powell's man unloads

Larry Wilkerson, who has been with Colin Powell for a long time, unloaded on the Bush Administration yesterday. Steve Clemons has the whole transcript here, dirty words and all.

Pretty raw criticisms, long but worth the read. Seems Wilkerson doesn't have much respect for the Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal (Wilkerson's word) that runs US foreign policy. Condi Rice was weak at the NSC and became part of the problem, and Bush didn't know much about international policy, and didn't care either.

Now, America is paying the consequences for all these decisions made in secret. And finally, the combination of our policy of torture, the instruction from superiors that officers lie about what's going on in the field and in the prisons, and the burn rate of US military personnel and equipment in Iraq has left the Army and Marines in truly bad shape.

This isn't just partisan bickering by Wilkerson -- he calls George H. W. Bush "one of the finest presidents we've ever had."

No doubt the character assassin squad in the White House is already looking into what they can leak about Wilkerson, taking care of course to make sure his wife isn't an undercover CIA operative.