Saturday, April 19, 2008
Maybe Dougie Feith wasn't the stupidest etc, etc
According to the Guardian, that title may well belong to former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers. A new book describes the way he was kept out of the loop as the White House crew devised new ways of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.
"We never authorised torture, we just didn't, not what we would do," Myers said. Sands comments: "He really had taken his eye off the ball ... he didn't ask too many questions ... and kept his distance from the decision-making process."This is not the first time that politicians have maneuvered around unwanted military scruples. The results are similar.
Larry Wilkerson, a former army officer and chief of staff to Colin Powell, US secretary of state at the time, told the Guardian: "I do know that Rumsfeld had neutralised the chairman [Myers] in many significant ways.
"The secretary did this by cutting [Myers] out of important communications, meetings, deliberations and plans.
"At the end of the day, however, Dick Myers was not a very powerful chairman in the first place, one reason Rumsfeld recommended him for the job".
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