Lawrence Wilkerson (Colin Powell's former chief of staff) is in the news again, stepping up his attack on Cheney, essentially implying that Cheney is guilty of war crimes for authorizing the torture of prisoners held in the "war on terror."
Basically he's saying that Cheney used the power of his office to permit Rumsfield to create a directive that suspended the Geneva Conventions on torture for U.S. prisoners of war.
Stansfield Turner also attacked Cheney today for the same reason.
Not a good time to be Dick Cheney. Was there ever a good time?
Quote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20051129...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl
LONDON (AFP) - A senior aide to former US Secretary of State
Colin Powell repeated his attacks against US Vice-President
Dick Cheney, appearing to suggest he should face war crimes charges.
Powell's former chief of staff Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson accused Cheney of ignoring a decision by President George W. Bush's on the treatment of prisoners held in the "war on terror".
Asked in a BBC radio interview if Bush's right-hand man could be accused of war crimes, he replied: "It's an interesting question. Certainly, it's a domestic crime to advocate terror.
"And I would suspect, for whatever it's worth, it's an international crime as well."
Wilkerson's comments appear to go further than earlier this month when he spoke out on US National Public Radio and in an address on US foreign policy to the Washington-based think-tank the New America Foundation in October.
Then, he alleged Cheney's office was responsible for directives which led to US soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He claimed he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorising questionable detention practices up through the current US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff.
Cheney and Rumsfeld operated a "cabal" that hijacked US foreign and military policy, he alleged.
On Tuesday, Wilkerson told the BBC that Powell and other White House "doves" argued upholding the Geneva Conventions against torture, in compliance with a 2002 memo from Bush.
But he said opponents "essentially wanted to do away with all restrictions", leading to a compromise from Bush that "Geneva would in fact govern all but Al-Qaeda and an Al-Qaeda lookalike detainees".
"What I'm saying is that, under the vice-president's protection, the secretary of defence (Rumsfeld) moved out to do what they wanted in the first place, even though the president had made a decision that was clearly a compromise," he added.
Wilkerson said he blamed Cheney "pretty fairly and squarely" for prisoner abuse and post-war planning for Iraq.
"I look at the relationship between Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld as being one that produced these two failures in particular, and I see that the president is not holding either of them accountable... so I have to lay some blame at his feet, too," he added.
Admiral Stansfield Turner, a former Central Intelligence Agency director during the 1970s, has also attacked Cheney, branding him a "vice-president for torture".
Turner told Britain's ITV1 television on Monday that the US deputy leader was damaging his country's reputation by overseeing policies of torture against suspected terrorists to extract information.
The White House denies the allegation but Turner said: "We have crossed the line into dangerous territory. I am embarrassed that the USA has a vice-president for torture. I think it is just reprehensible."
He added: "He (Cheney) advocates torture, what else is it? I just don't understand how a man in that position can take such a stance."
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