Guardian: Powell Aides Go Public on Rift with Bush

From the British newspaper The Guardian, May 6:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1210291,00.html

"Chief of staff says secretary of state is fed up with apologising for the administration and is disdainful of 'ideological' hawks

Colin Powell's key aide has described US sanctions policy against countries such as Pakistan and Cuba as "the dumbest policy on the face of the Earth".

In an article in GQ magazine Larry Wilkerson, chief of staff of the United States secretary of state, bemoans Mr Powell's firefighting role in President George Bush's cabinet.

"He has spent as much time doing damage control and, shall we say, apologising around the world for some less-than-graceful actions as he has anything else."

The article, which includes an interview with Mr Powell, is most illuminating for the comments made by his close friends and colleagues who are explicit about his distrust and disdain for the hawks in the administration.

Mr Powell's deputy, Richard Armitage, remarks on his boss's anguish at the damage to his credibility following his speech to the United Nations last year making the case for war and insisting there were weapons of mass destruction. "It's a source of great distress for the secretary," he said.

He said: "This is, in many ways, the most ideological administration Powell's ever had to work for."

Well, fucking good. He should be rotting in a jail cell, not drugging himself to sleep each night.

Have some more Ambien, asshole!

The handwriting was on the wall about all this from the get-go (which is when bush and his "bring 'em on" buds started getting their jones up for war against Iraq. I don't have much sympathy for this guy. And if he's "anguished" about his reputation and credibility being tarnished - well, sorry Colin. Wake up and smell the coffee. When you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. If WE all know this stunk to high heaven, that info was ALL THERE for YOU, too. And you just refused to see it or to do the correct thing about it. If your credibility and reputation were THAT important to you, you shouldn't have latched onto this train-wreck to begin with. OR, you should have jumped off the train before it started speeding out of control. You coulda jumped. Instead you stuck around, and the stain and the stench are ON YOU PERMANENTLY now.

I guess there's a difference between those who thought for sure that these assholes deserved the benefit of the doubt, and those of us who thought they did NOT deserve anything of the kind, from the earliest.

repeating points of _Bush's anti-Cuba propaganda. It's a real shock today to read your great article and learn that he was being pushed into repeating that garbage almost against his will.

What makes the timing interesting is that TODAY the pResident is announcing this year's plan of attack on Cuba's sovereignty. It will be done with Powell's words still hanging in the air. It's WONDERFUL that Powell managed to get his real opinion out the same day _Bush tells the world how he's going to make things even worse for Cuba.

You've made the day of a bunch of DU Cuba-watchers, you can be sure!
Thanks a lot.