Bush purges his administration of those who advised caution in Iraq

[Geek_Girl]

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Neocons take complete control
George W. Bush continues to purge his administration of those who advised caution in Iraq, while Dick Cheney wrests power from a wobbly Condoleezza Rice.

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By Sidney Blumenthal



Dec. 30, 2004 | The transition to President Bush's second term, filled with backstage betrayals, plots and pathologies, would make for an excellent chapter of "I, Claudius." To begin with, I have learned from numerous sources, including several people close to Brent Scowcroft, that Bush has unceremoniously and without public acknowledgment dumped Scowcroft, his father's closest associate and friend, as chairman of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. The elder Bush's national security advisor was the last remnant of traditional Republican realism permitted to exist within the administration. But no longer. At the same time, Vice President Dick Cheney has imposed his authority over Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, in order to blackball Arnold Kanter, former undersecretary of state to James Baker, and partner in the Scowcroft Group, as a candidate for deputy secretary of state.

"Words like 'incoherent' come to mind," one top State Department official told me about Rice's effort to organize her office. She is unable to assert herself against Cheney, her wobbliness a sign that the State Department will mostly be sidelined as a power center for the next four years. The neoconservatives' attempt to force their favorites on Rice and her failure to accede to their every demand is one motive ascribed to Cheney's veto of Kanter.

Rice may have wanted to appoint as deputy her old friend Robert Blackwill, whom she had put in charge of Iraq at the NSC. But Blackwill, a mercurial personality with a volcanic temper, allegedly physically assaulted a female U.S. Foreign Service officer in Kuwait and was forced to resign in November. Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage assembled the evidence against Blackwill and presented it to Rice. "Condi only dismissed him after Powell and Armitage threatened to go public," a State Department source close to Powell told me.
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Salon.com

[jeff30997]

1. He's a real little Stalin.

[salin]

2. brilliant move

:eyes:

ruling with your ego - and those around you who pander to it... is what will not only bring you down - but significantly hinder your party in the future. Worse than Watergate (Dean's book) just waiting to unfold...

[w4rma]

3. Waiting to unfold? LOL! What has *already* happend has been worse than

Watergate by long shots.

[salin]

4. I mean the very public downfall

and damage to the party. The way he keeps empowering his worsttadvisors the sooner they will push the line too far and even the media won't be able to mask it.

[ooglymoogly]

5. doesn't this all make sense?

bush is praying for armageddon and the end of days when all of jesusland will be swept into heaven to watch the evil doers writhing in agony, what joy what rapture what delicious fun. when is the world going to wake up and realise we are in a very dangerous predicament?