US policy and the 'Oval Office cabal'

[rodeodance]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GJ21Aa02.html

By Jim Lobe

US policy and the 'Oval Office cabal'
> Oct 21, 2005

> WASHINGTON - As top officials in the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's office await possible criminal indictments for their efforts to discredit a whistle-blower, a top aide to former secretary of state, Colin Powell, on Wednesday accused a "cabal" led by Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld of hijacking US foreign policy by circumventing or ignoring formal decision-making channels.
>.......
>
> "In some cases, there was real dysfunctionality," said Wilkerson, who spoke at the New America Foundation (NAF), a prominent Washington think tank. "But in most cases ... she made a decision that she would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president."
>
> "The case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberrations, bastardizations and perturbations in the national-security process," he said.
>
> "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."
>
> Wilkerson also stressed the "extremely powerful" influence of what he called the "Oval Office cabal" of Cheney and Rumsfeld, both former secretaries of defense with a long-standing personal and professional relationship.
>
.......
>

[rodeodance]

1. Wilkerson agreed with Gen. Franks about Feith.

Wilkerson was particularly scathing about the former under secretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, citing (retired general) Tommy Frank's famous description of the neo-conservative ideologue as the "f...ing stupidest guy on the planet".
"Let me testify to that," he said. "He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man. And yet, and yet, after the control, at least in the immediate post-war period in Iraq, this man is put in charge. Not only is he put in charge, he is given carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw themselves in a closet somewhere ... That's telling you how decisions were made and ... how things got accomplished."

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. long-standing personal and professional relationship..... should

be long-standing personal and professional defects... really.

[afdip]

3. wilkerson can prepare himself for the onslaught

of the repuke slime machine . . . or what is left of it.

[Boo Boo]

4. Wilkerson was hosted by Steve Clemons' New America Foundation

Here is a link to the complete transcript of the event. It's a worthwhile read. He covers quite a bit, including why he thinks just bailing out of Iraq would be a mistake. Also gives his take on our dysfunctional government, and Congress' abdication of oversight. Plenty of food for thought.

The transcript is still a little rough, but it's worth wading through.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/Wilkerson%20Speech%20--%20WEB.htm