Cheney-Rumsfeld "Cabal" alleged in the USA

December 25, 2005

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Colin Powell's chief-of-staff, is attracting news headlines around the globe by publicly accusing members of the Bush administration. He said in a speech at the New America Foundation: "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."

Regarding Karen Hughes's attempts to improve the country's image abroad? "It's hard to sell [manure]," Wilkerson said. "If you're unilaterally declaring Kyoto dead, if you're declaring the Geneva Conventions not operative, if you're doing a host of things that the world doesn't agree with you on and you're doing it blatantly and in their face, without grace, then you've got to pay the consequences" said the man who was chief of staff at the State Department until early 2005.

Wilkerson also described President Bush's behavior as "cowboyism" and Condoleezza Rice as "extremely weak."

The colonel described Colin Powell as "the world's most loyal soldier," but said he felt his loyalty belongs not to the administration, but to the country.

An email allegedly from Powell told Wilkerson: "Don't characterize my loyalty."

Related document

 * http://www.newamerica.net/Download_Docs/pdfs/Doc_File_2644_1.pdf