who also linked this in his blog. That guy spends way too much time reading stuff from all over the world. Get a life dude! )

Bion · Oct 27, 2005

Yet another defector, a closet liberal disguising his Hatred for America in conservativism until he was finally outed, just like Gen Shinseki, Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, Colin Powell, etc etc etc....

It's really amazing how much stuff is hitting the fan atm. Or then again, maybe it's only amazing that it's taken this long to do so...

BTW, what's the link to Ragusa's blog, would be great to see it...

Chandos the Red · Oct 27, 2005

Yes, I made the same point in the thread here in AoLS, "The Cheney Cabal." How much longer can all these former officials be ignored, or written off as disgruntled? Here's part of the story mentioned on MTP this last Sunday. It's amazing...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8987534/

MR. RUSSERT: We're watching play out here, in Washington particularly, an emergence of the real infighting that went on within the Bush administration that Frank Rich alluded to in his column. Here's The Washington Post from Thursday: "Colin Powell's right-hand man at the State Department, [Col.} Larry Wilkerson"--who was his chief of staff--"...said the vice president and secretary of defense created a `Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal' that hijacked U.S. foreign policy. ... Wilkerson accused Bush of `cowboyism' and said he had viewed Condoleezza Rice as `extremely weak.'"

We have Brent Scowcroft in today's New Yorker magazine in an interview. Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor for former President Bush, Bush 41, saying that the neocons brought the country to war and that "Dick Cheney is a good friend I've known for 30 years, but Dick Cheney I don't know anymore."
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Bion · Oct 27, 2005

It really is amazing. It's impossible to fit everything going on with the internal politics of this administration atm into just one thread. Oh to be a fly on the wall of the Oval Office right now...

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Wilkerson speaks out in the LA Times

dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

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Wilkerson speaks out in the LA Times

dmc Speak softly and carry a big briefcase Staff Member Distinguished Member ★ SPS Account Holder Resourceful Adored Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

Bion Gems: 21/31Latest gem: Pearl

Chandos the Red This Wheel's on Fire

Bion Gems: 21/31Latest gem: Pearl

Bion Gems: 21/31
Latest gem: Pearl

Bion Gems: 21/31
Latest gem: Pearl