Lawrence Wilkerson

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Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson (US Army, retired) was the chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. He retired from government service in January 2005 at the same time as Powell. Subsequent to their retirement, he and Powell had a falling out over Wilkerson's strident criticism of the administration of George W. Bush.

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[edit] History

Wilkerson was born in Gaffney, South Carolina, a son of a Second World War B-17 Flying Fortress bombardier and navigator and National Guardsman. His family moved to Houston, Texas, where he graduated from high school. After three years of studying philosophy and English literature at Bucknell University and newly married, he dropped out in 1966 and volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War. Speaking to the Washington Post, Wilkerson stated, "I felt an obligation because my dad had fought,and I thought that was kind of your duty."[1] Wilkerson arrived as an Army officer piloting an OH-6A scout helicopter and logged about 1100 combat hours over a year. He went on to Airborne and Ranger schools before getting his B.A. in English literature and graduate degrees in international relations and national security. He attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island and later returned there to teach. He later served as acting director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico.

Wilkerson spent years in the Navy's Pacific Command in South Korea, Japan and Hawaii, where he was well-regarded by his superiors. These recommendations led in early 1989 to a successful interview to become the assistant to Colin Powell, who was then finishing his stint as National Security Advisor in the Ronald Reagan administration and moving to a position in Army Forces Command in Atlanta. He continued this supporting role as Powell became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, through the Gulf War, following Powell into civilian life and then back into public service when President George W. Bush appointed Powell Secretary of State.

Wilkerson was responsible for the one-week review of information from the Central Intelligence Agency that was used to prepare Powell for his February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council. His failure to realize that the evidence was faulty has been blamed on the limited time he had to review the data. The subsequent developments led Wilkerson to become disillusioned: "Combine the detainee abuse issue with the ineptitude of post-invasion planning for Iraq, wrap both in this blanket of secretive decision-making . . . and you get the overall reason for my speaking out."[1]

Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on U.S. national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George Washington University entitled "National Security Decision Making". He and his wife Barbara have two children; his son is an Air Force navigator while his daughter was in the Army but has since returned to civilian life.

[edit] Post-retirement criticism

Since his withdrawal from public service, Wilkerson has on several occasions spoken out against what he perceives as the poor planning and execution of the Iraq war as well as the global politics leading up to and following it. In particular he has denounced the decision-making process of the Bush administration and vice-president Dick Cheney's and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld's part in it.

[edit] Treatment of detainees in Iraq

Wilkerson made comments in November 2005 to the effect that the vice-president had decided that the Third Geneva Convention (regarding treatment of POWs) would not apply to "al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda look-alike detainees"[2] and that the February 2002 White House memorandum regarding the "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees" contained a loophole designed to avoid applying the Geneva convention to the detainees. According to Wilkerson, the phrase "the detainees (should) be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva"[3] was a way to appear to play by the rules while in reality, the "military necessities" would always overrule concerns about the plight of the detainees.[2] Wilkerson furthermore claimed this to be the result of Cheney and Rumsfeld, working in collaboration to undermine the standard decision-making process of the White House (which included his superior, Colin Powell).

“ And so what I'm saying is, under the vice-president's protection, the secretary of defence moved out to do what they wanted to do in the first place even though the president had made a decision that was clearly a compromise. ”
 
— Lawrence Wilkerson, BBC Radio 4, November 25 2005

[edit] Iraq War Intelligence was "a Hoax"

During an October 19, 2005 speech at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson gave a stinging criticism of the entire intelligence community which compiled the Iraq War Intelligence. He had criticism for U.S. intelligence agencies as well as the international community including the French, Germans, and British who all believed the intelligence prior to the Iraq War.

“ I can’t tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the U.N. on 5 February 2003 was the truth ”
 
— Lawrence Wilkerson, New America Foundation, October 19 2005[4]

In an interview that aired on the PBS news magazine NOW on PBS in Spring 2006 Wilkerson claimed that the speech Powell made before the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, laying out a case for war with Iraq, included falsehoods of which Powell had never been made aware. He said, "My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council."[5]

He stated in the interview that he was "intimately involved in the preparation of Secretary Powell for his five February 2003 presentation at the UN Security Council" and that neither CIA Director George Tenent, nor the CIA analysts involved in furnishing Powell with the information on mobile biological laboratories that he would use in his speech, gave any indication that there were disputes about the reliability of the informants who had supplied this information.

Wilkerson still sees this lapse as the result of a profound intelligence failure, saying, "I have to believe that. Otherwise I have to believe some rather nefarious things about some fairly highly placed people in the intelligence community and perhaps elsewhere."

Wilkerson also agreed with the interviewer that Vice President Cheney's frequent trips to the CIA would inevitably have brought "undue influence" on the agency. When asked if Cheney was "the kind of guy who could lean on somebody" he responded, "Absolutely. And be just as quiet and taciturn about it as-- he-- as he leaned on 'em. As he leaned on the Congress recently-- in the-- torture issue."

Wilkerson stood strongly by his earlier description of Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as having formed a cabal to hijack the decision-making process, emphasizing both their determination to ignore the Geneva Conventions and the "inept and incompetent" planning for post-invasion Iraq. And he concluded, "I'm worried and I would rather have the discussion and debate in the process we've designed than I would a diktat from a dumb strongman. . . . I'd prefer to see the squabble of democracy to the efficiency of dictators."

[edit] Iranian overture, 2003

On an interview on BBC Newsnight, January 17, 2007, Wilkerson revealed that an Iranian offer to help stabilise Iraq after the American invasion, though positively received at the State Department, was turned down by Dick Cheney.[6] The offer supposedly consisted of help in stabilizing Iraq, cutting ties with Hezbollah and greater transparency in its nuclear program in return for lifting sanctions and dismantling the Mujahedeen-e Khalq, an organisation working to overthrow the Iranian government.

“ We thought it was a very propitious moment... But as soon as it got to the White House, and as soon as it got to the vice president's office, the old mantra of 'We don't talk to evil' ... reasserted itself. ”
 
— Lawrence Wilkerson, BBC Newsnight, January 17 2007

[edit] Lack of Congressional Oversight

Wilkerson is one of the people interviewed in the 2007 documentary film No End in Sight, a film that is very critical of the way the occupation of Iraq was handled in the spring of 2003.

In connection with No End in Sight being shown at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival (where it won a prize), Wilkerson participated in a press conference. Among other things, he lay blame on the previous Republican-led Congress for not exercising oversight over the Executive Branch: "Instead, the Republicans sought to more or less cover for the president and vice president, and in my mind, that's unconscionable. I'm a Republican and that makes me mad. My party is not the party that I became a member of many years ago. The Congress as a whole should have been exercising its oversight".[7]

[edit] Powell's Chief of Staff Proposes Impeachment

".... You compare Bill Clinton's peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney's high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance." Powell's Chief of Staff Proposes Impeachment. afterdowningstreet.org (10 May 2007). War Accountability in the US. onpointradio.org (10 May 2007).

[edit] Commentary on the Documentary "Why We Fight"

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson did a full-length audio commentary along with film maker Eugene Jarecki on the June 27, 2005 DVD release of Jarecki's documentary about the military industrial complex, "Why We Fight." This film won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival [8]

[edit] Controversies

In April 2007, Wilkerson was featured in VPRO's Tegenlicht Dutch documentary The Israel Lobby, stating that AIPAC was highly influential in the Bush Administration's case for the Iraq War and one of the largest architects leading up to it. There was great pressure within and outside the administration to use military force in Iraq alluding to AIPAC's strength and power to force decisions in the United States government.

[edit] Politics

On September 26, 2006 Wilkerson endorsed and expressed full support in a conference call[9] to the media, with former NATO Supreme Allied Commander U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, and former Central Command Commander U.S. Marine General Anthony Zinni for fellow veteran and U.S. Senate Democratic Candidate, Jim Webb.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b "Breaking Ranks", Washington Post, 19 January 2006
  2. ^ a b Transcript of Wilkerson interview. BBC (25 November 2005). Retrieved on 2007-01-20.
  3. ^ The White House (7 February 2002). Memorandum: "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees". The White House. Retrieved on 2007-01-20.
  4. ^ Col. Lawrence Wilkerson on the Bush Administration's National Security Decision Making Process. New America Foundation (October 19, 2005). Retrieved on 2007-01-20.
  5. ^ Interview on the PBS show NOW with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson about pre-war intelligence. Public Affairs Television (February 3, 2006). Retrieved on 2007-08-08.
  6. ^ Report: Cheney Rejected Iran Concessions. Guardian Unlimited (18 January 2007). Retrieved on 2007-01-20.
  7. ^ Former Administration Officials Speak Out on Iraq at Sundance Panel. Netscape News (23 January 2007). Retrieved on 2007-01-23.
  8. ^ Internet Movie Database (IMDb) entry for Why We Fight. Internet Movie Database Inc. (January 2005). Retrieved on 2007-08-06.
  9. ^ Generals endorse Jim Webb for Senate. Richmond Times-Dispatch (26 September 2006). Retrieved on 2007-01-20.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Wilkerson"
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