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Former State Dept Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson Has White House Off Balance
Share / Recommend - Comment - Print - Tuesday, Nov 29 2005, 8:46AM
Former State Department Chief of Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson continues to hammer the White House over torture and detainee abuse revelations -- but is also suggesting that as he learns more from various sources, his original views that the White House was not involved in duplicity regarding Iraq WMD intelligence is evolving.
In a very important BBC interview this morning, Wilkerson speculated that the White House did cherry-pick and try to manufacture intelligence estimates that matched its biases.
From an AP report on CNN:
"You begin to speculate, you begin to wonder -- Was this intelligence spun? Was it politicized? Was it cherry-picked? Did in fact the American people get fooled? I'm beginning to have my concerns," Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, said in an interview broadcast Tuesday.
And more commentary on WMD Intel:
Wilkerson said he had believed that intelligence supported the view that Iraq had or was seeking to build weapons of mass destruction, and when none were found he accepted the argument that the administration had simply been fooled.Lately, however, he said he had been troubled by disclosures that an informant known as Curveball, who supplied information about alleged mobile biological laboratories, was not reliable, and new information casting doubt on statements made by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al Qaeda military instructor, claiming support from Iraq.
Al-Libi's information, Wilkerson said, "led Colin Powell to say at the U.N. on 5 February 2003 that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al Qaeda and Baghdad."
It now appears, Wilkerson said, that al-Libi's statement "were obtained through interrogation techniques other than those authorized by Geneva (Conventions)."
"More important than that, we know that there was a Defense Intelligence Agency dissent on that testimony even before Colin Powell made his presentation," Wilkerson said. "We never heard about that."
Wilkerson is getting real traction in his criticism of White House war planning.
Hopefully, his leadership will inspire others inside the administration to find ways to make public what they know.
-- Steve Clemons
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Does anyone know of any progress or the status of Part Two of the Senate Select Committee Report, or is Roberts still draging his feet?
Seems this might shed some light on the situation (but will not name anyone if Roberts has his way).
Is this the Twilight Zone?? Can a person even broach this subject without mentioning the Downing Street Memos??
And Wilkerson is just beginning to be "troubled by disclosures that an informant known as Curveball, who supplied information about alleged mobile biological laboratories, was not reliable, and new information casting doubt on statements made by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al Qaeda military instructor, claiming support from Iraq."?????
We have known for some time that Curveball's stuff was bullshit, that the bio lab stuff was LIES, and that there WAS NO connection between AQ and Saddam.
Steve, I don't know where you and this Wilkerson guy are going with this, but it seems you two are "spinning" as furiously as the Monkey Boy's people are.
"Lately, however, he said he had been troubled by disclosures that an informant known as Curveball, who supplied information about alleged mobile biological laboratories, was not reliable, and new information casting doubt on statements made by Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al Qaeda military instructor, claiming support from Iraq."
Steve, I love what this guy is doing. But I'm troubled by the word "lately." Doubts about Curveball have been flying around FOREVER. How come I, a poor writer sitting in my hovel, know more about this than Mr. Wilkerson? I have to think that either he, like Rick, was "misinformed," or he's coming forward, but doens't want to quite admit, perhaps even to himself, how much he knew or could have known if he hadn't been such a good soldier. Or maybe I just don't understand what it's like to be in his position, to have had a career such as his, and to have had the kinds of ingrained beliefs in the system the one must have to advance in government the way he did. Or maybe, the word "lately" is the reporter's interpretation of what Mr. Wilkerson said. I'm sure, for Wilkerson, it must feel as though he's slowly coming to from a horrible, horrible dream.
Well, showered now, with a cup of coffee in hand, and another thirty minutes to think about this post of Steve's....
The only thing that makes sense to me when reading about Wilkerson's feigned belated epiphanies is that Powell is attempting to resurrect his reputation, and his historical standing, through the comments of Wilkerson. Powell, being the good soldier that he is, makes me doubt that he will speak out until the Monkey Boy is no longer CIC.
I think Powell was on board with the Bush Administration IDEOLOGICALLY from day one in regards to Iraq. He probably believed that WMDS would be found. In such a frame of mind he was willing to accept weak or fabricated intelligence, because he believed the end justified the means. But more importantly, he underestimated the DEPTH of the fiction, and the ineptitude of those spinning the yarns. He did not realize that the lies and deceptions were so thinly veiled that they would inevitably see the light of day in such a short historical period.
Powell thought they were telling "white lies" when in fact they were telling "whoppers".
But, to believe, or insinuate, that Powell lived in some sort of "intelligence bubble" that only recieved its data from the Cheney cabal is deceptive to the EXTREME. Wilkerson would have us believe that Powell was an empty head waiting to be filled with the brain Cheney designed for him. Bullshit. A man of Powell's background has sources of his own, and Powell is not a STUPID man. If lay people, millions of us, could see the web of deception being cast, it becomes impossible to accept the stated slow awakening of our heads of state that Wilkerson describes.
Wilkerson is Powell's mouthpiece right now. But you DO NOT undo your role in the deception of the American people by spinning, ducking, and weaving. Powell needs to come forward and tell us the truth, apologize, and accept his place in history as a member of the most corrupt and damaging Presidential Administration in the history of the United States.
He helped make the cake, he can eat it too.
Here here to the above comments of Peter Schwartz....many of these senior people who were "present at the creation", it seems, are waking up to the facts that angered me as a citizen about 2 1/2 yrs. ago ...
Sex, lies, and the video rape of the American people. Some dare to call this treason. Some dare to call this perversion. Some dare to call this just desserts. Some dare to call this sadly, the end of American democracy. Mr. Wilkerson does America a noble service...be it ever too late.
Steve,
Col. Wilkerson says in the BBC interview that Dick Cheney may have committed an “international crime” in connection with the abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Won’t we, American taxpayers, save some money if, instead of setting up a separate war crimes trial for our vice president, just let him join Saddam Hussein in the dock? After all both leaders are facing allegations of war crimes against the same people, committed in the same country.
“his original views that the White House was not involved in duplicity regarding Iraq WMD intelligence is evolving.”
I can guess as to the why and when of this evolution. (the old friend + Rolling Stone article? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/_/id/8798997) But the interesting question is why he was defensive in the first place during his new America talk.
Here lies a contradiction. The military guy who said he was there when Powell dumped lots of questionable intelligence for his UN presentation didn't think the mere existence of such intelligence was kinda weird? He didn't notice pushiness for stuff Powell didn't like? He did work for the faction that did the national intelligence estimate dissent right? When did he learn that the state dept. dissent in the classified nie wasn`t in the published one?
My feeling/hunch is that Wilkersons pre war intel handling defense stems from being fooled himself. If you listen to the new America talk he sounds quite passionate. This is his style, which I think is a good thing, but I wonder if he would be this passionate about this if he was just following the party line. For example to keep the remains of Powells credibility in tact while focusing on the “bigger” torture and foreign policy issues about which he got really passionate.
But if he was fooled about something that was obvious to European outsiders at the time (DSM), then how much did he know first hand about the international torture definition games? Remember that on the torture issue he mentioned he got some of his documentation from “open sources” which is intelligence speak for newspapers. IIRC he also learned of this thing shortly before the abu graib photos where released. (missed the “anything but organ failure” memo?) His main beef is that he wasn't part of the cabal.
Now if you are looking for political ammunition then anything Wilkerson says is potentially interesting. If you are looking for clues as to the inner workings of the white house then figuring out what Wilkerson knows and how he knows it is crucial.
The thing about listening to people who “were there” is that besides a having a boatload of factual data about an event the also always have a bit of emotional attachment. This goes for presidents, Wilkerson and soccer spectators. Now soccer fans can talk days on end about how beautiful the game was and how great the fans where. This won't help you if you try and piece together who scored when. If you join the “wasn't the game beautiful” cheering you miss opportunities for first hand confirmation of facts.
There are reasons to care about the facts of the intelligence issues:
* The pre-invasion intelligence handling issue is kind of crucial to understanding the non-US parts of the war.
* There is politically motivated movement (pentagon Feith investigation http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17307877.htm , “phase 2”) at the moment leading to new details in a story to which some (if not most) big things are pretty well known. Fact checking will help avoid misrepresentation.
* Knowing more of the inner workings of the intelligence issue helps in getting grip on other Jessica lynch stories. (http://www.prwatch.org/documents/truth.pdf (read for quantity not quality!
))
* Some people are “whities” http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=24028, they just want to know.
So, what new or freshly confirmed facts can Wilkerson offer, besides his cool/beautiful/smart/insightful/whatever opinion of the foreign policy decision process which he bravly and with danger to his career explains?
Meanwhile there is still a wordgame going on, and I am not talking about the torture definition bingo. (See how many different definitions can you spot in one evening of TV?) There are those who want to set themselfs apart from the bush camp. They act all upset that the administration wont set a date for troop reductions. Then there is the administration that pretends that a debate about this is a great democratic right... although only revisionist cowards ans idiots would argue with the “pulling out” camp. The target of this game may very well be the unity within the conservative camp. This fragile unity is fascinating, it always is in a two party system... but there is this other issue that also deserves attention from people other then Rumsfeld and some top pentagon people and that is the troop levels. Wouldn't it be neat if people who voted for this war actually paid attention to this issue? Considering Rumsfeld`s track record some supervision might help solving a problem these people could for whatever reason somehow feel a little responsible for.
The thing is that nobody in the military really cares whether you reduce troops after the elections or after Dec. 15.
If you detect any bashing of Wilkerson in this post then please ignore the entire post. It is intended as a critical look at the story, not at the guy. I would love to have a drink with him http://www.theonion.com/content/node/42590, sounds like a great time to ask tough questions ;-)
Powell and all of his Beltway lackeys (Repug, Dem, Indy alike) are full of B*llsh*t.
The man is perhaps the worst villain in the whole Iraq affair. When Powell yelled at Rumsfeld on the phone it proves that Powell KNEW/KNOWS that the Bushies were destroying America's hard-earned image as the rightful leader of the free world. Powell KNOWS the depth of harm the Bushies are doing to our country and the world. Yet, he remains silent. On the other hand, at least the Bushies seem to believe they are doing the right thing.
And we should really put to bed this crap about Powell being a "good soldier" boo hoo. Screw that. If he was such a good soldier, he would not have criticized Bill Clinton, and acted like the wining piss boy that he is during the Kosovo years because he didn't like and agree with the Commander in Chief.
"Good Soldier" my ass.
Did you guys read this:
Ann Gerand, AP diplomatic writer, reports that Wilkerson said Cheney must have sincerely believed that Iraq could be a spawning ground for new terror assaults, because "otherwise I have to declare him a moron, an idiot or a nefarious bastard."
I knew Colonel Wilkerson when he was General Powell's senior Army aide when Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a capable, hard working & considerate person who I trust more then all the current office holders in this incompetent Administration combined. Col. Wilkerson may well be acting as a front man for his old boss, but that does not undercut the authority of his message about the falsehoods behind the Iraq War and the disaster it has become.
Second Thoughts
FWIW, Wilkerson says that his going public has caused him to be estranged from Powell.
I was struck by his interview w/ Amy Goodman last week, where she confronted him about Powell's role in the Haiti coup last year. More here: http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/11/26/205058/81
Wilkerson may have been confused about white house influence the stuff he, powell and others let in the UN presentation. But he wasn't confused about the white house style of doing intelligence until he after the new America talk, he knew a whole lot on the stuff that didn't make it to the UN presentation.
*read this*: http://web.archive.org/web/20040505230702/http://us.gq.com/plus/content/?040429plco_01
Seriously, read it, its a may 2004 “going away ego stroking reputation salvaging” interview with Powell and his staff in “Gentleman's quarterly”, its great stuff and I can't believe I missed it at the time.
From Wilkersons recent AP interview (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/28/AR2005112801246_pf.html): “He [Wilkerson] said he has almost, but not quite, concluded that Cheney and others in the administration deliberately ignored evidence of bad intelligence and looked only at what supported their case for war”
From Wilkersons 2004 GQ magazine interview : “Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, described those four days at the CIA [preparing the UN presentation] as a battle, with Powell's team scrambling in the final hours to save the general from humiliation. "I was down at the agency as his task-force leader," Wilkerson said. "And we fought tooth and nail with other members of the administration to scrub it and get the crap out." ”
Now If Wilkerson read the interview he gave he read that his colleagues said this: “Rice even described Powell as enthusiastic about the presentation, spending four days and nights at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, just before the speech, munching on delivery pizza and scouring the evidence against Saddam for ways to punch it up. In her words, "He wanted to be sure that we put in the best, strongest aerials we had, both from the point of view of the ones that were best documented but also the ones that were going to be punchiest."
By contrast, members of Powell's staff, including his two closest advisers, Richard Armitage and Larry Wilkerson, described Powell's four-day immersion at the CIA in very different terms—not punching up the evidence but breaking it down, frantically sifting through droves of poor intelligence and false claims that the Pentagon, the intelligence services, and the vice president's office had slipped into his presentation, throwing out hype in an effort to preserve his reputation and avoid the kind of humiliation that he wound up with anyway.
"Four days!" Armitage practically shouted when I mentioned Powell's visit to the CIA. "Four days! And three nights! The secretary is a man of honor! He values being credible. To be credible, you have to be able to stand behind what you say. That's why he fieldstripped it. Just like, you ever heard of fieldstripping cigarettes back in Nam?" He was referring to the process of tearing up smoked cigarettes so they will decompose quickly and leave no trace for the enemy. "That means tear it up and shake the tobacco that's left to the wind," Armitage said. "He fieldstripped it." ”
Well, thats got a lot that would make a person in Wilkersons place worry doesn't it? Intel from the “vice president's office” , Intel being “crap” everyone with Powell agreeing and communicating on this, “crap” evidence being used by the rest of the white house....
Wilkerson, also the GQ article: “ "I call them [the neocons] utopians," he [Wilkerson] said. "I don't care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin on a sealed train to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz. Utopians, I don't like. You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process of trying to do it." “
Comparing Wolfowitz and Lenin, how cool is that ;-)
“Col. Wilkerson may well be acting as a front man for his old boss, but that does not undercut the authority of his message about the falsehoods behind the Iraq War and the disaster it has become.”
David, I never met Col. Wilkerson, but had two meetings with Gen. Powell when he was secretary of state, and they left me saddened. I had thought that Powell was just another “national hero,” a status you can earn for all kinds of achievements many of which don’t require you to have a brain. Instead, I found the general a refreshingly intelligent and perceptive man. The insights he showed about the Palestinians, Pakistanis and the neocons’ democratization agenda (about which I quizzed him) elude many an American diplomat who spent better parts of their careers dealing with these issues. Yet I was disappointed because he struck me as more a bureaucrat than a leader. I guess the qualities of a skillful bureaucrat (loyalty, manipulation, etc.) which enabled him to rise to the top of our military establishment failed him in politics. Even after becoming secretary of state he continued to behave as though he was still a military officer who needed to march on the orders of his commander-in-chief regardless of the dictates of his conscience and his duties to his nation. He knew that Cheney, Rumsfeld and the neocons were dragging the nation into a disaster (and said so in his prewar caveat to Bush about “the pottery-barn rule”), but he continued to serve Bush & Co. meekly until they felt his usefulness to them was over and dropped him like a used tissue. The Senate confirmation of his job had made him first and foremost a servant of the nation, which he let down. While secretary of state, he vented the pangs of his conscience through his many background briefings to reporters, backbiting Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney. Now he’s doing the same thing through Wilkerson. He’s a classic example of a brilliant mind being failed in public life by a lack of moral courage.
"I'm beginning to have my concerns"
If Wilkerson in fact did say this today... his street cred just dropped a number of points today, equal to the drop with with his justification of Haiti coup de tat on democracy now two weeks ago.
WTF? if this guys was Powells advisor, and they are the A team? what in the hell is going on with you guys in dc? if wilkerson is just now beginning to doubt administration claims, its time for the man to step off stage and start doing some of the reading he missed a couple years ago - can anyone say hussein kamel?
as much as I respect the man... josh marshall was on the attack Iraq crowd as well a few short years ago...
how about you steve? mea culpa time?
saddam did deserve to be brought to justice - if nothing else for his enviromental crimes, but why did we need to punish so many long suffering iraqi's as well? every democrat and republican that supported this war should be held to account. friends and foes alike. - including the now feigning ignorance mr. wilkerson.
Thanks to everyone in this post and the last few ones also for such thought-provoking,well thought out,highly informative comments,much appreciated. I find it fascinating also trying to figure out why Wilkerson is speaking out now and not before,I do not think Powell comes out of any of this looking any better regardless of what info Wilkerson is willing to let fly. But it sure is thrilling listening to how "undiplomatic" he is sounding! The thought of Darth Vader Cheney turning purple in the West Wing is vastly satisfying,yes?
anyone seen this post: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1130-29.htm by Norman Soloman over at Common Dreams re Wilkerson's emergency and Powell's pre-war role?
Excerpt:
[snip]
Overall, appearances remain key. And so, Wilkerson included this anecdote in his AP interview: "Powell raised frequent and loud objections, his former aide said, once yelling into a telephone at Rumsfeld: 'Donald, don't you understand what you are doing to our image?'"
Now there's a transcendent reason to begin to have concerns: Torturing prisoners is bad for "our image."
Rest assured that if the war had gone well by Washington's lights, we'd be hearing none of this from Powell's surrogate. The war has gone bad, from elite vantage points, not because of the official lies and the unrelenting carnage but because military victory has eluded the U.S. government in Iraq. And with President Bush's poll numbers tanking, and Dick Cheney's even worse, it's time for some "moderate" sharks to carefully circle for some score-settling and preening.
[recounts gushing of DC media over Powell's pre-war UNSC speech then continues...]
Now, after so much clear evidence has emerged to discredit the entire U.S. war effort, Colin Powell still can't bring himself to stand up and account for his crucial role. Instead, he's leaving it to a former aide to pin blame on those who remain at the top of the Bush administration. But Powell was an integral part of the war propaganda machinery. And we can hardly expect the same media outlets that puffed him up at crucial times to now scrutinize their mutual history.
[end]
Interesting no?
DWG: OUI!
And now, for something completely different (which turns out to be more of the same, really):
Cheney 'may be guilty of war crime'
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