Wilkerson: torture directives came straight from Cheney's office.

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More Fodder for Press: Wilkerson Charges Cheney Responsible for Prisoner Abuse

By E&P Staff

Published: November 04, 2005 2:30 PM ET

NEW YORK His initial blast, on Oct. 19, at a luncheon in Washington, D.C. drew wide press attention. Now Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, is at it again. In an interview for National Public Radio he charged that Vice President Cheney's office--and new chief aide David Addingtoon--was responsible for directives which led to U.S soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Wilkerson said he had some hard evidence: a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff. The directives, he said, contradicted a 2002 order by President Bush for the military to abide by the Geneva Convention rules against torture.

The former Powell aide, in his October statements, declared that Cheney and Rumsfeld operated a "cabal" that had hijacked U.S. foreign and military policy.

Now, talking to NPR, he said, "There was a visible audit trail from the Vice President's office through the Secretary of Defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detainees.”

He said that Powell had assigned him to investigate this after stories emerged about U.S troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he was “privy to the paperwork, both classified and unclassified, that the secretary of State asked me to assemble on how this all got started.”

I was beginning to think we'd never get to the bottom of the appalling complacency around the torture of prisoners. Flouting the Geneva Convention that way must make many old soldiers very very angry, especially those who were subject to torture, or whose subordinates were subject to torture.

This would have been before the election and Bush would not have been reselected. How can they sleep at night?

I thought he quit so he COULD blow the whistle on those bastards...he hasn't. UNLESS.... HE is the one nudging Wilkerson? Could be I guess, but if Powell wants his reputation back, he best speak out himself. IMCPO.

But I'm glad that Wilkerson is standing up to testify about Cheney's evil neo-con ways.

mean!