Lawrence Wilkerson

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Colonel Lawrence B. Wilkerson (US Army, retired) was the chief of staff to United States Secretary of State Colin Powell. He retired from government service in January 2005 at the same time as Powell. Subsequent to their retirement, he and Powell had a falling out over Wilkerson's strident criticism of the administration of George W. Bush.

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[edit] History

Wilkerson was born in Gaffney, South Carolina, a son of a Second World War B-17 bombardier and navigator and National Guardsman. His family moved to Houston, Texas, where he graduated from high school. After three years of studying philosophy and English literature at Bucknell University and newly married, he dropped out in 1966 and volunteered to serve in the Vietnam War. Speaking to the Washington Post, Wilkerson stated, "I felt an obligation because my dad had fought,and I thought that was kind of your duty."<ref name="Breaking">"Breaking Ranks", Washington Post, 19 January 2006</ref> Wilkerson arrived as an Army officer piloting an OH-6A scout helicopter and logged about 1100 combat hours over a year. He went on to Ranger and Airborne schools before getting his B.A. in English literature and graduate degrees in international relations and national security. He attended the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island and later returned there to teach. He later served as acting director of the Marine Corps War College at Quantico.

Wilkerson spent years in the Navy's Pacific Command in South Korea, Japan and Hawaii, where he was well-regarded by his superiors. These recommendations led in early 1989 to a successful interview to become the assistant to Colin Powell, who was then finishing his stint as National Security Advisor in the Ronald Reagan administration and moving to a position in Army Forces Command in Atlanta. He continued this supporting role as Powell became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, through the Gulf War, following Powell into civilian life and then back into public service when President George W. Bush appointed Powell Secretary of State.

Wilkerson was responsible for the one-week review of information from the Central Intelligence Agency that was used to prepare Powell for his February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council. His failure to realize that the evidence was faulty has been blamed on the limited time he had to review the data. The subsequent developments led Wilkerson to become disillusioned: "Combine the detainee abuse issue with the ineptitude of post-invasion planning for Iraq, wrap both in this blanket of secretive decision-making . . . and you get the overall reason for my speaking out."<ref name="Breaking"/>

Wilkerson is an adjunct professor at the College of William & Mary where he teaches courses on U.S. national security. He also instructs a senior seminar in the Honors Department at the George Washington University entitled "National Security Decision Making". He and his wife Barbara have two children; his son is an Air Force navigator while his daughter was in the Army but has since returned to civilian life.

[edit] Iraq War Intelligence was "a Hoax"

During an October 19, 2005 speech at the New America Foundation, Wilkerson gave a stinging criticism of the entire intelligence community which compiled the Iraq War Intelligence. He had criticism for U.S. intelligence agencies as well as the international community including the French, Germans, and British who all believed the intelligence prior to the Iraq War.

"I can’t tell you why the French, the Germans, the Brits and us thought that most of the material, if not all of it, that we presented at the U.N. on 5 February 2003 was the truth"

(video[1] , Transcript [2])

In an interview that aired on PBS in Spring 2006 Wilkerson claimed that the speech Powell made before the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, laying out a case for war with Iraq, included falsehoods of which Powell had never been made aware. He said, "My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council."

He stated in the interview that he was "intimately involved in the preparation of Secretary Powell for his five February 2003 presentation at the UN Security Council" and that neither CIA Director George Tenent nor the CIA analysts involved in furnishing Powell with the information on mobile biological laboratories that he would use in his speech gave any indication that there were disputes about the reliability of the informants who had supplied this information.

Wilkerson still sees this lapse as the result of a profound intelligence failure, saying, "I have to believe that. Otherwise I have to believe some rather nefarious things about some fairly highly placed people in the intelligence community and perhaps elsewhere."

Wilkerson also agreed with the interviewer that Vice President Cheney's frequent trips to the CIA would inevitably have brought "undue influence" on the agency. When asked if Cheney was "the kind of guy who could lean on somebody" he responded, "Absolutely. And be just as quiet and taciturn about it as-- he-- as he leaned on 'em. As he leaned on the Congress recently-- in the-- torture issue."

Wilkerson stood strongly by his earlier description of Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld as having formed a cabal to hijack the decision-making process, emphasizing both their determination to ignore the Geneva Conventions and the "inept and incompetent" planning for post-invasion Iraq. And he concluded, "I'm worried and I would rather have the discussion and debate in the process we've designed than I would a diktat from a dumb strongman. . . . I'd prefer to see the squabble of democracy to the efficiency of dictators."

[edit] Politics

On September 26, 2006 Wilkerson endorsed and expressed full support in a conference call[3] to the media, with former NATO Supreme Allied Commander U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, and former Central Command Commander U.S. Marine General Anthony Zinni for fellow veteran and U.S. Senate Democratic Candidate, Jim Webb.


[edit] References

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[edit] External links

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