“‘[Y]ou can already feel the stability,’ said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles F. Wald, formerly the deputy U.S. commander in Europe.” A few months into his stint at Dubya’s second SecDef, Robert Gates is “greeted as a liberator” in and around the Pentagon. “‘How much of it is Bob Gates as a personality, manager and leader, and how much of it is Rumsfeld being gone, is hard to say,’ said [Brent] Scowcroft, who has known Gates for 30 years. ‘Rumsfeld was a difficult man to work for.’”
Tag: Brent Scowcroft
Fleeing the sinking ship.
“‘The real anomaly in the administration is Cheney,’ Mr. Scowcroft told Jeffrey Goldberg of The New Yorker. ‘I consider Cheney a good friend – I’ve known him for 30 years. But Dick Cheney I don’t know anymore.'” As Cheney consigliere Scooter Libby preps for a likely Plamegate perp walk, the NYT refocuses on the broader question of our entry into the Iraq war. And, as the Scowcroft quote attests (and as Medley also notes), prominent Republicans are starting to pile on. “‘Iraq was at core a war of choice, and extraordinarily expensive by every measure – human life, impact on our military, dollars, diplomatically,’ said Mr. [Richard] Haass, a former senior State Department official under President Bush.“
Or, as former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson puts it, “[T]he case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my study of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy didn’t know were being made.“
Update: Jeffrey Goldberg discusses his Scowcroft piece, and Slate‘s Fred Kaplan evaluates it, noting that George H.W. Bush is also something of a Dubya critic in the article. Speaking of Scowcroft, Dubya Sr. says: “He has a great propensity for friendship. By that, I mean someone I can depend on to tell me what I need to know and not just what I want to hear….[He] was very good about making sure that we did not solely consider the ‘best case,’ but instead considered what it would mean if things went our way, and also if they did not.” Listen up, sonny…Papa just learned you.
The Post-War Dream.
“An independent panel headed by two former U.S. national security advisers said Wednesday that chaos in Iraq was due in part to inadequate postwar planning. Gee, you think? At any rate, both Berger and Scowcroft are already on record as critics of Dubya’s foreign policy, so I doubt this new report will turn too many heads.
Ostrich Simplicity.
As a US general cautions of “spectacular” attacks prior to the Iraq election, the commander of our forces declares that 4 of 18 Iraqi provinces are not secure enough to hold the vote, and even Bush I consigliere Brent Scowcroft warns of an “incipient civil war” to follow them, what does Dubya do? Well, what do you expect? “‘Democracy is hard,’ Mr. Bush said in a brief question-and-answer session…’I know it’s hard, but it’s hard for a reason. And the reason it’s hard is because there are a handful of folks who fear freedom.’” Dang them evildoers, always making foreign affairs so needlessly complex.
More Friendly Fire.
Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor and consigliere to Bush I, decries Dubya’s diplomacy in the Financial Times, calling Iraq a “failed venture” and questioning this administration’s penchant for unilateralism.
Et tu, Scowcroft?
While Maureen Dowd reads Oedipal strife into Brent Scowcroft’s recent decision to pooh-pooh Dubya’s bellicose policy on Iraq, Tom Oliphant thinks the rift’s been overstated. In related news, Trent Lott belatedly sees the wisdom in a congressional debate on an Iraq war.