Transcript: Colonel Wilkerson on US foreign policy

[rosesaylavee]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c925a686-40f4-11da-b3f9-00000e2511c8.html

The following is a partial transcript of remarks made by Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to former secretary of state Colin Powell, to the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank.



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On the other hand, as a practitioner and as a citizen of this great republic, I kind of believe that I have an obligation to say some of these things and I believe furthermore that the people’s representatives over on the Hill in that other branch of government have truly abandoned their oversight responsibilities in this regard and have let things atrophy to the point that if we don’t do something about it, it’s going to get even more dangerous than it already is.

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I think it’s a real problem in our democracy. You have to have a system that is so elastic, so resilient, so able to take punches that at one time one branch can supplant another or one branch can come up and check another. It’s the old business of checks and balances. If you concentrate power and you do it in a way that is not that different from the way Franklin Roosevelt concentrated it, but you don’t have someone who is brilliant the utilization of that power, you’ve got problems.

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Read George Packer’s book The Assassin’s if you haven’t already. George Packer, a New Yorker, reporter for The New Yorker, has got it right. I just finished it and I usually put marginalia in a book but, let me tell you, I had to get extra pages to write on.
And I wish, I wish I had been able to help George Packer write that book. In some places I could have given him a hell of a lot more specifics than he’s got. But if you want to read how the Cheney Rumsfeld cabal flummoxed the process, read that book. And, of course, there are other names in there, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas , whom most of you probably know Tommy Frank said was stupidest blankety blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.

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They’ve got every Congressman, every Senator, they got it covered. Now, it’s not to say that they aren’t smart businessmen. They are, and women. They are. But it’s something we should be looking at, something we should be looking at. So you’ve got this collegiality there between the Secretary of Defense and the Vice President. And then you’ve got a President who is not versed in international relations. And not too much interested in them either. And so it’s not too difficult to make decisions in this, what I call Oval Office cabal, and decisions often that are the opposite of what you thought were made in the formal process. Now, let’s get back to Dr. . For so long I said, yeah, Rich, you’re right. Rich being Under Secretary of State Richard . It is a dysfunctional process. And to myself I said, okay, put on your academic hat. Who’s causing this? Well, the national security advisor. Even if the framers didn’t envision that position, even if it’s not subject to confirmation by the Senate, the national security advisor should be doing a better job. Now, I’ve come to a different conclusion.”

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Wordy but worth reading through. Powell is none too happy that he is speaking his mind...

:)