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Cheney 'created climate for US war crimes'
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
11/30/05 "The
Independent" -- -- A leading aide to the former
secretary of state Colin Powell has accused Vice-President Dick
Cheney of creating the climate in which prisoner abuse could
flourish, and implied that he might have committed war crimes.
Lawrence Wilkerson, General Powell's chief of staff until January
this year, alleged that US policy on Iraq before and after the March
2003 invasion had been hijacked by an alliance between Mr Cheney and
the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld fostered by President
George Bush's "detached" attitude to details of post-war planning.
He also suggested that the faulty intelligence used to justify the
war had been at the least "cherry-picked" by the White House and the
Pentagon.
The controversy over prisoner abuse and torture has recently flared
up anew in Washington. But for Colonel Wilkerson, the problem has
arisen as the result of an "alternative decision-making process,"
led by Mr Cheney and Mr Rumsfeld.
Mr Bush had tried to steer a middle course, whereby the Geneva
Conventions would apply to "all but al-Qa'ida and al-Qa'ida
look-alikes," Col Wilkerson told the BBC yesterday. That policy was
defensible in legal terms, but was quickly undermined in practice.
Under Mr Cheney's protection, "the Secretary of Defence moved out to
do what they wanted to do in the first place". Asked whether the
Vice-President was guilty of a war crime, Col Wilkerson said it was
"an interesting question". It was certainly a domestic crime "to
advocate terror", and "I would suspect it is for whatever it's
worth, an international crime as well".
The former State Department aide's outburst came on the eve of a
major speech on Iraq by Mr Bush, in which the President is expected
to set out conditions for a reduction of US troop strength in Iraq.
Mr Bush said yesterday that there would be no immediate withdrawal:
"We want to win, and I don't want the troops to come home without
having achieved victory." The US "has sacrificed a lot" in Iraq,
including the lives of more than 2,100 of its troops. "We're not
going to cut and run, we will achieve our objective," he declared.
But for Col Wilkerson, the situation has been made far worse by poor
post-war planning, and the abuse of some foreign detainees, which
had blotted the reputation of the US around the world.
The retired US Army colonel told the BBC that more than 70
prisoners, " and up to 90, people are now telling me", had died in
what he termed " questionable circumstances". There were two sides
to the debate in government: one grouped around Gen Powell insisting
that the Geneva Conventions must be respected; the other around the
then Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales.
President Bush had sought a compromise, but, Col Wilkerson told the
Associated Press in a separate interview, he was "too aloof, too
distant from the details of post-war planning", allowing lower
officials to exploit this "detachment" and make the wrong decisions.
The former Powell aide also cast strong doubt on the regime's
explanation for the use of faulty intelligence to justify the
invasion.
Until recently, Col Wilkerson said, he had tended to accept the
White House explanation that along with the intelligence services
of Britain, Germany and other countries the CIA and other US
agencies had simply been fooled over Iraq's presumed weapons threat.
"You begin to wonder, was this intelligence spun? Was it politicised?
Was it cherry-picked? I am beginning to have my concerns," Col
Wilkerson said.
© 2005 Independent News and Media Limited
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