As Joe notes below, Colin Powell today criticized George Bush, says Bush did not listen to Powell when the former Secretary of State said we needed more troops than Bush was planning for the invasion of Iraq.
How does our current Secretary of State, Condi Rice, respond?
"When it came down to it, the president listens to his military advisers who were to execute the plan."So it was the generals' fault, not Bush's. Bush simply listened to those stupid generals at the Pentagon. They're the ones who told him to send too few troops. The general in specific would be the new-retired Tommy Franks who developed and executed the Iraq invasion. So Condi is saying that Franks screwed up. Love to see his thoughts on that.
Do you catch how it's never Bush's fault, even though he's the boss? Well, Powell cuts through that bull pretty quickly.
"The decisions that were made were not made by me or Mr. Cheney or Rumsfeld. They were made by the president of the United States," [Powell] said.I think Powell is having a bit of fun with Bush's "I'm the decider" line. Powell flips it around on Bush and basically says, sure Bush got some advice from me, and other advice from Rummy and Cheney and Tommy Franks. But in the end, Bush is the president, he's the decider, and he's the one responsible for being smart enough to choose the best advice from the varied counsel he's given.
"And my responsibility was to tell him what I thought. And if others were going in at different times and telling him different things, it was his decision to decide whether he wanted to listen to that person or somebody else."
And what happened? Bush wasn't smart enough. That's was Colin Powell said today.
Still think Larry Wilkerson is acting without Powell's okay?
