"He was." Wow.

So...you hear about this former aide to Colin Powell who is just going off on Cheney, Rumsfeld, et all? It really makes for some, well, I don't know if you'd call it amusing reading, but I think you'll enjoy it.

Excerpts follow.

Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired colonel, also charged that, as national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice was "part of the problem" by not ensuring that the policy-making process was open to all relevant participants.

"Wilkerson embodies Powell and [Powell's deputy secretary of state, Richard] Armitage," who is also a retired military officer, said Steve Clemons, who organized Wilkerson's NAF appearance. "That's how his remarks should be seen."

If so, it appears that Powell and Armitage have little but disdain for Rice's performance as national security adviser, although Wilkerson was more complimentary about her subsequent work at the State Department and the relative success she has enjoyed in steering US policy in a less-confrontational direction compared to the frustrations that dogged Powell.

Wilkerson attributed her success to several factors, including her "intimacy with the president" and the fact that the administration "finds itself in some fairly desperate straits politically and otherwise".

Wilkerson was particularly scathing about the former under secretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, citing (retired general) Tommy Frank's famous description of the neo-conservative ideologue as the "f...ing stupidest guy on the planet".
"Let me testify to that," he said. "He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man. And yet, and yet, after the [Pentagon is given] control, at least in the immediate post-war period in Iraq, this man is put in charge. Not only is he put in charge, he is given carte blanche to tell the State Department to go screw themselves in a closet somewhere ... That's telling you how decisions were made and ... how things got accomplished."

He also denounced the abuse of detainees and said that Powell was particularly upset by it. "Ten years from now, when we have the whole story, we are going to be ashamed," he said. "This is not us. This is not the way we do business. I don't think in our history we've ever had a presidential involvement, a secretarial involvement, a vice presidential involvement, an attorney general's involvement in telling our troops essentially, 'Carte blanche is the way you should feel. You should not have any qualms because this is a different kind of conflict'

Wilkerson also contrasted Bush's diplomacy very unfavorably with his father's. Referring to Bush's first meeting with former South Korean president, Kim Dae-jung, Wilkerson noted, "When you put your feet up on a hassock and look at the man who's won the Nobel Prize and is currently president of South Korea and tell him in a very insulting way that you don't agree with his assessment of what is necessary to be reconciled with the North, that's not diplomacy; that's cowboyism."

Right. Now that we've all enjoyed that, here's John from AmericaBlog with a note of caution:

Overall, this is a great article...Colin Powell's former chief of staff just SAVAGES Cheney and Rummy. But then he says something that is simply untrue. Powell is upset at him for speaking up because Powell is the world's most loyal soldier.

Powell wasn't the world's most loyal soldier when he publicly took on his commander in chief in that commander's first days in office in early 1993. And he wasn't the world's most loyal soldier when he savaged that commander in his subsequent memoirs.

Colin Powell is many things, including an opportunist who got burned selling his soul to the devil, but a loyal soldier he is not. And frankly, I wonder how upset Powell really is that his close friend is spilling the beans on how all of this mess is NOT Powell's fault. Uh huh.

So...I'd say, take a little from column A, and a little from column B. Sure, it's fun to watch more and more people dogpile on the CIC...but you always gotta consider the source.