Feith Chickens Out

[lame54]

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/feith-chickens-out-of-hearing-on-abusive-interrogations-because-he-didnt-like-another-witness/
Feith Chickens Out Of Congressional Hearing On Torture, Refuses To Appear With Wilkerson»
Today, the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Rights held a hearing on abusive interrogation to look at the role of administration lawyers in crafting policies allowing the torture of detainees.

Former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith was scheduled to testify today about his role in vigorously pushing to eliminate the standards of the Geneva Conventions and making the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay a “Geneva-free zone.” However, at the opening of the hearing, subcommittee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) declared that Feith “withdrew from the hearing.” Nadler explained:

Despite his prior commitment to testify, this morning, Mr. Feith informed this committee through his counsel that he would not appear today because he is not willing to appear alongside one of our other witnesses.

Sources on Capitol Hill told ThinkProgress that Feith was afraid to appear with Colin Powell’s former chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, who was also testifying today. After leaving the State Department in protest over Bush’s policies, Wilkerson became an outspoken critic of Bush’s foreign policy and aggressively criticized Feith’s incompetence. From a speech to the New America Foundation in 2005:

Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, whom most of you probably know Tommy Franks said was the stupidest blankety-blank man in the world. He was. Let me testify to that. He was. Seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.

[Judi Lynn]

1. They should ask him to testify again, now that Wilkerson has already come and gone.

They shouldn't allow him to dodge this investigation, although his fear of showing up at the same time with someone who knows him does speak volumes already.

Feith really should come forward and act like someone with a little responsibility, if he could manage it.

[DemoTex]

2. Chicken-hawk chickens out!

Even as his chickens (war crimes) are coming home to roost.

[EFerrari]

3. Feith was the quarterback for Rumsfeld and he was in there spinning

as early as the Taguba Report.