Cabals and Co-Cabals
a secretive, little-known cabal… made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.” Conducted with what he says was often the full and witting support of the President, this looked like “the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy.”
Wilkerson should be congratulated for speaking so forthrightly. It’s a very dramatic break with a White House to whom only a year ago he was absolutely loyal. Which brings us to the one big wrinkle in his narrative. Wilkerson says that his direct boss, Secretary Powell:
“At least once a week, it seemed, …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. And he did — everything from a serious crisis with China when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was struck by a Chinese F-8 fighter jet in April 2001, to the secretary's constant reassurances to European leaders following the bitter breach in relations over the Iraq war. It wasn't enough, of course, but it helped.”
It wasn’t the Secretary of State’s job to be wet nurse to an arrogant and confused President nor to be the designated pooper-scooper. His task, rather, was to defend the greater interests of the United States. I am willing to believe Wilkerson’s notion that things might have been worse, if imaginable, if Powell had not been there.
But wouldn’t things have been infinitely better if Secretary of State Powell had given his youthful ward in the Oval Office an ultimatum back in 2003: either shape up or I’m out of here and I go public?
When Powell and his staff saw the “cabal” ramrodding us into war with Iraq, that would have been the moment, quite obviously, to make a stand he still hasn’t dared. Instead, as we know, Powell allowed himself to be the carbon-tipped tool of the cabal, going to the UN and drilling home the inflated WMD case (complete with prop vials of white powder) as the final excuse for the impending war.
It’s an ugly episode that Wilkerson conveniently dodges in his version of events. If he could fold that ichapter into his narrative and give us some plausible explanation for Powell’s capitulation, he might have a stronger over-all argument.
October 25th, 2005 at 4:57 pm
It’s a cabal of Lysenkoisters. Not a good thing from precedent.
October 25th, 2005 at 5:10 pm
Colin Powell has been the ultimate teflon bureaucrat. The reason he is upset by all this and has surrogates out speaking for him (I don’t for a minute believe Wilkerson is doing this without Powell’s acquiescence) is the fact that his UN Speech caught him in a big lie that all could see. I know the old saw says that diplomats are statesmen sent out to lie for their countries but the corrolary is “don’t get caught.” Powell was caught and now he banks on the store of good will he enjoys with the power journalists to keep his skirt clean. He is like the Vicar of Bray:
“And this be law that I’ll maintain, until
my dying day sir.
That whatsoever King may reign, still
I’ll be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!”
October 25th, 2005 at 5:53 pm
I think Powell is largely through regarding politics. He had ample opportunity to resign in protest (a la Robin Cook) or simply resign and keep his mouth shut.
If he’s tainted as a result of this he has only himself to blame.
October 25th, 2005 at 5:58 pm
By the way Marc, you have an open italics tab that is making everything after it italicized. Looking at your page source it appears to be at the very end of your post above.
October 25th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
Marc….Yeah, I read it late last night and that was the ‘graph that kinda set my teeth on edge too—even though overall, it was a rather remarkable Op Ed, hitting harder, in some ways, than the speech.
Good post.
October 25th, 2005 at 7:21 pm
I don’t see any open italics. The post looks the way it ought to.
October 25th, 2005 at 7:42 pm
Mark,
Everything on the central column of the main page after this post is italicized.
October 25th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Powell never went public because he is a loyal soldier. Unfortunately, he is loyal to his superiors, not the republic.
October 25th, 2005 at 9:43 pm
OT:
Mr. Cooper, just heard you on KCRW…you were on freakin’ on fire!
I hope you continue to defend labor like that….damn, you were so cool.
October 26th, 2005 at 12:03 am
More admin folk whining about Bush – Rummy – Condi. (Oh, and Dick Cheney, too).
It really IS too bad Bush was convinced by Dem Pres. Clinton’s false assertions (in 1998, official US policy) that Saddam had WMDs. And UNSC 1441 required Saddam to show what he had done with them — he never did, and we still don’t know. (What did happen to the stuff he had? Secret destruction? Out to Syria/Iran? buried? We don’t know.)
I’m glad that Iraq has had an election in Jan. to elect Constitution writers; and an election in Oct. to accept that Constitution.
Looks like a HUGE success. Of course, not a good Bash-Bush story, so the press doesn’t cover it so much.
What is happening in Iraq is looking relatively good (although we passed the 2000 US casualty). This makes the anti-war folk go back to before the war (same with press vs. Judi).
Yay for Iraq! Yay for Afghanistan! and Georgia and Ukraine!
Compare Bush’s cabal with Kofi Annan’s corrupt oil-for-bribes. I like Bush’s folks, and policies, much more. Compare Iraq vs Kosovo, after 6 years under the UN — likely to split away from Serbia, and possibly another little mass migration of Kosovo Serbs getting out.
Compare Iraq with Darfur — you know, the place where hundreds are being murdered, thousands dying. Little press about it — Bush, and Powell, called it genocide (so as to push UN action). UN says “no”, just war crimes, so let the ICC treat it as a law enforcement. (Like what Dems wanted against Al Qaeda.)
How many thousands have to die in Darfur before the US solution for Iraq looks better than the UN solution for Darfur? I’d guess Powell, too, is looking at this comparison, since history will. Or should.
I forgot, many folks still think genocide in SE Asia was better than US support for anti-commie S. Vietnam. No matter how many hundreds of thousands of Asian civilians were murdered by the commies; anti-war folk think that’s all OK, at least, better than fighting against it. No wait, I remember. The anti-war folk only compare reality they don’t like with UNreality la-la land “could have been.â€
Oh yeah, when Wilkerson says “secret cabal”, how can you not LOL? The neo-cons have not been secret since before Bush was elected.
October 26th, 2005 at 5:04 am
Spot on, Marc, but I would say too soft on Powell. In my view, he was absolutely key to the whole sleazy operation precisely because he had the credibility without which they could not bull forward with their disastrous plans. It is hard to believe that he wasn’t aware of that. Therefore, he chose–perhaps out of his own fascination with being in the power game–to continue. Once his usefulness was over, he was unceremoniously dumped. But as someone who knew better, I believe he is more responsible than the rest.
October 26th, 2005 at 6:03 am
Right, Tom…the Iraq war and falsification of intel by BushCo IS ALL CLINTON’S FAULT !
What are you ? A poster child for the intellectual and moral incompetence of the pro-war right ?
October 26th, 2005 at 6:17 am
“not a good Bash-Bush story, so the press doesn’t cover it so much.”
No, I’ve read nothing about Iraqi elections until you mentioned it – has barely been a story at all in the mainstream press. The bastards…
If anything’s been under-reported it’s the certainty of massive election fraud – not that it matters much because either way this process is just signalling the real ethnic divisions. The problem in Iraq is an insurgency blended into a civil war and a “security force” that’s some combination of ethnic militias, poorly trained recruits with no commitment and ghost soldiers who exist only on paper so that commanders can pocket the pay. And an occupation army that can’t control the ground where it matteres – even in Baghdad. You better take off your cheerleader costume until something actually changes for the better rather dramatically.
Oh, yeah…most Americans think you war cheerleaders are totally full of shit.
October 26th, 2005 at 7:09 am
Wasn’t Condoleeza Rice so competent in explaining the Administration’s plan for dealing with the breeding ground for terrorists, dealing democracy to the Middle East. Much better than Bush himself.
She reminded me of John Roberts in her overall knowledge, competence, and ability to articulate it in her area of expertise, foreign relations/national security. Impressive indeed, and the questioning was tough. No softballs.
I would follow her over any one of those doing the questioning. Many where obviously preening for president or the public or both.
October 26th, 2005 at 7:13 am
I was commenting on Condoleeza’s appearance before the recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
October 26th, 2005 at 7:44 am
Just watching MSNBC. The terrorists have just convinced another one of their own innocent adolescents to drive a truck filled with explosives, nails, bee-bees, bolts, etc into an open air market in Israel.
The goal is not to just murder you understand,
but to blind, disfigure, or maim for life as many innocent civilians as possible.
This cannot be allowed to stand in our world. Afghanistan and Iraq are the seeds of needed change. The world must win against this at all odds.
October 26th, 2005 at 8:07 am
Condaleeza Rice is just another Kool-Aid flavor.
October 26th, 2005 at 8:39 am
I don’t know why I bother but one more time:
1. That vote on the Constitution that was such a “HUGE Sucess”? Aside from the obvious voter fraud (99% “YES” votes in some some areas?) it is a truth universally acknowledged that the vast majority of Sunnis voted “NO”. Think that will lead to a stable Iraq? We had a civil war and everyone here agreed to ratify our document. Constitutions, as Juan Cole notes, are compromises that all parties agree to abide by. Here one significant group is adamantly opposed.
2. Darfur? The US has no intention of intervening and you know it. But, by all means bash the UN. The reset of the world just loves it.
3. Of course this is all Clinton’s fault. So is Bird Flu, “Wilma” and “Katrina” and the heartbreak of Pseriosis.
October 26th, 2005 at 8:46 am
Randy, no it isn’t only the passage he block quoted.
October 26th, 2005 at 10:25 am
“Aside from the obvious voter fraud (99% “YES†votes in some some areas?) ”
Martha Raditz (?), who reported on the elections from the ground and turned up on Gwen Ifill’s Washington Week gabfest, was in one precinct – with a cameraman, no less – and saw several guys grab a fistful of ballots, mark them and stuff them in the box in just 20 minutes. The intrepid Beltway journalistas she recounted this to thought it sufficiently serious to make jokes about Chicago and laugh it off…
October 26th, 2005 at 6:14 pm
And something I forgot Mr “Liberty Dad”. That UN “oil for food” scandal found several US companies involved. And if we’re going to investigate that how about looking into the missing $8 Billion that the Coalition Provisional Authority can’t account for.
October 27th, 2005 at 7:26 am
Where never is heard an encouraging word and the skies are all cloudy all day.
Some never find a time to praise the symbol of democracy and freedom they enjoy in the world, even in a time it would be helpful, because they seem too busy finding its past and present faults for criticism, and harshly so.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:04 am
Jim…unanimity behind a policy that’s proven both fraudulent and disastrous isn’t “helpful” to our democracy. Funny me…I actually think it means something, like sounding alarms when people we’ve entrusted with governance are spinning out of control (no pun intended.) If you want me to don a flight suit and give a rousing speech to the troops in front of a “Mission Accomplished” banner. I don’t believe that a civil war or our having created a breeding ground for terrorists in Iraq is going to simply evaporate in a sea of purple fingers. I’ll leave the cheerleading to others…the one’s who’ve unfortunately been proven wrong at every turn as regards this war. Things will undoubtedly get better over time – something the Iranian leadership understands and why they must certainly thank us for this adventure when they confer among themselves – but anyone who thinks this has been a success for the United States – and that it isn’t evidence of intellectual and moral rot within the current administration – needs their heads examined.
October 27th, 2005 at 8:05 am
CORR: “If you want me to don a flight suit and give a rousing speech to the troops in front of a “Mission Accomplished†banner I CAN’T BRING MYSELF TO DO IT.”
October 27th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
I’m shocked that nobody has accused Larry Wilkerson of being an anti-semite for using the word ‘cabal’.
October 27th, 2005 at 5:47 pm
Peter, the only time people get attacked for being antisemitic if they use words like cabal are if they’re on the left. the right can use the word as much as it pleases…shouldn’t it be that way? seems fair.
October 27th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
HEY RICHARD LO CICERO–
By actual count, 27-28% of the sunnis in the three sunni-majority provinces voted YES on the constitution. This does not count many other Sunnis in those three provinces who would have voted YES, but were too intimidated to do so. The percentage of Sunnis voting YES elsewhere in Iraq was probably higher. All the Kurds, of course, are also Sunnis.
October 28th, 2005 at 12:17 am
Marc — I hate the new layout. Liked the old one better.
Anyway you IMHO missed the two most important issues Wilkerson raised:
1. Should the President just defer Brit-style to an unelected and eternal bureaucracy such as State and CIA; or do the American people get a vote and decide on President and thus executive policy?
The President is accountable, if he wished to delegate and give authority to the ELECTED Vice President and the APPOINTED through Senate Consent Sec of Defense, that’s his decision. Even if eternal bureacrats don’t like it.
2. Wilkerson’s rather un-publicized comments that it was BS that people inside State and CIA opposed the view that Saddam had WMDs. He says he himself saw satellite imagery with Iraqis swarming over sites to be inspected, trucking away even bare earth, and then leaving … nothing. He had no explanation other than hiding WMDs and still to this day does not understand it.
But hey let’s hand over Iraq and Afghanistan to bin Laden. I’m sure that will work out well.
October 28th, 2005 at 6:19 am
Still waiting for something positive Reg. You can do it. I’d settle for “Damn the coffee is good this morning”.
October 28th, 2005 at 7:54 am
I don’t drink coffee, but the tea was tasty.
I’m waiting for something positive as well…and indictments don’t count.
Rockford, Islamic terrorists AND the biggest allies of Iran – although at odds with each other – both now have a foothold in Iraq thanks to guess-the-fuck-who? The same morons who didn’t “listen to the bureaucracy” and sent an inadequate force into Afghanistan to actually surround and capture bin Laden. You’re on the wrong side. Islamists and al Qaeda crazies must love you folks and your strategic brilliance.
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