Cheney's "Ruthless Relentlessness"

[kpete]

One of the things that’s new in this volume is the level of detail that Mr. Unger brings to his account of how Colin L. Powell was maneuvered into making the administration’s case for war with his February 2003 speech at the United Nations, an account that clearly leans heavily on the author’s interviews with Lawrence Wilkerson, Mr. Powell’s former chief of staff, who has become an increasingly outspoken critic of the Bush administration.

Mr. Unger quotes Mr. Wilkerson saying that in trying to vet material for the United Nations speech, Mr. Powell kept having to throw out discredited allegations (made by the vice president’s office) that the 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence agent.

“They were just relentless,” Mr. Wilkerson says of the vice president’s staff. “You would take it out and they would stick it back in. That was their favorite bureaucratic technique — ruthless relentlessness.” According to Mr. Wilkerson, Mr. Cheney’s office continued the night before and the morning of the speech to insist that Mr. Powell tie Saddam Hussein to 9/11.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/07/books/07book.html?_r=1&oref=slogin