“‘What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made. Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret but far more telling to me is, America is paying the consequences.’ Mr Wilkerson, [a retired colonel who was chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January], 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. ‘If 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.'” – from the Financial Times today. Cabal? Powell’s top aide – who has distanced himself from Powell, but almost certainly reflectes his own views – also cites the abuse scandal as one of the consequences of the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis:
The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was “a concrete example” of the decision-making problem, with the president and other top officials in effect giving the green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. “You don’t have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you’ve condoned it.”
Condi is blamed for not intervening. But the president himself is the real man responsible. Now, the question is: what else did this cabal get up to? And is that what Fitzgerald is interested in? Did Fitzgerald talk to Wilkerson? Or Powell? The questions multiply. More here.
The Dish 