November 4, 2005
IT WORKED FOR JOSEPH WILSON
Former Powell aide links Cheney's office to abuse directives (Agence France-Presse, 11/03/05)
Vice President Dick Cheney's office was responsible for directives that led to U.S. soldiers' abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former top State Department official said Thursday.Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff.
"The secretary of defense under cover of the vice president's office," Wilkerson said, "regardless of the president having put out this memo" - "they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen."
And so the antiwar colonel tries to stretch his 15 minutes into 16.
Posted by kevin_whited at November 4, 2005 11:25 AMAnd this was the Colonel who complained that the elected officials in the administration were hijacking foreign policy away from the hired bureaucrats at State.
With that Constitutionally mind-boggling concept tenuously grasped, pray, anyone, tell me why I should take the Colonel's complaints with anything other than a hefty shaker of salt?
Posted by: Mikey at November 4, 2005 1:31 PMHis boss's silence is embarrassing. How did he ever get to be a general?
BTW - Speaking of generals, did everybody notice Gen. Honore was at the WH state dinner to meet the royals? I'd love to hear his take on the occasion.
Wouldn't he make a terrfic governor. Turn LA around in no time.
Posted by: tefta at November 4, 2005 3:12 PMOn the other hand, Wilkerson confirmed that claims of WMD before the invasion of Iraq were sincere.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at November 4, 2005 4:02 PM