The White House cabal - by Lawrence B. Wilkerson

[Sapphire Blue]

The White House cabal
By Lawrence B. Wilkerson, LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from 2002 to 2005.

IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New America Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005.

But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal.

Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift — not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf."

Continued @ http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-wilkerson25oct25,0,7455395.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. a dictatorship

is what Bush is aiming for. He's sabotaged so much of our government, making it unworkable, so he can take over.

[Soup Bean]

2. I don't think he wants to take over anything.

I think he'd love to quit. He doesn't look like he's having much fun anymore.