New Yorker/ Goldberger: "Breaking Ranks" - SCOWCROFT's BLAST OF BUSH 43

[Nothing Without Hope]

Issue of 2005-10-31, Posted 2005-10-24
Jeffrey Goldberg

Breaking Ranks: What Brent Scowcroft tried to tell Bush

This important and much-anticipated article by Jeffrey Goldberg in the new issue of the New Yorker, based on extensive interview of Brent Scowcroft, has been much anticipated and is considered so important by the magazine that it released an extensive excerpt from it to the press. The entire article has NOT (yet?) been posted, as can be seen from the New Yorker index page: http://www.newyorker.com/main/magazine, but excerpts and analysis HAVE been put up at the Washington Note site. Also, the New Yorker has posted a revealing online-only Q & A session with Goldberger about Scowcroft.

Steve Clemons has presented his overall analysis at The Washington Note along with extensive excerpts from the article helpfully arranged in subject categories:

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001024.html
October 23, 2005

Brent Scowcroft "Breaks Ranks" with George W. Bush in Major New Yorker Article

Jeffrey Goldberg has written a critique in The New Yorker of the Bush White House that equals Ron Suskind's devastating critique (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000124.html) of Bush before the last election titled "Without a Doubt."

In "Breaking Ranks: What Turned Brent Scowcroft Against the Bush Administration?", Jeffrey Goldberg coaxes Brent Scowcroft to delineate his differences with the foreign policy proclivities of George W. Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Cheney, and others.

And in the piece, George H.W. Bush is interviewed about Scowcroft -- and while Bush 41's comments are more elliptical, he stands clearly by Scowcroft's side in clear criticism of the decisions his son made.

This critique by Scowcroft hardens the foundation of critique that others have recently put in place -- particularly from Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001020.html), former State Department Chief of Staff under Colin Powell who spoke at the New America Foundation last Wednesday. Wilkerson's remarks have swept like wildfire through the media and are the subject of a Richard Holbrooke article today in the New York Times and also a core column of discussion on this morning's "Meet the Press."

(snip)

From "Breaking Ranks: What Turned Brent Scowcroft Against the Bush Administration?", Jeffrey Goldberg, The New Yorker, 31 October 2005:

Scowcroft on Iraq and Neocon Idealism

A principal reason that the Bush Administration gave no thought to unseating Saddam was that Brent Scowcroft gave no thought to it. An American occupation of Iraq would be politically and militarily untenable, Scowcroft told Bush. And though the President had employed the rhetoric of moral necessity to make the case for war, Scowcroft said, he would not let his feelings about good and evil dictate the advice he gave the President.

(snip)

Scowcroft on Iraq & Israel

(snip)

In the {August 2002 Wall Street Journal} article {which was titled {"DON'T ATTACK SADDAM"}, he {Scowcroft} argued that an invasion of Iraq would deflect American attention from the war on terrorism, and that it would do nothing to solve the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis, which he has long believed is the primary source of unhappiness in the Middle East. Unlike the current Bush Administration, which is unambiguously pro-Israel, Scowcroft, James Baker, and others associated with the elder George Bush believe that Israel's settlement policies arouse Arab anger, and that American foreign policy should reflect the fact that there are far more Arabs than Israelis in the world.

(snip)

Scowcroft's Frustration Communicating with Bush 43

Like nearly everyone else in Washington, Scowcroft believed that Saddam maintained stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, but he wrote that a strong inspections program would have kept him at bay. "There may have come a time when we would have needed to take Saddam out," he told me. "But he wasn't really a threat. His Army was weak, and the country hadn't recovered from sanctions." Scowcroft's colleagues told me that he would have preferred to deliver his analysis privately to the White House. But Scowcroft, the apotheosis of a Washington insider, was by then definitively on the outside, and there was no one in the White House who would listen to him. On the face of it, this is remarkable: Scowcroft's best friend's son is the President; his friend Dick Cheney is the Vice-President; Condoleezza Rice, who was the national-security adviser, and is now the Secretary of State, was once a Scowcroft protege; and the current national-security adviser, Stephen Hadley, is another protege and a former principal at the Scowcroft Group.

Scowcroft on Cheney: "The Real Anomaly"

"The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney," Scowcroft said. "I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." He went on, "I don't think Dick Cheney is a neocon, but allied to the core of neocons is that bunch who thought we made a mistake in the first Gulf War, that we should have finished the job. There was another bunch who were traumatized by 9/11, and who thought, 'The world's going to hell and we've got to show we're not going to take this, and we've got to respond, and Afghanistan is O.K., but it's not sufficient.'" Scowcroft supported the invasion of Afghanistan as a "direct response" to terrorism.

{Additional subject headings for other excerpts from the article:}

On George W. Bush Not Hearing Dissent or Considering Alternative Views -- With A Nudge from Bush 41
Bush 41 Unable to Mend Fences Between Bush 43 and Scowcroft
Few Areas of Foreign Policy Agreement Between Scowcroft and George W. Bush
Scowcroft's Deteriorarting Relationship with Condoleeza Rice
Scowcroft on Rice's Foreign Policy Deficits & Israel Policy
Scowcroft's Realism on the Middle East
Scowcroft on Wolfowitz
An Odd Exchange with Sharansky: Insight into Bush 43's Views of his Father

Steve Clemons adds that he knows for a fact that Scowcroft expected the New Yorker article to come out significantly later, well AFTER any potential Fitzgerald indictments of high-ranking Bush officials. Finally, he points out that Scowcroft's statements complement and extend those of Wilkerson: "Lawrence Wilkerson filled in many of the other pieces not covered here in his revelations about a 'cabal' in the White House that cast away essential guidance from the 1947 National Security Act."

**********************************************

HERE IS THE Q & A ONLINE SUPPLEMENT TO THE NEW YORKER SCOWCROFT ARTICLE:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/051031on_onlineonly01

The Republican Rift

Issue of 2005-10-31, Posted 2005-10-24
This week in the magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg writes about Brent Scowcroft, the national-security adviser under President George H. W. Bush—and the former President’s best friend—who has been at odds with the current Administration. Here, with Amy Davidson, Goldberg discusses Scowcroft and the divide within the Republican party over Iraq.

AMY DAVIDSON: Why is Brent Scowcroft worth writing about now? He’s been out of government for some time.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: For one thing, he’s a leading proponent of the “realist” school of foreign-policy thinking, which stands in opposition to the “transformationalist,” or neoconservative, or liberal interventionist—pick your preference—school. He also has a great deal of experience on the Iraqi question—he managed the first Gulf War for President George H. W. Bush, so it’s interesting to hear what he thinks of the current war. (Not much, as you can see from the article.) And he’s the best friend of the father of the current President, and the mentor of the current Secretary of State, so it’s worth exploring why the Administration of George W. Bush doesn’t listen to his advice on Iraq and other subjects.

AMY DAVIDSON: Scowcroft is a consummate diplomat and a careful man. And yet, reading the quotes in your story, it seems that he almost had to force himself not to lash out at the current Administration—and he didn’t always succeed. Is Scowcroft an angry man these days?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: He’s a man in control of his emotions, and so I’m not sure how angry he is, or how far he would be willing to go to show his anger. He is upset about the course of the war, of course, and I suppose he’s upset because his advice before the war was ignored. But I don’t think he takes these things personally. I think he doesn’t want to see America do damage to itself. And, according to what he told me, he thinks America has been damaged by the intervention in Iraq: he believes, he said, that the Iraq war has made our terrorism problem worse, not better.

(snip - much more at link, well worth reading)

I am hoping that further analyses and commentary on the New Yorker Scowcroft article and related information will be included in the replies to this thread. Let's make this a RESOURCE!

[Nothing Without Hope]

1. Full TRANSCRIPT and full VIDEO of COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON's speech

This is closely related to Scowcroft's comments in the New Yorker article; in his The Washington Note commentary on the New Yorker article Steven Clemons points out how Wilkerson's statements complement and overlap Scowcroft's.

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

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

Here is the page at The Washington Note where it is posted with comments and links to related articles:
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001020.html

Here is a page with the full VIDEO LINK of Wilkerson's Oct 19 speech:

http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=event&EveID=520
"Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on the Bush Administration’s National Security Decision Making Process"
Event Details:
Wednesday, 12:15 p.m.-2:00 p.m., October 19, 2005
Location: New America Foundation; 1630 Connecticut Ave., NW; Washington, DC 20009

Larry Wilkerson is Former Chief of Staff, State Department, 2002-2005

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. WaPo/Dana Milbank: "Colonel {Wilkerson} Finally Saw Whites of Their Eyes"

Because the Wilkerson remarks complement the Scowcroft interview, I am including the transcript and video recording of Wilkerson's Oct 19 speech and this Wash Post commentary on it here. (This article has undoubtedly been posted at DU, but I didn't see it and don't have a link to the thread(s). If someone else does, please post.) Milbank describes Wilkerson as Colin Powell's right-hand man.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/19/AR2005101902246.html

Colonel Finally Saw Whites of Their Eyes

By Dana Milbank
Thursday, October 20, 2005; Page A04

(snip)

Wilkerson adds a new dimension to the criticism. A 31-year military veteran and former director of the Marine Corps War College, he worked for Powell in the public and private sectors for much of the past 16 years, and he was often described by colleagues as the man who would say what Powell was thinking but was too discreet to say.

Wilkerson's beef with the administration was, for the most part, not ideological. He argues that U.S. forces must remain in Iraq, and he describes George H.W. Bush as "one of the finest presidents we've ever had."

Rather, the colonel objected to the administration's secrecy, which allowed Cheney, Rumsfeld and others to subvert the foreign policy apparatus that has been in place since 1947.

"What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld," he said. By cutting out the bureaucracy that had to carry out those decisions, "we have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, and generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina." If there is a nuclear terrorist attack or a major pandemic, Wilkerson continued, "you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that'll take you back to the Declaration of Independence."

(snip - much more at link)

[Stephanie]

2. It doesn't look like the New Yorker is going to post the article online

I'm trying to find out from someone there.

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. So far, that's the case. But the excerpts at The Washington Note are

very extensive.

[Nothing Without Hope]

5. Press Release from the New Yorker about the Scowcroft article:

(Mods - this is a press release, so 4-paragraph rule does not apply)

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001023.html

Brent Scowcroft on the War in Iraq and the Bush Administration

In "Breaking Ranks" (p. 54), in the October 31, 2005, issue of The New Yorker, Jeffrey Goldberg reports on the growing divide between the Bush Administration and its Republican critics. The criticism from Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to George H.W. Bush, has been particularly pronounced, Goldberg writes. Scowcroft recalls advice he gave the first President Bush at the conclusion of the first Gulf War, when there was pressure to remove Saddam Hussein.

It would have been easy to reach Baghdad, Scowcroft said, but what then? "At the minimum, we'd be an occupier in a hostile land. Our forces would be sniped at by guerrillas, and once we were there, how would we get out? What would be the rationale for leaving? I don't like the term 'exit strategy' -- but what do you do with Iraq once you own it?" Scowcroft then said of Iraq, "This is exactly where we are now. We own it. And we can't let go. We're getting sniped at. Now, will we win? I think there's a fair chance we'll win. But look at the cost."

Scowcroft has known George W. Bush for decades, but since the beginning of the Iraq war, he has been frozen out of the White House. "On the face of it," Goldberg writes, "this is remarkable," because Scowcroft's best friend is the former President Bush; the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, was a Scowcroft protege; and Vice-President Dick Cheney is also a friend. "The real anomaly in the Administration is Cheney," Scowcroft told Goldberg.

"I consider Cheney a good friend -- I've known him for thirty years. But Dick Cheney I don't know anymore." When, in an e-mail, George H.W. Bush was asked about Scowcroft's most useful qualities as an adviser, the former President wrote that he "was very good about making sure that we did not simply consider the 'best case,' but instead considered what it would mean if things went our way, and also if they did not."

According to friends of the elder Bush, the "estrangement of his son and his best friend has been an abiding source of unhappiness," Goldberg writes. Scowcroft said he hoped for a better relationship with the son, and adds, "I like George Bush personally, and he is the son of a man I'm just crazy about." Of the differences between father and son, Scowcroft said, "I don't want to go there."

Colleagues have paid particular notice to the relationship between Scowcroft and Rice, who worked closely during the first Bush Administration. Friends of Scowcroft recall a dinner in September of 2002, when discussion of the impending war in Iraq became heated. As Goldberg reports, Rice finally said, irritably, "The world is a messy place, and someone has to clean it up."

Goldberg talks to the former Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky, whose book, "The Case for Democracy," came to national attention when George W. Bush told the Washington Times, "If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy, read Natan Sharansky's book." In the book, Sharansky criticizes Bush's father for a speech he gave in 1991, in Ukraine, opposing a break with the Soviet Union -- a speech critics labelled "Chicken Kiev."

Sharansky tells Goldberg that soon after his book was published, he was invited to the White House to see the President. He says, "So I go to the White House and I see my book on his desk. It is open to page 210. He is really reading it. And we talk about democracy. This President is very great on democracy. At the end of the conversation, I say, 'Say hello to your mother and father.' And he said, 'My father?' He looked very surprised I would say this."

Sharansky went on, "So I say to the President, 'I like your father. He is very good to my wife when I am in prison.' And President Bush says, 'But what about Chicken Kiev?'"

The Administration, Goldberg writes, "remains committed to the export of democracy, and is publicly optimistic about the future in Iraq." Paul Wolfowitz, an architect of the Iraq war, tells Goldberg, "Wilson thought you could take a map of Europe and say, 'This is the way things are going to be.' That was unrealistic, but the world has changed a lot in a hundred years. The fact is that people can look around and see the overwhelming success of representative government."

"For Scowcroft," Goldberg writes, "the second Gulf war is a reminder of the unwelcome consequences of radical intervention, especially when it is attempted without sufficient understanding of America's limitations or of the history of a region." Scowcroft says, "I believe in the fallibility of human nature. We continually step on our best aspirations. We're humans. Given a chance to screw up, we will."

The October 31, 2005, issue of The New Yorker goes on sale at newsstands beginning Monday, October 24th. Selections from the magazine, as well as additional features, are available at www.newyorker.com.

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. kick - need another vote for Greatest page visibility

[understandinglife]

7. Important article. Related DU thread at:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5143645&mesg_id=5144942

Excellent post, as always, Hope. Thank you!


Peace.

[Nothing Without Hope]

8. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

9. This is an important article n/t

[BeHereNow]

10. Oh MY! The writing is on the wall...

The cabal is about to fall.
NO accident in the timing here.
You can bet your bottom dollar that
Scowcroft knows plenty about who is going
D
O
W
N
too...

BHN

[Nothing Without Hope]

11. Scowcroft expected the New Yorker article to come out well AFTER Fitz's

indictments were issued (mentioned in the OP). Interesting how timing is so important in politics.

This isn't going to promote Bush 41's program to try to make Bush 43 listen to Scowcroft.

[BeHereNow]

14. Yes, I read that part, about Scowcroft's expectation

I find the timing MOST delectable.
41 knows 43 won't listen to scowcroft, but unlike
43, Scowcroft and 41 KNOW how things work.
Remember when 41 made a point of
being quoted in the press voicing his disapproval
of 43's Iraq plan?

That is how the BIG boys play.
Bush 43 has no clue and surrounded himself
with others who had no clue either...
41 fired Rove.
43 should have taken note of that fact.

BHN

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. I'm betting Rove's biggest talent is knowing how to kiss up to Bush 43

in such a way that he tells him what to do while making it look like he thinks Shrub is a great leader he (Rove) is an admiring. super-loyal courtier. What do you bet that Rove has also played up the divide between Bush 41 and Bush 43 in those private talks? He wouldn't want any competition for his role as prime puppet-master.

[FreedomAngel82]

36. I think so too

Remember that Rove started out first working for Bush41 and than he leaked some information to the press about someone on the team and Bush41 had Rove fired. Bush41 knows not to have leakers on his team because he knows sooner or later things would catch up etc. So I think all of the people who worked with Bush41 know what's going on. I just find it really interesting how they're all against 43.

[BeHereNow]

27. ACTUALLY, I had this thought about Rove, 41 and 43 today...

I will preface this with, yes, I know
it's out there, but we ARE talking about ROVE.

-41 fires Rove.

-Years later, Rove makes himself indespensible
as an intregal part of 43's rise to power.

Bearing in mind what a vindictive abberation
of humanity Rove is, what better way to
retaliate against 41 than by bringing 43 down,
as in the Fitzgerald investigation?

Just thinking out loud...

BHN

[Nothing Without Hope]

28. Interesting. My thoughts along these lines are just a little different but

also turn on Rove's viciousness to anyone who dares to cross him. I don't think he means to bring down 43, I think he is doing all he can to enhance the split between 41 and 43. In fact, his vengeance would be sweet indeed to have 43's reign be a triumph - he already can gloat over 43's being "re-elected" for a 2nd term. (In fact, he probably played a major role in the thefts of both elections.) The more he can isolate and exhalt 43, the more he can feel vindicated and the more he can cement his "indispensability." Bush 43 is Rove's main account - he wants him all to himself and fully dependent. There are so many levels of revenge this brings to Bush 41.

[BeHereNow]

32. GOOD points-

However, I think 41 and Scowcroft are A LOT more
experienced in the game and will win in the end.
I think Rove is too outrageous and impetuous to beat the masters
of subtlety and PATIENCE,
What say you?
BHN

[FreedomAngel82]

37. I think so too

Plus 41 probably has more people in his pocket than 43 does. Why else does Bush just nominate people who are loyalist? Why else did he purge the CIA last year? It's pretty obvious I think.

[Nothing Without Hope]

38. Yes, Rove is no master except of deceit and viciousness, but in this

long war of generations, no one is going to win.

And neither is the country.

[FreedomAngel82]

35. I agree

I think this is sending out a sign to current Bush that he and his administration are going down. I agree that in politics the timing is everything. I found it really interesting that a few months ago Poppy Bush came out on Wilson's side. I knew than that they were going down.

[FreedomAngel82]

34. Oh I'm sure he probably knows

I wouldn't be surprised. And I personally think Cheney is as much a neocon as the others are.

[Mr Rabble]

12. kicked and nominated. nt

[DeepModem Mom]

13. kick!

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. kick - I bet articles on this will come out in the major newspapers n/t

[jasmeel]

17. Why is it so important to release this interview post indictment?

I'm not sure why they would do that. Any thoughts?

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. Scowcroft would not want to appear to be adding to Bush 43's worst

moment, when news and speculation of coming indictments is as its peak. He wants to be listened to by the administration, not make the walls even higher. He's Bush 41's best friend. He would have wanted this to come out well after the indictments, when it would be a message to the Admnistration rather than fuel on an already raging fire. He certainly does not want to be perceived as grandstanding.

This guy is no friend to Dems, let alone a progressive agenda, and he doesn't want to alienate the Bush family.

[Nothing Without Hope]

19. Slate article on Scowcroft's, Wilkerson's statements: "NOW they tell us"

http://slate.msn.com/id/2128629

Now They Tell Us

Why didn't Bush's foreign-policy critics speak out a year ago?
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Monday, Oct. 24, 2005, at 3:10 PM PT

(snip)

One question comes to mind, though: What took them so long? Why didn't they come out and tell us these things, oh, say, a year ago, when their words might have made a difference?

Scowcroft is somewhat exempt from this complaint. He did write an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal in August 2002 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002133), just as the president was gearing up for war, titled "Don't Attack Saddam," in which he argued that Iraq posed no immediate threat and that an invasion would detract from the more urgent war on terrorism. Given his relationship with the Bush family, it was a brave piece to write—and it had consequences. As The New Yorker piece points out, Bush did not renew Scowcroft's appointment as chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board when his term expired in 2004; and his old friends in high office—Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, and so forth—stopped speaking to him. Though he didn't speak out much against the war as it progressed—or against Bush's fantasy-ridden foreign-policy rhetoric as it took off—at least he'd tried once.

But what's Wilkerson's excuse? Where's he been? During the question-and-answer period at the New America Foundation, he was asked where someone in his position should draw the line between loyalty and disclosure. He replied, "I feel like, as a citizen and as a person very concerned with the military … I need to speak out. … I think when you feel like what you might say has even a remote opportunity to affect some change for the good."

Sorry, colonel. You had far more than a merely "remote opportunity" to "affect some change" last November. As Bush put it shortly before his second-term inauguration, "We have an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 election." That was Wilkerson's "accountability moment," too, and he skipped it.

(snip)

The article goes on to make some interesting comments - such as the difference between the US and UK systems with respect to resigning in protest. It's common in the UK but rare here, and in the UK the resigner retains their constituency. In the US the resigner walks away from everything and is thereafter generally regarded as a leprous "loose cannon."

[ChiciB1]

20. I Saw Tweety Talking About Scowcroft & The "Maybe" Rift

between Daddy and Boy King!

[liveoaktx]

21. VIDEO-selected comments

Goldberg on Hardball

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. Thanks for this! This compilation is an excellent complement to the

written material. Only about two minutes total, but they cover a huge amount of territory.

[ChiciB1]

25. Thanks... A Very Intelligent Guy, Goldberg!

[Nothing Without Hope]

22. NYT Plamegate article ties in Scowcroft & Wilkerson, points up GOP rift:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/23/politics/23strategy.ready.html

Leak Case Renews Questions on War's Rationale

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: October 23, 2005

(snip)

The combatants' intensity was underscored this week in a speech by Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin L. Powell while he was secretary of state, who complained of a "cabal" between Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld when it came to Iraq and other national security issues and of a "real dysfunctionality" in the administration's foreign policy team.

The intensity could be further inflamed by comments from Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser during the administration of Mr. Bush's father, in the coming edition of The New Yorker that are a reminder of how the breach over Iraq had its roots in competing views of foreign policy that extend well back into the last century.

Mr. Scowcroft, a self-described realist who prides himself on seeing what could go wrong in any course of action, argues against what he characterizes as the utopian view of neoconservatives within the administration that toppling Saddam Hussein would open the door to democracy throughout the Middle East. He also suggests that Mr. Cheney is a man much changed, and not for the better, from the policy maker he worked with closely during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

Mr. Scowcroft has long expressed reservations about the current White House's foreign policy approach and about the Iraq war in particular, but his comments could further exacerbate divisions among Republicans, especially to the degree that they are seen as reflecting the views of his close friend, the first President Bush.

(snip)

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. The American Prospect: "WELL, COLIN?" Colin Powell needs to come clean too

TAP executive editor Michael Tomasky makes a good point:

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10493

Well, Colin?

Don’t good things come in threes? Wilkerson, Scowcroft ... A certain someone should be next, if he wants to salvage what’s left of his reputation.
By Michael Tomasky
Web Exclusive: 10.24.05

Last Wednesday, October 19, was the day that Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Colin Powell at the State Department, decided he couldn’t take it anymore. In a lunchtime talk to the New America Foundation moderated by Steve Clemons, Wilkerson ripped into the Bush administration “cabal” that was guilty of “aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations” in a decision-making process that shocked him.

Then, a few days later, Jeffrey Goldberg's New Yorker profile of Brent Scowcroft hit the news cycle right between the eyes. Scowcroft, like Wilkerson, was known already to be an opponent of the neocon way of doing things. But neither had ever spoken for the record as they did last week, and the cumulative effect was nuclear.

But it occurs to me that there are still others who need to speak out -- which takes us back to October 19. The same day that Wilkerson was blasting away at the administration in Washington, far away in upstate New York, the man whose staff Wilkerson chiefed, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, was delivering a speech on the current world situation to a gathering at the University of Buffalo. Surveying the landscape from Europe to China to the rest of Asia, Powell concluded: “We’re not doing bad at all.”

Has anyone in this town embarrassed himself in the last five years more than Powell? At least George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld believe this toxic gimcrackery they’ve been peddling to us. Powell never believed it, and he still peddled it. There’s a word for that, and it isn’t “honor.”

(snip)

[Nothing Without Hope]

31. Another thread on Colin's latest "everthing is just peachy-keen" talk:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5158476
thread title: Colin Powell: "We're not doing bad at all diplomatically!"

He's STILL lying for the Bushies instead of serving his country's interests.

[Nothing Without Hope]

26. kick - will be posting an important Am Prospect article on Goss & the CIA

soon - it's an example of the ruination of the government by the Bush 43 administration that fits Scowcroft's description all too well. I'll post a link here when it's up.

[Nothing Without Hope]

29. More wreckage by Bush 43; Porter Goss has all but destroyed the CIA:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5157551
Thread title: Am Prospect: "The Yes Man" - How Porter Goss has all but destroyed the CIA

This is a meaty, major article, a must-read. I hope it throws more fuel o the fire that Wilkerson and Snowcroft have been stoking: the Bush 43 Administration has done major damage to national security that will not be easily repaired.

[Nothing Without Hope]

30. Matthew Yglesias made an excellent point at TPM Cafe: "Back-stabbers":

He posted this yesterday. He's 100% right about Wilkerson, and mostly right about Scowcroft - except for that Wall Street Journal article pleading for Bush not to attack Saddam. The American Prospect article linked to upthread link in (Reply # 24 - a must-read) said some similar things but then went on to call for Colin Powell to come clean too.

None of these men has half the honor, courage or integrity of Richard Clarke, who - as Yglesias points out - "offered a study in trying to do the right thing when it mattered." At this point, they are pointing fingers and gloating over how they would have done so much better if only they had been asked for their opinions.

The Backstabbers

By Matthew Yglesias
Oct 23, 2005 -- 08:34:44 PM EST

I'll certainly read the article on Brent Scowcroft when it comes out, but I feel compelled to at least semi-dissent from the heaping of praise upon the likes of Scowcroft, Larry Wilkerson, Richard Haas, and other Republicans who've started speaking out against the Bush administration lately. Everything they say could have been said 12-18 months ago when it would have made a difference for the future of the country. But that would have meant taking fire from the then-intact conservative attack machine, and gotten them labeled as bad party men. Instead of speaking out when Bush was strong and trying to weaken him, they've waited until Bush is weak and decided to pile-on in an effort to save their own reputations.

Better late than never is a true enough adage, I suppose, but it's actually pretty shabby behavior. It also tells you a lot about the way Washington operates and the sort of dysfunctional culture that deserves a lot of blame for the unfortunate circumstances in which the country now finds itself. See also Richard Holbrooke's excellent op-ed on some related points. Richard Clark, by contrast, offered a study in trying to do the right thing when it mattered.

I'll post a link to the Holbrooke op/ed Yglesias refers to shortly. It's the Oct 23 WaPo article "The System Worked." Quotes from it are making the rounds.

[Nothing Without Hope]

40. oops- forgot the link for the Yglesias post. Here it is;

http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/23/161832/81

I'll post on the Holbrooke article he cites a bit later.

[Nothing Without Hope]

33. kick n/t

[redacted]

39. KICK. Nominated.

[Nothing Without Hope]

41. 10/23 WaPo op/ed by Holbrooke cited by Yglesias - makes some good points:

Here is the Richard Holbrooke Washington Post op/ed cited by Matthew Yglesias in his post (upthread in Reply #30). Some valuable insights on Wilkerson's statements, and he too has harsh words for Colin Powell's continuing to serve the Bushies' cause instead of the nation's.

And he reminds us that in the end, the president gets the advice he deserves from the advisors he picks. I'll add that Congress clearly shirked its duty to vet some of these advisors, as it has shirked so much else in the neocon totalitarian power buildup.

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

'The System Worked'

By Richard Holbrooke
Sunday, October 23, 2005; Page B07

(snip)

I am certainly not going to defend Cheney or Rumsfeld. They made mistakes of historic proportions in Iraq and elsewhere, and the damage done to America's world role in the past four years will, I believe, take a decade to undo. But for Wilkerson to describe major policy mistakes as the result of a process that was dysfunctional -- even though it was -- is inaccurate. In the end, presidents get the advice they deserve, from the advisers they pick. Those advisers never agree completely, nor should they. Bush was surely aware that there were two views in his administration on most critical issues, but the buck stopped on his desk. Apparently, Cheney's voice was often the most influential, but Bush made the final calls. As Les Gelb wrote about Vietnam with deliberate irony, "the system worked," but it produced the wrong outcome.

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.

Powell's supporters often offer the "effective trap" explanation for why he stayed, the same one Robert S. McNamara gave for staying in the Johnson administration for two years after he had concluded that the Vietnam War was unwinnable: Things would have been much worse if he had abandoned ship.

But that argument is no more valid today than it was in 1968 (when McNamara's successor, Clark Clifford, helped turn policy around). If you think things are that bad, is your first loyalty to the president or to the nation? And would your departure make things better or worse?

(snip)

Richard Holbrooke, an ambassador to the United Nations during the Clinton administration, writes a monthly column for The Post.

[Nothing Without Hope]

42. Wilkerson has a new op/ed in the LA Times: "THE WHITE HOUSE CABAL"

I find this piece rather self-serving. It praises Colin Powell as doing everything he could and making the best of an impossible situation: "At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it." Condi Rice is portrayed as simply being steamrolled by the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal.

This is saying in essence "it's a mess now and it's all THEIR fault. MY office was the good guys." It does admit that Bush knowingly and willingly allowed others to make the decisions that should have been his, but he is pointing the finger at Cheney and Rumsfeld.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-wilkerson25oct25,0,3717361.story?track=tothtml
October 25, 2005
latimes.com : Opinion

The White House cabal

By Lawrence B. Wilkerson
LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from 2002 to 2005.

IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New American Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.

But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.

(snip)

Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).

(snip)

Overall, this piece reinforces my approval of the American Prospect piece "Well, Colin?" (Reply #24) and Matt Yglesias' comments (Reply #30, link in #40) cited upthread.

[Nothing Without Hope]

43. A DU thread on this LAT Wilkerson article has been posted:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5159762
thread title: LA Times: "The White House cabal"

In Reply #1 in that thread, Steve Clemons of The Washington Note is cited as referring to this Wilkerson op/ed this way:
"I have read it...It's 998 words of honest patriotism that Americans need to hear -- and 998 tons of dynamite on the Executive Office of the President."

I am much less well informed than Steve Clemons, of course, but the article seems to heap a bit too much praise on Colin Powell, and by extension, himself. And why couldn't he have come forward earlier? And of course, Colin has NEVER come forward with the truth.

[Nothing Without Hope]

44. Related article: WaPo: "CIA Leak Linked to Dispute Over Iraq Policy"

posted in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1874673
thread title: WP: CIA Leak Linked to Dispute Over Iraq Policy

Article title: "CIA Leak Linked to Dispute Over Iraq Policy:
As Grand Jury Term Nears End, Officials' Critique of Administration Gains Attention"

By Glenn Kessler, Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 25, 2005; Page A03

The article cites the Wilkerson and Scowcroft exposés and puts it in the frame of an escalating rift within the Administration.

[Nothing Without Hope]

45. Oct 21 thread on a UPI piece leading up to the Scowcroft article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1868574
thread title: Old Bush vs. new (Bracing for attack from Brent Scowcroft)

Once again we see the meme of the 'good old days" under Bush 41 contrasted with the bad ones under Bush 43. Scowcoft is no kind of bipartisan, but the article (from UPI) portrays hiim as a wise impartial man from the golden days:

"A Republican and a former Air Force general, Scowcroft is a leading member of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment, and his critique of both of the style and the substance of the Bush White House, is slated to appear in Monday's editions of the New Yorker magazine.

The article also contains some critical comments on the handling of U.S. foreign policy by the current President Bush from his father, whose 1989-1993 presidency is hailed for deft management of the end of the Cold War, German unification, the first Gulf war and the collapse of the Soviet Union."

[Nothing Without Hope]

46. kick - lots of good stuff has been gathered here.

Before this thread ends, I'll see about gathering other related articles and threads.

[Nothing Without Hope]

47. kick n/t

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48. kick - I hope have seen this n/t