He's late. Two years ago- even a year ago- he would have been a tiger. Now he's just a rat.

Amen, JR. Candor is long overdue. It seems to go in cycles, and has been a persistent problem in US foreign policy ever since Eisenhower warned of the Military-Industrial-Political Complex. Many of these folks how professing “horror” at what has happened were themselves part of the problem, and now seem to wish for a game plan that absolves them of responsibility. IMHO, we have still not buried the beliefs of NSC-68.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSC-68
While Thomas H. Baumgarter gets it roughly right in a previous post, he does not take it back far enough, and reverses the role of Cheney and Rumsfeld. The Watergate scandal obscured our previous attempt to get energy right. Worse it allowed the military wing of McCarthyism started under Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson and his Coalition for a Democratic Majority [CDM]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_for_a_Democratic_Majority
to morph into the Committee on the Present Danger [CPD].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_on_the_Present_Danger
At that time it was Rumsfeld who was the most aggressive, with Cheney merely his underling. Nixon appoints Rumsfeld head of NATO, which keeps him distanced from Watergate, and turns him into an action-oriented hawk. Rumsfeld not only survived Watergate, but due to his friendship not only w/ Nixon, but also with Gerald Ford, he was able to parlay that into power. He became Ford’s head of the transition team (as Cheney was for Jr. Bush), and then his chief of staff. At that time CPD included Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitiz, George Schultz, William Casey, Doug Feith, Frank Gaffney, Charles Horner and by 1979 Ronald Reagan. These folks always seemed driven by the vision of ”if only the USA could rule the world, we’d have peace, prosperity, and justice for all. It was Rumsfeld who originally was the driving force behind the cold war, with the CPD being the vehicle. Rumsfeld challenges Kissinger (and wins, the National Security advisor job going to Scowcroft), and Donald becomes Sect of Defense and puts Cheney into his old job as Chief of Staff.
Now the battle begins in earnest, with Rumsfeld building on the resentment of loosing the Vietnam War by countering every Peace proposal of Henry Kissinger. The CIA was challenged as not correctly perceiving the Soviet threat, and three Team “B’’s were formed. The important one was chaired by Richard Pipes (father of David) and has come to be known as “THE Team “B”,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B
driven by Albert Wohlstetter. This is the vehicle Rumsfeld used to essentially gives us the cold war, building up the military, and beginning the process of negating evidence that might lead toward peace, and supporting the huge military buildups. When Bush Sr. became head of CIA in 1976, the coup was complete, and now the CIA was also aligned with this view of the cold war. We now have policy determined by politics, rather than accurate assessment of the real world.

What is now so ironic, is that two of the original members of the CPD (George Schultz and James Woolsey) have recently issued a paper through the CPD called Oil and Security, that acknowledges

“Four years ago, on the eve of 9/11, the need to reduce radically our reliance on oil was not clear to many and n the case the path of doing so seemed a long and difficult one. Today both assumptions are being undermined by the risks of the post 9/11 world and by technological progress in fuel efficiency and alternative fuels.”

Others jumping on the energy independence bandwagon include Frank Gaffney, and the National Committee on Energy Policy, which now recognize the economic viability of alternative fuels (cellulosic ethanol and biodiesel, especially as derived from waste streams) and the silliness of the petroleum problem.

While I agree America’s problems are driven by the Rumsfeld-Cheney cabal (conclusion and action first, evidence and study later), it is Rumsfeld’s vision of “everyone not my friend is my enemy and must be liquidated” is the real problem and what has allowed the false “peak oil problem” to be so thoroughly accepted as the “mushroom cloud” driving “immediate military action” of the Rumsfeld foreign policy doctrine. And w/ a President essentially ignorant of foreign policy issues (I believe he only visited Mexico and Scotland, prior to his presidency), there was essentially no check on Rumsfeld’s desire to run all policy through DOD (especially intelligence) as was envisioned by Plan “B”.

The real issue is how we are to maintain a system of “checks and balances” that allows inclusion in decision-making that is widespread enough to prevent egos, greed, and paranoia to dominate in the future.

Certainly allowing a president to appoint a personal attorney representing his, and not the nations interests, is NOT a way to start. It is NOT Miers that is the problem, but the fact that the judicial nomination is selected by the political process that is at issue. Under our antiquidated system of government (no entry for minority views as under the German system of voting) where winner takes all, it is not all that difficult to transform a temporary majority obtained by "whatever means necessary" to morph into a permanent cabal. The ease w/ which Sen Stevens of Alaska was able to maintain the diversion of concrete from Louisiana to the "bridge to nowhere" is indicitive of the problem.

Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

So, Wilkerson: The wonder is not that it is a dollar short and 3-4 years late. The wonder is that it was done at all.

Short version:
"Now, now now -- now it's time for me to display my integrity and loyalty to the country, instead of continuing to cover for Bush and Powell."[What a good boy am I.]

It is a sorry state of affairs that honesty and courage have such a diminished value.
It seems for many to be part of the Bush Administration and not beign a complete sob makes you a hero. I lament that Steve Clemons, whom I admire and respect, is among those. Wilkerson should be appauded for coming to tell us what this administrations was up to, but he should also be reprimanded for not repudiating his role in it, and he should be scorned for not coming forward when it mattered. A a more "effective" foreign and national security course for the country will not be achieve with individuals in position of power that hold what they see as the truth until it becomes irrelevant and thus ineffective.

let's not forget the REAL legacy of the bush administration... illegal wars, yes... torture, yes... foreign policy cabals, yes... forsaking truth, yes... but, more than that, DEATH...

http://takeitpersonally.blogspot.com/2005/10/real-legacy-of-bush-administration.html

I forgot to mention:

uring Larry Wilkerson's speech, Steve made at least two references on how Wilkerson should save some of the material he was discussing to sell his book. I cannot think of any clearer way of saying that what Col. Wilkerson had to say was, at this day, cuasi anecdotal and irrelevant.

p.s. i also took issue with matthew yglesias' post on tpm cafe ( http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/23/161832/81 ) excoriating scowcroft and wilkerson for being "backstabbers..." what i said was...

"ok, matthew... i'll take it when i can get it... given the history of brutal character assassinations perpetrated by this regime, i don't fault anyone for lying in the grass... yes, i too would have liked those who knew the truth to have spoken up a long time ago... many needless lives have been lost, much damage has been done... i too admire richard clark tremendously... when i watched his live testimony, i had chills running up and down my back... i also know, however, just how powerful systemic constraints can be, particularly when you've spent your entire life paying homage to them..."

Steve: What do you think, though, of Wilkerson's comments that everyone who looked at the spy photos thought Saddam had chemical and biological weapons? These comments are being picked up by the Weekly Standard and others.

"...he should also be reprimanded for not repudiating his role in it, and he should be scorned for not coming forward when it mattered. ..."

i agree but who would have given him the arena to speak? CNN? FOX? MSNBC? we got to hear from Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke,... nothing happened in this country...it seemed that no one (other than anti-bushies) cared.

To JR and erichwwk,

Why didn't Wilkerson speak out sooner? Because he couldn't have derailed the Iraq train if he had wanted to, and neither could scowcroft or powell or many others, as his inside baseball account reveals. However HE IS SPEAKING OUT SOONER, NOW.

Wilkerson is trying to derail the NEXT set of trains that are leaving from the station, which have the potential for much worse results than even Iraq.

Haven't you complainers been paying attention to Syria, Iran? Project "everyone moves one over", has not disappeared just because Condi and Karen are on goodwill tours. The whole point of Larry's coming out now is to prevent the disasters that many in the foreign policy community see being created AT THIS VERY MOMENT.

Kudos to Wilkerson for letting the public in on the truth, and acting now before the real catastrophes have started.

And to the rest of you. Stop fighting over battles that have already been lost. Justice may come or not, but justice will NEVER come if the current plans are permitted bear fruit. Wilkerson is not using "1776" analogies lightly. When he claims that the president "Didn't want a second Korean War", was the ONLY thing that prevented it from happening, you all should be clued up to big trouble on the horizon. Look at his statements again, carefully.

His statement's are a huge deal, and much praise for the responsible group now acting publically.

Wilkerson:

And if something comes along that is truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence.

Unless I am reading wrongly between the lines, I disagree.

Sure there will be ineptitude...

But there will also be premeditated precision:

When a pandemic (or bomb arrives) Bush already has plans to usurp the Guard and domestically deploy the armed services.

In other words your liberty will be quarantined,
and your person placed under the whims of martial law.

All for OUR own good of course.

Bush might even have to suspend elections,
after all, we can't have you sneezing your germs in pubic...

Wilkerson may have arrived tardy in regards to questioning this administration's incompetence, but the new footing beneath him has already shifted forward.

He ought now to be more worried about their competence.

In other words:

Our C-plus Augustus actually has an A-game when it comes to the Will to Power.
He is the most dangerous threat to OUR sacred liberty on this planet.

We can survive Bush's incompetence.
But can we survive his competence?

I say Wilkerson is part of the way there, but likely hasn't told the whole truth and is still covering stuff up. If as Patience argues, it would have been impossible to influence the direction of policy before now, why is that so? Who is willing to expose the who/what/when/where/how that left opposition voices so boxed in and seemingly powerless? Were there interests that initially dove-tailed enough to allow the neo-con agenda to go forward? There are truths of the past five years that contributed to the haplessness of opposition efforts. Some of those truths may reflect badly on them; others may go a long way to exposing the depth and breadth of the cabal's support network and the extremes to which it has been willing to go. We'll know if Wilkerson, Scowcroft and others are genuine patriots if they are willing to expose still hidden truths for the sake of the world, or if they are too cowardly, too riddled with dissonance to do so.

OT

Over the course of many months, we have been speculating about who forged the Niger documents. Here is more on the subject:

http://firedoglake.blogspot.com/

"Last week, Justin Raimondo at AntiWarcom ran a story that said Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation had expanded to include looking into the Niger forgeries. From October 19, 2005:
Even as the FBI was following the trail of the forgers, the Italians were looking into the matter from their end. A parliamentary committee was charged with investigating, and they issued a heavily redacted report: now, I am told by a former CIA operations officer, the report has aroused some interest on this side of the Atlantic. According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and "has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA officer tells me:
"Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."
Now UPI seems to be backing up Raimondo's claims in a story that ran this morning:
NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.

Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House.
If true, as UPI notes, this "opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated."

Emptywheel has long believed that the Niger uranium forgeries were something Fitzgerald had in his sites, and has argued that Judy Miller might have been involved in them somehow. You'll remember that Judy's subpoena contained this language:
seeking documents and testimony related to conversations between her and a specified government official “occurring from on or about July 6, 2003, to on or about July 13, 2003, . . . concerning Valerie Plame Wilson (whether referred to by name or by description as the wife of Ambassador Wilson) or concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium. (my emphasis)
This differed from Matt Cooper's subpoena, which contained no language about uranium. While Miller maintains she successfully got Fitzgerald to exclude testimony on this matter, this NATO information indicates that he might well have got what he needed elsewhere.

Every day I wake up and this thing gets bigger and Fitzgerald's inquiry appears to be more bold and audacious than even I imagined.

Quite possibly the worst moment leading up to the 2004 election happened when 60 Minutes pulled their piece on the Niger forgeries and replaced it with (*shudder* -- yeah, you remember) their story on Bush in the Air National Guard and the TANG documents. Will CBS now locate its testicles and run the piece?

And maybe now we'll finally get the inquiry that corrupt old Pat Roberts has successfully stonewalled by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's "Phase II" investigation into intelligencee prior to the Iraq war. In the mean time, if you'd like to have a look at an excellent and succinct rundown of what is known about the Niger forgeries, see eRiposte's piece at the Left Coaster here."

Haven't you complainers been paying attention to Syria, Iran? Project "everyone moves one over", has not disappeared just because Condi and Karen are on goodwill tours. The whole point of Larry's coming out now is to prevent the disasters that many in the foreign policy community see being created AT THIS VERY MOMENT

I don't agree. Everybody knows there aren't any troops to secure East Baghdad, let alone going to Syria and Iran. This is nonsense. If anything, there was a real danger (and actual discussions) of going to those places when the pumped up triumphal neocons were salivating at the ease with which saddam statues were falling in April 2003. And THEN, Wilkerson kept his moth shut. Even more, I don't think is all that clear that Wilkerson and Powell didn't share the imperial vision of going around and breaking some eggs to remap the Middle East by projecting US military might. The most overlooked bit in Wilkerson talk was this statement:
We had a discussion in policy planning about actually mounting an operation to take the oilfields in the Middle East, internationalize them, put them under some sort of U.N. trusteeship and administer the revenues and the oil accordingly. That’s how serious we thought about it.

How about that? "actually mounting an operation to take the oilfields in the Middle East", no less. It sounds like Colin and Larry were not foreign to imperial dreaming.

I have serious doubts that if the Iraq war wasn't the huge fiasco it is, if it was only moderately successful at not being a disaster, Col. Wilkerson would be among us talking the way he is.

Where were these guys last year? Why weren't they on and American tour to every red state and swing state putting their case and their fears before the public.

When we look back at this in ten years we will see stunning cowardice abdication in the face of political pressure where true courage and patriotism was needed.

We don know how to throw off the yoke of tyranny. We've forgotten how or why it's necessary.

The tone of some of the posts up there is indicative of a clear anger in the public about the missteps that the Bush administration has taken. I understand that -- but I think that the world and our nation are far better off with the likes of Lawrence Wilkerson sharing what they know with how America got into this mess.

Some of you seem to want to tie all of these folks together in one raging flame-out at all of them, and again -- I understand...but it's not useful and won't get you very far in directing the country a different direction -- which is my primary goal.

Palo -- You are out of line by suggesting that there was any orchestration by me of Wilkerson's comments on what he should and should not say. You are sharing a lot of what you think -- and I respect that right -- but just know that you pissed me off with that statement as it is gratuitous and if you have the mind that I think your other posts show that you do have -- you would retract it. Wilkerson's speech was clearly much more than anecdotal quips. Wilkerson rooted his discussion of national security decision making process and gave some comparative commentary about that process. He distinguished between what was "academic or intellectual" in his approach -- from what was his view as on-the-line "policy practitioner."

My comment to him to "save it for the book" was clearly made in gest -- and was in response to his sharing some of the story about a tough encounter with his boss Colin Powell. Larry shared some parts of that incident -- but not all -- and he clearly wasn't going to go further. Thus my comment -- so that we could all move on.

But I like your posts -- but don't misquote me or misrepresent my views on this blog.

Best regards,

Steve Clemons

Note to Peter Schwartz:

Peter, I take Larry Wilkerson at his word that his assessment of the spy satellite photographs led "the world" down a certain track on presuming that Saddam Hussein had chem and bio weapons programs underway. I think Larry was honest when he said he struggles with that and just isn't sure how so many got it so wrong.

That said, I also buy Scowcroft's line that even with such assessments of chem/bio activity, invasion was not justified....and that weapons inspector regimes could keep Saddam in check. I agree with Scowcroft and think that our abandonment of the weapons inspection process/option was outrageous.

Another aspect that I have not heard much discussion about is that I think Saddam wanted us to think that he had nascent abilities -- even though he didn't. I think that this was a shell game of sorts that he was using to deter not the U.S. -- but Iran. From that vantage point a scheme to make it look like he had certain bio/chem capacities, even though he didn't, might be rational.

The real problem is that as rational a thug as Saddam might have been -- I think that there was purposeful and conscious miscalculation and escalation on the U.S. side. I have written about this before on the blog (search under miscalculation/escalation and you'll find stuff) so won't repeat.

Thanks for your question.

best,

Steve Clemons

Patience-

I apologize if I gave you the mistaken impression of “complaining” by my apparently poor choice of words. What I tried to do was disagree in part with what I felt was being said and articulate why.

I do agree that we need to keep the focus on preventing a widening of the Iraq War. We are by NO means out of the woods yet. The Toledo Blade has been reporting that we already are in Syria and dropping a B83 on Esfahan cannot be ruled out, and is an option that Rumsfeld has successfully fought for under CONPLAN 8022. The two British soldiers who the British Army busted out of Iraqi prison were, after all, being held for allegedly being caught in the act of planting the cluster IED’s Blair and GWB were attempting to use to build up a case against invading Iran. Thank God Talibani called Blair on that charge!

Of course it matters that Wilkerson and Scowcroft have joined O’Neill, Clarke, Ritter, Wilson, et al in speaking out. But it is one thing to speak out when public sentiment is clearly against you, and quite another to speak out when the “wheels are clearly coming off”. But I have yet to hear these folks lambaste Rumsfeld, who I feel is much more responsible for the “abuse power while we can” mentality then Cheney. And I totally disagree w/ GHB as being one of out "great" presidents, but rather feel he played a MAJOR role in getting us were we are today, being merely a more seasoned and level headed version of the son but otherwise engaging in deception and force all too frequently to get his preferred outcome. In fact in 1976 one could claim he drove the final nail into the coffin.

A much greater deterrent to the widening of the war at present are the 2006 elections. I feel it has already been decided to sacrifice Cheney and Libbey in an attempt to salvage the best out of this situation, in an attempt to distance Rove and GWB from this by essentially excusing GWB as having received some bad advice. Joe Wilson and Scott Ritter actually tried their best to STOP the invasion. While the more recent attempts to jump on the bandwagon are not totally bereft of merit, they are of a magnitude less value.

And by their unwillingness to acknowledge their own personal role in creating the cold war “out of a sows ear”, they contribute little to this cycle of decision-making out of deceit and fear. In that sense, I have more respect for folks like Gaffney, Woolsey, and Schultz, who are quietly working behind the scene to solve fundamental issues, rather than attempting to share Joe Wilson’s hero mantel. After the widening of THIS particular war is stopped (if it indeed is), the focus MUST then be on the political process that has left this fire smoldering for six decades. And that issue is as much obfuscated as supported by the Johnny come latelys. While I have zero interest in punative justice, I have a great deal of interest in resorative justice.

Steve,
Wilkerson and Scowcroft are not to be trusted, for a simple reason. They refused to speak out against Bush in 2004, when doing so might have led to Bush's defeat in the election. They have made partisanship their highest priority, by refusing to help get a Republican President out of office. They are scoundrels---every last one of them.

LOOKING A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH

I rather imagine that those who have posted so vigorously about Larry Wilkerson speaking out "too late" have never had the experience of working close-in to the center of the policy process.

As someone who has been an occasional "plus one" at principals' meetings, a fairly regular "plus one" at deputies' meetings and a frequent member of the team on Air Force One during presidential missions (not in Bush 43, I can assure you that one observes falsehoods, policy deceptions, public mis-statement of policy intentions, and more every day in every administration.

Most of the time one chalks it up to the realities of the policy process and moves on. One takes the view that 80% worthy stuff excusses 20% less-than-worthy stuff. It was thus if one worked under Gladstone or Disraeli, it was thus under Bismark or Wilson or Roosevelt, and it is almost always thus.

But with the passage of time and the perspective of distance one sometimes perceives that the standard ratios of good policy/bad policy (or virtue/sin if you prefer) have moved outside the norms of regular political life. The "acceptable" 20/80 had grown toan "unacceptable" 50/50 or worse.

I can assure you that it is very hard to discern this shift at the time. It really does take distance and perspective.

Wilkerson's sense of unease no doubt grew with the passage of time on Powell's staff.

But it does not seem strange to me that he needed the extra distance that comes with being out-of-harness to reach the assessment that the ratio had become truly monstrous.

You gentle folk who read these blogs no doubt wish it were otherwise.

You wish that, at the first whiff of malodorous behavior, virtuous senior public servants would call their contacts at the New York Times and tell all.

Keep on wishing, if you must. But it will never be that way.

Be grateful when a virtuous senior public servant does seize the moment - however late - and speak out.

The real worrld choice is between toadies who will never speak truth to power and realists who will speak truth to power in the fullness of time.

I am very much in accord with Steve Clemons that Larry Wilkerson's decision to come out into the light of public scrutiny is a virtuous one for which we should be grateful

JohnStuart

The breaking ranks all sounds like a set up to usher Cheney out of position, put Rice in VP slot and James Baker for Secretary of State. The Neocon purge is the only way to try and insulate Bush from the Iraq people.

John Stuart,
I fully understand your point, in principle; however, in the case of Bush, it was manifestly clear early in 2004 that he was taking the country on a dangerous track, and failing to stabilize Iraq (if that was even the goal---something which I doubt). Can you explain why Wilkerson and Scowcroft are speaking out now, and not before the election? Isn't the true reason for their earlier silence that they were loyal to Bush? Anyone who was loyal to Bush in 2004 is a scoundrel, and deserves no praise for backstabbing in 2005. The country deserved better than Bush in 2004, and these cowards chose party over patriotism.

Steve-

After reading your suggestions I agree to "going easier".

As you know, I reject the notion that the problem was "with the intel itself", rather than with the use being made of intel. Had Roberts given us the Phase II of the 9/11 commission, rather than sabotaging this, my anger would be indeed less. While I certainly wish to play no part in deterring hawks and self-serving politicians from "coming out of the closet", I just as strongly feel I am tired of "HALF-WAY" measures. I have been fighting this battle for 3 decades now, at some personal cost, and the best I can say has been achieved is preventing large fires from becoming catastrophic. As I near the end of my ability to contribute meaningfully, I am still hopeful that enough will recognize that as Eisenhower warned, we have totally lost control of our Military-Industrial complex. Until we discard this cloak of secrecy and centralization of decison-making in military affairs (now spreading much wider into related fields such as energy), all we are achieving is some temporary respite. Do we really want to live like the Israelis, who likewise rely on secret intelligence and superior hardware to achieve achieve their lifestyle?

"Can you explain why Wilkerson and Scowcroft are speaking out now, and not before the election?"

In the case of Scowcroft, he has been speaking out (in the "establishment" manner) since late 2001. He shared his misgivings about Bush 43 and about Condi quiety, but in the corridors of power and influence.

Brent is not a guy who goes on talk shows with Larry King - but he can weild a sharp dagger with the best of them in the places where it counts.

"Maybe so" you will counter "but this silent protest didn't change anything".

That seems to be true. For whatever reason, 43 resisted every effort by 41, by 41's pals and especially by Scowcroft to warn him away from what they saw as some disastrous policy choices.
There may be an oedipal twist to all of this.

As one of the pundits wrote this week, 43 may have resisted all mortal advice to the point where only the Greek Goddess, Nemesis, can bring him down from the dangerous heights to which hubris has taken him.

For that, Markey, we can neither blame Wilkerson nor Scowcroft.

JohnStuart

Steve,

I think you misunderstood my point. I did not want to suggest there was any orchestration by you of Wilkerson's comments. If that's the way it came accross, I sure do apologize. I respect your work and integrity a great deal and sure appreciate your blog as the great forum it is.
I thought I was conveying the idea that from your comments, even in gest (and comments that I sure shared), indicated that there was no 'urgency' in the information Wilkerson was giving.

Again, in NO way I tried to imply there was anything sinister behind it.

I'm sincerely sorry if it read that way. I sometimes write too fast for my own brain to realize the different interpretations that my rants could have.

Dear Palo:

Many thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it as I like and value your posts on this blog --and was surprised by what you wrote about any coordination of Wilkerson's comments as teasers for a forthcoming book.

I may have misread your intention here -- and for that I step back and apologize. I get hundreds of emails a day (lately) and some of them are real screamers on the right who see conspiratorial activity in what I am trying to do, so I may be overly sensitive to that charge from others. In any case, thanks.

On the subject of the book though, I do want to add something for the record.

Lawrence Wilkerson turns out to be a tough guy for the media and others to reach -- so I have done what I can to help them reach him in a way that can be managed given the fact that he's had about 300 media requests since Wednesday (from all over the world).

Along with that have come solicitations from publishers and literary agents eager to carry his book forward....and Larry told me personally that the last thing he wants to do is be seen as cashing in on any of this. My hunch is that he will write a book, mostly an academic-style treatment of his years as one of those on the inside -- but he'll avoid the get-rich-quick antics that Judy Miller seemed to be deploying in her charade with Libby.

I'll probably write more about this -- but I wanted to put this in the record now. Lawrence Wilkerson is not someone trying to "self-deal" or financially benefit from these revelations.

best,

Steve Clemons

JohnStuart:
W is on record in saying that instead of consulting his biological father he consults a "higher father." I believe it was in Woodward's recent book about the run-up to the Iraq war.

Steve,
thanks for the work you do and for the forum for Mr. Wilkerson to speak his thoughts and give his perspective. I am grateful for his(and others) ability to speak his conscience about this admisnistration and their conduct leading up to the war. I am though quite frustrated and angry along with others and I expressed that in and earlier post, namely that more may have been accompolished if these individuals had spoken out before the election.
It is analagous to being angry with the press for sitting on the Plamegate story even though they knew in the summer of 2004 who the leakers were and what the story was/is. It is analagous to being angry with CBS because they botched a story regarding W's earlier TANG career and sat on the Niger document forgery story in the summer of 2004. Hell, even the NY Times sat on it's narrative of the WMD and Plame story last summer. All of these things could have and should have made a difference. I admit I am angry about the press' conduct in the last shameful 5 years of this administration. I was hoping that people would begin to speak out. I only wish it had been sooner.

Best to you.

Marky: "Can you explain why Wilkerson and Scowcroft are speaking out now, and not before the election?"

One has to wonder whether their voices of protest would have made the slightest difference in the election. I seriously doubt it.

Re Kurzleg's comment:

Yes, one would have thought, for instance, that Ron Suskind's lengthy NYT magazine article on the difference between Bush's religious speech and his behavior would have had an effect in the election; but I don't see that it did at all. It's hard to believe a Scowcroft talk-show tour, for instance, would have been more help.

In reference to the criticism of Wilkerson for
not speaking out prior to November 2, 2004, when
his comments might have done some good in a close
election, those with experience in government
service have written that "we" just don't understand.
Those of us who are slinging rocks just don't
understand what it's like to work in those
rarified levels of government. If we did we could
understand why it has taken Wilkerson so long.

I find it intersting that Richard Holbrooke, a
man with, as I recall, some background in government
service echos many of the criticisms leveled here.
He writes:

Wilkerson (and, presumably, his former boss) are looking in the wrong place for the answer to the wrong question. Neither man has explained publicly what he would have done differently in Iraq and elsewhere, nor why the president apparently ignored most of their advice. The "evil influence" theory Wilkerson laid out is fun to read and surely reflects Powell's feelings, but it does not explain how a national hero universally respected for his decency and integrity, and whose approval ratings were 30 points higher than those of Bush, could lose so many of the big battles.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/21/AR2005102101829.html

I will also note that Richard Clarke, another man
with background in government service, did speak
out and paid a price for his patriotism.

I am not writing that I don't think that Wilkerson
should not have spoken out now or that I'm not
glad he has. I don't think that others in this
discussion are either.

But it is hard to avoid the conclusion that he is
speaking out now because G.W. Bush and Co. are
weakened.

It is also hard to avoid Wilkerson's continued
defense of the indefensible. He glosses over the
fact that one of the major arguments used to justify
the invasion of Iraq was Condi Rice's "mushroom
cloud". He does not comment on the heated debate
within the government on the evidence used to
justify Bush Co. claims about Saddam. Nor does
he really make much note of the fact that the
"evidence" choosen was the evidence that supported
the case that Bush wanted made. Wilkerson justifies
believing that the famous aluminum tubes were for
uranium refinement because the French said so.
Wilkerson does not discuss what those within the
US government had to say on this issue.

Bush wanted to be a "War President". This is
pretty much a historical fact now. In Bush's view
a glorious war in Iraq would give him the "political
capital" he needed to push through his hard right
agenda. He wanted to invade before 9/11/2001.
All of this seems to have passed Wilkerson by or
at least is not something that he cares to look
at. To truely look at the people he has served
would be to realize that he has capped off his
career of government service in the service of
some of the worst people who have ever walked the
corridors of power in the US.

OT: http://tinyurl.com/7gz3l

Cheney aide passed Plame's name to Libby, Hadley, those close to leak investigation say

10/24/2005 @ 1:47 pm
Filed by Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna

"With the possibility of indictments just days away, sources close to the investigation into who outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson have provided RAW STORY a more detailed account into how and why Plame's name was leaked and what role the Pentagon and the vice president's office played.

Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on loan from the office of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told Libby that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle, the sources said.

Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and then-National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, they added.

Within a week, Wurmser, on orders from "executives in the office of the vice president," was told to leak her name to a specific group of reporters in an effort to muzzle her husband, Wilson, who had become a thorn in the side of the administration, those close to the inquiry say. It is unclear who Wurmser had spoken with in the media, the sources said, but they confirmed he did speak with reporters at national media outlets about Plame.

"Libby wanted to discredit him right from the start," one source close to the investigation told RAW STORY. "He used David Wurmser to help him do that."

Neither Wurmser or Libby could be reached for comment.

Wurmser had a direct link to the CIA because of his work on intelligence issues related to Iraq and frequently met with CIA analysts who worked on weapons of mass destruction. Through his contacts, Wurmser was told that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent working on WMD issues and it was she who had recommended Wilson for the trip, the sources said. Those familiar with the investigation say, however, it is unclear whether Wurmser was told that she operating as a covert agent. They believe it was likely he was told she was an "analyst" working on WMDs in a similar capacity to the other agents Wurmser had interacted with.

Those familiar with information provided to Fitzgerald say that shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Wurmser was handpicked by Harold Rhode, a Foreign Affairs Specialist in the Office of Net Assessment, a Pentagon "think tank," and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith to head a top secret Pentagon "cell" whose job was to comb through CIA intelligence documents and find evidence that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States and its neighbors in the Middle East so a case could be made to launch a preemptive military strike. Wurmser largely invented evidence that Iraq had close ties to Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, sources knowledgeable about his work told RAW STORY.

Although the CIA documents that Wurmser and his staff pored over never showed Iraq as being an immediate threat, Wurmser was dead set on finding and presenting evidence to Vice President Dick Cheney that suggested as much even if the veracity of such intelligence was questionable, sources close the probe said. Wurmser had met with now discredited Iraqi exiles who were part of the Iraqi National Congress, headed by Ahmed Chalabi, the infamous single source of Judith Miller's explosive columns published in the New York Times that said Iraq was acquiring nuclear bomb components, who is now the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, they added.

With the aid of Chalabi and the White House Iraq Group, Wurmser helped Cheney's office, particularly the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, construct a case for war. He met frequently with Cheney, Libby, Feith and Richard Perle, the former head of the Defense Policy Board, to go over the "evidence" of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein that could then be used by the White House to build public support. Wurmser routinely butted heads with the CIA over the veracity of the intelligence he was providing to Cheney's office, sources close the investigation said.

Wurmser had long been a proponent of removing Saddam Hussein from power. Indeed, in 1996, Wurmser, his wife Meyrav and Perle, authored a paper for "Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm." It called on Israel to work with Jordan and Turkey to "contain, destabilize and roll back" various states in the region, overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq, press Jordan to restore a scion of the Hashemite dynasty to the Iraqi throne, and, above all, launch military assaults against Lebanon and Syria as a "prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria's territorial integrity," according to an investigative report in the January/February 2004 issue of Mother Jones magazine.

A year later, Wurmser wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal titled "Iraq Needs a Revolution" and two years later authored a book, "Tyranny's Ally: America's Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein."

The Administration's plans were complicated in May 2003, when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson entered the picture, and said privately to close colleagues and a handful of journalists that the intelligence used by President Bush was "twisted."

For two years, Wurmser, Feith, Perle, Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had a tumultous relationship with the CIA who they blamed for not providing them with the type of evidence they wanted to see: specific, tailor-made assessments that Iraq was an imminent threat. But with Wilson they feared a public backlash.

Libby first learned that Wilson was discrediting the administration's intelligence information in June 2003. Specifically, Wilson questioned claims that Iraq tried to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Africa for an atomic bomb.

Wilson went to Niger in 2002 to investigate the allegations and reported that the claims were unfounded. According to a Senate report, the mission grew out of a request by Vice President Cheney earlier that year. Vehemently denying that his boss had requested the trip, Libby became so incensed by Wilson that he sent word to Wurmser to find out who Wilson was and sought details of his trip, those familiar with the investigation say."

I, for one, am grateful that Wilkerson is speaking out now. The American public has been hostile to all sorts of warnings and revelations about Bushco, and one more critic would not have tipped the balance. And it wasn't just hostility to critics: the American public has been amazingly indifferent to shocking events: the lack of WMD didn't faze them, Abu Ghraib didn't faze them, the obviously manipulated terror alerts didn't faze them, the failure to capture Osama Bin Laden didn't faze them, and here at home, the coddling of the super rich didn't faze them, the loss of jobs didn't faze them....

Why does anyone think that Wilkerson would have been anything more than a single off-key ping in the great Bush noise machine? I also wish that the American public had recognized how bad Bushco was before Nov 2004, but I also wish I would win the $340M lottery.

Col. Wilkerson indeed was remarkably candid, and his call for structural reform is very convincing. As for the details, I am unconvinced that combining State and Defense has any merit. I can't help but note that Col. Wilkerson is himself a MILITARY leader.

Also, even though a follow-up question was asked, Col. Wilkerson didn't explain his conclusion that if we were to withdraw from Iraq we would be back in 5 years with 5 million men. This seems like a very dubious proposition to me; and there are many alternative scenarios to simply packing up and leaving as soon as logistically possible which he didn't address. He makes the case that the war was entered into on the basis of lies and disinformation, but steers totally clear of the obvious conclusion, supported both by recent polls in Iraq showing that the great majority of Iraqis want the occupying powers out of their country as soon as possible, and in this country, showing that a majority want the war in Iraq brought to an end.

The great unanswered question: given that this administration knowingly lied to the American people to justify a catastrophic war, which will have harmful ramifications for decades, and which distracted our national effort from the real threats of Islamic Radical Terrorists, what more would be needed to constitute solid grounds to impeach this president?

Just watched "Elusive Peace", about the last 6 years of the Israeli/Arab troubles. What really came across, from Armitage, Powell and others, was how little respect they have for CinC Bush.. Powell especially made comments like "It was a simple plan. The President understood it" in such a way that left no doubt to his meaning.

What caught my notice, in light of the 'flip-flopping'(to coin a phrase) about Fitzgerald, was that Bush came out sincerely believing in the injustice of the Security Fence but behind the scenes other hands made sure that the inevitable abandonment of the Gaza settlements and effective dropping of the Right to Return went right ahead. Now Bush is saying Fitzgerald is a decent man, dignified, whatever, and you can bet that Cheney is grinding his teeth somewhere.

I can't believe you voted these jokers back in.

In case you missed it, SCOWCROFT BEFORE the SENATE VOTE SPOKE OUT AGAINST THE IRAQ WAR. We should be welcoming those clear thinking Republicans that are on the correct side of the Iraq question.

OP-ED
"Don't Attack Saddam"
By Brent Scowcroft
Wall Street Journal
August 15, 2002

Our nation is presently engaged in a debate about whether to launch a war against Iraq. ...

Saddam's strategic objective appears to be to dominate the Persian Gulf, to control oil from the region, or both.

That clearly poses a real threat to key U.S. interests. But there is scant evidence to tie Saddam to terrorist organizations, and even less to the Sept. 11 attacks. Indeed Saddam's goals have little in common with the terrorists who threaten us, and there is little incentive for him to make common cause with them.

He is unlikely to risk his investment in weapons of mass destruction, much less his country, by handing such weapons to terrorists who would use them for their own purposes and leave Baghdad as the return address. Threatening to use these weapons for blackmail -- much less their actual use -- would open him and his entire regime to a devastating response by the U.S. While Saddam is thoroughly evil, he is above all a power-hungry survivor.

Saddam is a familiar dictatorial aggressor, with traditional goals for his aggression. There is little evidence to indicate that the United States itself is an object of his aggression. Rather, Saddam's problem with the U.S. appears to be that we stand in the way of his ambitions. He seeks weapons of mass destruction not to arm terrorists, but to deter us from intervening to block his aggressive designs....

An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken.

The United States could certainly defeat the Iraqi military and destroy Saddam's regime. But it would not be a cakewalk. On the contrary, it undoubtedly would be very expensive -- with serious consequences for the U.S. and global economy -- and could as well be bloody. ...

But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism. Worse, there is a virtual consensus in the world against an attack on Iraq at this time. So long as that sentiment persists, it would require the U.S. to pursue a virtual go-it-alone strategy against Iraq, making any military operations correspondingly more difficult and expensive. The most serious cost, however, would be to the war on terrorism. ...And make no mistake, we simply cannot win that war without enthusiastic international cooperation, especially on intelligence.

... in order to go after Iraq, there would be an explosion of outrage against us. We would be seen as ignoring a key interest of the Muslim world in order to satisfy what is seen to be a narrow American interest.

...In sum, if we will act in full awareness of the intimate interrelationship of the key issues in the region, keeping counterterrorism as our foremost priority, there is much potential for success across the entire range of our security interests -- including Iraq. If we reject a comprehensive perspective, however, we put at risk our campaign against terrorism as well as stability and security in a vital region of the world.

http://ffip.com/opeds081502.htm

"And if something comes along that is truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence."

Am I the only person who read this comment as a prediction of some type of coup in the event of another 9/11 or Katrina? Read his comments either side of this quote for complete context. Seems irresponsible.

"Col. Wilkerson indeed was remarkably candid, and his call for structural reform is very convincing. As for the details, I am unconvinced that combining State and Defense has any merit."

I'm wondering if part of the problem of the ineffectiveness of the State Dept under Powell and Wilkerson might be related to the fact that both were career military men. After we began the invasion of Iraq, might these career military men, despite their personal misgivings, be alittle more inclined to support the president in his "commander in chief" role than a seasoned career diplomat or a professor would? So, it was perhaps even tougher for them to go public with concerns because of a lifetime living with regulations forbidding criticism of their commander in chief?

Herewith is a repost of a controversial comment made a few days ago at Corrente, with additions:

The Sound of Patriots

Submitted by the cubist on Fri, 2005-10-21 22:36.

The Army and Marines have been shabbily treated, and they know it. The Colonel hints that he speaks for the common wisdom among the best and brightest of those at least in the generation he taught. If things have reached such a pass that a career field-grade officer and Naval War College professor—the deputy to the past Secretary of State—thinks the situation is so bad that professional soldiers may be seriously considering armed revolution to rid the nation of these stupid Republican traitors, then Iraq must be even worse than we can know, even as the Gulf devastation is.

What a story. And nobody whispers a word about it but a few on the net, and some foreign newspapers. Nice work, Lambert and Corrente.

In defense of my take on these elements, I say that Wilkerson himself is one of the professional soldiers who seems here to be considering the prospect of armed revolution. He is a professional diplomat, of high order. So he speaks in metaphors, the lingua franca of the diploma. He even points to this very skill when he speaks of using the Declaration of Independence in study classes with his tutored students. And after he speaks about metaphors, he refers to the Declaration as calling the people “to throw off tyranny, to throw off ineptitude.” The inept and tyrannical Bush administration? (“Cabal” is a word historically associated with treason). He clearly implies that the time is getting close for a return to the principles of the Declaration, and that the circumstances Americans faced then may parallel what we face now. And the Declaration is nothing less than a call to join an armed revolution to overthrow tyranny. There is thus at least one soldier who seems to be considering it, and I think his reference at the opening to his former students hints at his saying what they may not say. In my view, he hints at the possible overthrow of King George.

Jut a note about Cheney not knowing Wilson. During the post Iraq invasion of Kuwait Wilson was Charge dÁffaires in Baghdad. April Glaspie, the ambassador, was back home having fallen into disfavour for her passive response to Saddam's inquiry about US policy in the event Iraq occupied Kuwait. Wilson did a great job protecting US and other nationals. Was commened by Bush 41. Cheney was Sec of Defense. Am I to believe Cheney did not know the man who was talking to Washington in those days and reporting on events there?

I've been saying all along that

"When in the course of human events..."

has come around one more time.

I.e.,
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them....

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The basic premise and foundation, having been openly violated, in part and in whole.

The conditions having long since been met.

While my initial response to Wilkerson's talk
was... Where was your tongue in 2003? after viewing some discussions here and elsewhere I have revisited my knee jerk quip.Wilkerson may have changed his mind about the effectiveness of policy only after viewing the results.The question of morality then arises and the process of analysis allows back tracking.Who can say how much intelligence the General saw and how much he
(NOW and only Now)foolishly believed.This makes him neither dishonest or a timely hero,but rather someone who is describing how safeguards once written still have to be followed.
If while driving your car you are distracted,
enough so you miss a sign, do you admit to being lost orkeep quiet so others do not call you stupid or inept?And can you or others in the car know where you missed the sign? Or why?