February 2009: Powell’s Chief of Staff: Cheney Manipulating Administration from Outset

Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, reflects on the perception of the incoming Bush administration’s foreign policy approach in 2001. Wilkerson says: “We had this confluence of characters—and I use that term very carefully—that included people like Powell, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, and so forth, which allowed one perception to be ‘the dream team.’ It allowed everybody to believe that this Sarah Palin-like president [the governor of Alaska, known for her ignorance of foreign affairs]—because, let’s face it, that’s what he was—was going to be protected by this national security elite, tested in the cauldrons of fire. What in effect happened was that a very astute, probably the most astute, bureaucratic entrepreneur I’ve ever run into in my life became the vice president of the United States. He became vice president well before George [W.] Bush picked him. And he began to manipulate things from that point on, knowing that he was going to be able to convince this guy to pick him, knowing that he was then going to be able to wade into the vacuums that existed around George Bush—personality vacuum, character vacuum, details vacuum, experience vacuum.” [Vanity Fair, 2/2009]