How Cheney Took Control of Bush's Foreign Policy & Took It Upon Himself To Manage President (Salon)

[kpete]

How Cheney took control of Bush's foreign policy

As the cabinet began to take shape in late December, Colin Powell still presented the biggest potential obstacle to the ambitions of Cheney and the neocons. There was less than a month before the inauguration. Time was running out. They had to find a way to neutralize him.


Editor's note: This is Part 3 of an excerpt from "The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America's Future." Part 1 ran on Nov. 7; Part 2 ran on Nov. 8. For more information on the book, visit craigunger.com

By Craig Unger

Nov. 9, 2007 | Much as he loathed Colin Powell, Vice President-elect Dick Cheney realized that the immensely popular general -- the most trusted man in America -- was essential to the political perception of the incoming Bush administration's foreign policy decisions. As former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich put it, "If you're George Bush, and the biggest weakness you have is foreign policy, and you can have Cheney on one flank and Powell on the other, it virtually eliminated the competence issue."

.....................

Unlike other designated cabinet appointees, Powell had not been vetted by Cheney or other campaign officials. Nor, according to "Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell," Karen DeYoung's comprehensive biography of him, was Powell even asked any serious foreign policy questions. Such discussions were not necessary. According to a former Pentagon official who had worked with Cheney during the first Gulf War, "Cheney's distrust and dislike for Mr. Powell were unbounded." In other words, Powell was only there for show. Cheney immediately took measures to undermine him. The chess game began.

According to the former Pentagon official, Cheney was convinced that even though Powell's presence was essential to the Bush administration, he "would have to be cornered bureaucratically and repeatedly reminded (even in ways involving public humiliation) that foreign policy was not something over which he presided." To accomplish that task, the official continued, Cheney "recruited Donald Rumsfeld and the neoconservatives to hammer Secretary of State Powell bureaucratically while Mr. Cheney took upon himself the task of managing the President of the United States."

more at:
http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2007/11/09/house_of_bush_3/

[TwilightGardener]

1. I was actually going to post this, just finished reading it--

So Colin Powell outshone Chimpy at a press conference, and that pissed Chimpy off? Bwahahahaha! That's why Chimpster humiliated him by locking the door to the conference room one day when Powell was late, a couple months later. Chimpy is a petty, insecure, jealous little sociopath.

[UTUSN]

2. K&R #2, for, let's kick this up!1 n/t

[cliss]

3. All too easy.

Colon Bowel, how easily you were bought and sold.

I'm thinking back to the run-up to the war, how Mr. Bowel showed up at the United Nations, showing off his goofy slides and drawings, attesting to Saddam's hideous cachet of wmd's. Sure, Colon.

[Spazito]

4. Very interesting read!

If Colin Powell had one iota of pride, he would tell all about this despicable cabal. Not doing so certainly shows Cheney picked the right man to humiliate, he knew Powell would take it and keep his mouth shut and he was right.

[flashl]

8. If we are to believe that this admin held a Repug Congress in check

why would you believe that ONE person's admission will change ANYTHING?

[Spazito]

11. I was talking about spilling the beans about the admin

and there is no doubt there is a shitload of beans to spill. An admission would be for Powell to admit only his part in this which means squat. It is a moot point, in reality, because Powell has accepted humiliation and Cheney knew he would.

[flashl]

12. Was this 2003 article on target?

The Bush administration doesn’t deserve Colin Powell

The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd weighed in on Sunday on one of my favorite topics: the continuing animosity festering between Colin Powell’s State Department and Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department.

As Dowd, whose biting columns are usually mean but always brilliant, explained about the ongoing feud, battles of State vs. Defense are more than just competing personalities. Dowd described it as an “epochal” clash that will ultimately define “whether America will lead by fear, aggression and force of arms or by diplomacy, moderation and example.”

...

Dowd also created a useful scorecard, letting readers know who is one each side: “There are Rummy people: Mr. Cheney, Mr. Wolfowitz, Mr. Feith, Bill Kristol, William Safire, Ariel Sharon, Fox News, National Review, The Weekly Standard, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the fedayeen of the Defense Policy Board — Richard Perle, James Woolsey, Mr. Gingrich, Ken Adelman — and the fifth column at State, John Bolton and Liz Cheney. And there are Powell people: Brent Scowcroft, James Baker, Bush 41, Ken Duberstein, Richard Armitage, Richard Haass, the Foreign Service, Joe Biden, Bob Woodward, the wet media elite, the planet.”

I agree with all of this, but couldn’t help but notice something important about these lists — Rumsfeld’s allies either run the Bush administration or set the agenda for its policies. Powell’s friends, meanwhile, either worked for the last Bush administration, or worse, are Democrats.

[Spazito]

13. Well, I agree with her list re the neocon side of the equation

but would put bush 41, Armitage, Woodward in a separate category, Armitage and Woodward were very involved in the outing of Valerie Plame, which says they were not the good guys in this. As for poppy bush, one only has to look at his history and the history of his family to know any differences between him and the neocons were for reasons other than the good of the nation, imo.

[bleever]

5. What was hidden will be revealed.

The back-stabbing, the neutering, the humiliation.

It will all come apart, but after having done so much damage.

[kpete]

9. revealed

yes, atrocities documented every day...kp

[malaise]

10. and I can't wait

for that day. Truth will out.

[Richard Steele]

6. K&R

[lovuian]

7. Awesome article Kpete

Thanks