Steve Inskeep talks with Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, about the influence of Vice President Dick Cheney's office over Iraq war policy. Wilkerson claims the vice president and others bypassed the rest of the government to control key decisions.
STEVE INSKEEP, host: Not many former officials of the Bush administration have spoken out      against the White House.  Larry Wilkerson has.  He's a former State      Department official who generated wide attention in a speech last month.      Wilkerson accused the vice president and others of bypassing the rest of      the government to control key decisions.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: 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 did not know were being made.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: That speech came from a career soldier who became the chief of      staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell.  In an interview, Larry      Wilkerson added more details.  While in the government, he says he was      assigned to gather documents.  He traced just how Americans came to be      accused of abusing prisoners.  In 2002, a presidential memo had ordered      that detainees be treated in a manner consistent with the Geneva      Conventions that forbid torture. Wilkerson says the vice president's      office pushed for a more expansive policy.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: What happened was that the secretary of Defense, under      the cover of the vice president's office, began to create an      environment--and this started from the very beginning when David      Addington, the vice president's lawyer, was a staunch advocate of      allowing the president in his capacity as commander in chief to deviate      from the Geneva Conventions.  Regardless of the president having put out      this memo, they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces      that led to, in my view, what we've seen.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: We have to get more detail about that because the military will      say, the Pentagon will say they've investigated this repeatedly and that      all the investigations have found that the abuses were committed by a      relatively small number of people at relatively low levels.  What hard      evidence takes those abuses up the chain of command and lands them in the      vice president's office, which is where you're placing it?</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: I'm privy to the paperwork, both classified and      unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how      this all got started, what the audit trail was, and when I began to      assemble this paperwork, which I not longer have access to, it was clear      to me that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's      office through the secretary of Defense down to the commanders in the      field that in carefully couched terms--I'll give you that--that to a      soldier in the field meant two things:  We're not getting enough good      intelligence and you need to get that evidence, and, oh, by the way,      here's some ways you probably can get it.  And even some of the ways that      they detailed were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva      Conventions and the law of war.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: You just--if you're a military man, you know that you just don't do these      sorts of things because once you give just the slightest bit of leeway,      there are those in the armed forces who will take advantage of that.      There are those in the leadership who will feel so pressured that they      have to produce intelligence that it doesn't matter whether it's      actionable or not as long as they can get the volume in.  They have to do      what they have to do to get it, and so you've just given in essence,      though you may not know it, carte blanche for a lot of problems to occur.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: When you describe Vice President Cheney as an unusually      powerful vice president, grabbing powers that would normally be      attributed to the president of the United States, what were some levers      that he had to pull within the White House and in the government to have      that much power?</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Well, he had enormous levers.  First of all, his access      to the president obviously.  You've got an individual who has a very big      staff for a vice president, and these people were plugged into the      statutory process.  They read the e-mails of the National Security staff,      and people would say, `Well, shouldn't they?'  Well, I had friends on the      National Security Council staff who quit using e-mails for substantive      conversations because they knew the vice president's alternate National      Security staff was reading their e-mails now.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: We should mention, for those who don't follow this closely,      Washington policy is often made by memos, who gets to write the memo...</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Precisely.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: ...who can block the memo from getting to the highest levels.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Precisely and...</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: You're saying the vice president had a lot of influence in      those answers.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Well, let me give you another example.  There was a      memorandum prepared on the staff of the statutory NSC, and that      memorandum argued fairly logically and I thought fairly aggressively for      a large number of troops being necessary for Iraq.  And to this day, I      don't know whether that memorandum ever got to the president of the      United States.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Isn't this the way that bureaucratic battles are won and lost,      though?  People like the vice president--they play hard, they've got a      point of view, they want to win, and they work to get the president's      ear, and they work to push out people like, for example, your former      boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell?</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Oh, absolutely.  Yet it is something new to have such a      powerful vice president, to have such a staff working for that vice      president which essentially constitutes an alternative to the National      Security Council's staff, and to have that vice president's staff so      immersed in the actual details of the decision-making that it can      influence the way that decision-making comes out in ways that it wants it      to come out, and not necessarily in ways that the president wants it to      come out.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Let me give you a concrete example.  I won't name anyone, but an analyst      whom I have a great deal of respect for relates to me a story at the CIA.      His boss, Mr. Tenet, briefed the vice president's office on software,      software that Iraq was supposedly attempting to acquire from an      Australian firm.  The software that Iraq was attempting to acquire      allegedly had to do with UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance vehicles...</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Right.  Right.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: ...and even attack vehicles at some point.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Subsequent to that, this analyst and several other      analysts discovered that Iraq had indeed not tried to acquire that      software from Australia, that Iraq was instead involved in another      acquisition from Australia that was not sanctions busting, and that      because they were involved in that transaction, the company in Australia      that also made this other software asked Iraq if it would like to buy it.      In other words, it was a purely commercial effort to get Iraq to buy      something else that this company sold.  And here's the key.  I asked the      analyst, `Did Mr. Tenet ever go back and disabuse the vice president of      what he had told him in the earlier briefing?'  And the analyst looked me      right in the eye and said no.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Your presumption is the vice president would not have wanted to      know that the intelligence was not as sexy as it seemed.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: And that Mr. Tenet was not possessed of the intestinal      fortitude to go back and tell him.  That's pressure.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Mr. Wilkerson, thanks very much.</s>Mr. LARRY WILKERSON: Thank you.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: Larry Wilkerson was chief of staff to former Secretary of State      Colin Powell in the first term of the Bush administration.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: We checked out his claims, and regarding the role of the vice president's      office in shaping detainee policy, a spokesperson declined to comment on      internal deliberations.  As to whether the vice president's office can      read National Security Council e-mails, the spokesperson says, quote,      "The vice president's National Security staff coordinates with the      National Security Council, and they work as a seamless team."  As for      Wilkerson's story about George Tenet not returning to correct bad      intelligence for the vice president, a spokesman for the former CIA      director would not comment.</s>STEVE INSKEEP, host: This is NPR News.