Friday, April 27, 2007

The puppet who cleared the way for Iraq's destruction

Andrew Cockburn takes out after Wolfowitz in this article. I agree that Wolfowitz had a big part in the blunders of this administration, and that Richard Perle must have had a powerful influence. But now that things are so bad in Iraq, what does it say about these men that they now distance themselves from the Iraq policy?
RLC

By Andrew Cockburn
The Guardian

"Rumsfeld was driven from public life thanks to the catastrophe of Iraq, and ... his deputy [Wolfowitz] ... contributed in almost equal measure to the debacle, yet managed to slide from the Pentagon into the presidency of a leading international institution [the World Bank]"
"To cite just one example ... the First Special Interrogation Plan for use at Guantánamo that ... cleared the way for prolonged sleep deprivation, 20-hour interrogations, and sexual and religious humiliation, along with other favoured techniques ... had earlier been reviewed and approved by ... Wolfowitz."
"...Wolfowitz was even more hands on when it came to Abu Ghraib ... testimony from one of the interrogators alleged that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were in direct contact with the prison and received "nightly briefings" on the intelligence being extracted under torture."
"...Wolfowitz['s] ... entire career, at least up through his Pentagon service, has been in the service and at the direction of others."
"...last year Perle and other leading neoconservatives lashed out publicly at Rumsfeld, deriding his mismanagement of the Iraqi enterprise ... 'Interesting they are not going after the puppet,' "
"Given recent sordid revelations, his role in shredding the reputation of the World Bank and the morale of its employees may be harder to obscure."

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