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Colin Powell: The Enemy Within (Per Newt Gingrich)
US conservatives assail State Department as policy battle rages
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US conservatives launched a broadside attack against the State Department, accusing it of a litany of diplomatic blunders over the past six months and actively attempting to undermine President George W. Bush foreign policy goals.
The allegations come as an internecine battle, fueled by the war in Iraq, raged in Washington between what many perceive to be Pentagon "hawks" and State Department "doves" over the role the United States should play as the world's leading superpower.
Led by former congressman Newt Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives whose sentiments are widely shared by Bush's core political base, the conservatives railed against US diplomats for failing to win foreign support for the war on Iraq and derailing progress stemming from victory.
In a speech to the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, Gingrich slammed the State Department for "ineffective and incoherent" diplomacy in the lead up to the war and turning the world, including allies in Europe, Turkey and South Korea, against US efforts to topple Saddam Hussein.
"Opposing America and a world of progress somehow (became) less attractive and more difficult than helping America eliminate the fear of Saddam's wicked regime," he said.
"That is a stunning diplomatic defeat and communications defeat of the first order," Gingrich said, calling on Bush to implement an immediate and radical overhaul of the US foreign policy apparatus.
Constantine Menges, a former CIA officer who is now a fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute, said the State Department acted "time and time again" as if "it knew better than the elected president of the United States."
"The Department of State also has a problem institutionally not only in countermanding the president and not supporting his policies but also in failing to have strategic foresight again and again," Menges said.
Although Gingrich and Menges are only two voices in the clamorous debate, their views are widely popular among Washington insiders and policy analysts who believe that the United States has an obligation to lead the world into a new era of democracy.
Their calls have become increasingly vocal as so-called hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, bask in the glow of the military victory in Iraq.
The conservatives have been careful not to directly attack Secretary of State Colin Powell, who enjoys massive public support, but have not so subtlely sought to limit his influence the key foreign policy issues of the day: Iraq, the Middle East peace process and North Korea.
Gingrich, however, went a step beyond previous iterations of the debate, suggesting that the State Department was not only incapable of doing its job, but deliberately sabotaging diplomacy.
Having been saved from their own incompetence on Iraq by the Pentagon and defense department planners, Gingrich said US diplomats were now engaged in an overt war to destroy Bush's desire to democratize the Middle East.
"Now the State Department is back at work pursuing policies that will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory," he said.
The main prong of the assault on Bush's priority has been the department's willingness to join in a "quartet" with feckless Europeans, duplicitous Russians and an ineffective United Nations to press for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gingrich said.
"After the bitter lessons of the past five months, it is unimaginable that the United States would voluntarily accept a system in which the UN, the EU, and Russia could routinely outvote President Bush's positions by three to one or four to zero, if the State Department voted its cultural beliefs against the president's policies," he said.
"This is a deliberate and systematic effort to undermine the president's policies procedurely by ensuring they will be consistently watered down and distorted by the other three members," Gingrich said.
"It is a clear disaster for American diplomacy," he said, adding that Powell's stated intention to soon visit Syria, a nation the United States accuses of sponsoring terrorism, was "ludicrous."
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Phase I of Project Iraq was mostly sucessful - militarily, the Armed Forces did everything they were expected to do. Unfortunately, the U.S. has since been acting like a dog that actually caught a car - unsure of what to do, and caught off-guard by how quickly Baghdad fell, with no real plan in place for the post-war period.
Originally posted by Dback Jon Phase I of Project Iraq was mostly sucessful - militarily, the Armed Forces did everything they were expected to do. Unfortunately, the U.S. has since been acting like a dog that actually caught a car - unsure of what to do, and caught off-guard by how quickly Baghdad fell, with no real plan in place for the post-war period.
You're right, of course.
It took us, what, 7 years to rebuild Japan? 4 (plus another 6 militarily) to rebuild Germany. But hell, if we're not done in two weeks with Iraq we're an utter failure and we have no plan. Damn that Bush. Damn those wascally wepublicans. Spot on, DBack.
I suppose that's just like the failed military plan.
And, Gingrich was absolutely right. Unlike Congress (which gets voted in), the military (which varies tours of duty usually under 3 years), the State department is littered with lifetime bureaucrats who hate the military and would rather talk everyone to death rather than actually do something.
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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...
Phase I of Project Iraq was mostly sucessful - militarily, the Armed Forces did everything they were expected to do. Unfortunately, the U.S. has since been acting like a dog that actually caught a car - unsure of what to do, and caught off-guard by how quickly Baghdad fell, with no real plan in place for the post-war period.
Dback John is just pissed there isn't a Taco Bell opened for business in downtown Baghdad, yet.
I give thanks that you're not running our military.
Originally posted by sly fly Phase I of Project Iraq was mostly sucessful - militarily, the Armed Forces did everything they were expected to do. Unfortunately, the U.S. has since been acting like a dog that actually caught a car - unsure of what to do, and caught off-guard by how quickly Baghdad fell, with no real plan in place for the post-war period.
Dback John is just pissed there isn't a Taco Bell opened for business in downtown Baghdad, yet.
I give thanks that you're not running our military.
What in my quote was critical of the military? Nothing - Critical of the Defense/State Departments? Yes.
Originally posted by WaywardFan So, you agree with Newt??
To a certain extent, yes. There has not been a coordinated message coming from the White House, Defense Department, and State Department, which is worse, IMHO, then just sending out the wrong message. Whether I agree with the direction that the DOD, WH etc is taking, the executive branch should be united.
That is not to mean that they should not have vigorous internal debate, but since the State Department answers to Powell, who answers to Bush, the State Department should not undermine the President.
Originally posted by Dback Jon To a certain extent, yes. There has not been a coordinated message coming from the White House, Defense Department, and State Department, which is worse, IMHO, then just sending out the wrong message. Whether I agree with the direction that the DOD, WH etc is taking, the executive branch should be united.
That is not to mean that they should not have vigorous internal debate, but since the State Department answers to Powell, who answers to Bush, the State Department should not undermine the President.
Well said.
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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...
Top US State department official calls Gingrich an "idiot"
LISBON (AFP) - A top US State Department official called former congressman and current Pentagon adviser Newt Gingrich an "idiot" in an interview published here.
US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Elizabeth Jones was asked to comment on Gingrich's recent harsh criticism of her department's Middle East diplomacy.
"Newt Gingrich does not speak in the name of the Pentagon and what he said is garbage," US Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Elizabeth Jones told the Publico daily.
"What Gingrich says does not interest me. He is an idiot and you can publish that," she added.
Gingrich called on Tuesday for dramatic change at the State Department, which he accused of backing Middle East dictators and undermining the policies of President George W. Bush.
The former House of Representatives speaker also blasted Secretary of State Colin Powell's plan to visit to Syria, which Washington has accused of harbouring fleeing Iraqi leaders and developing chemical weapons.
He said it was "ludicrous" to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad, who Gingrich called a terrorist-supporting, secret police-wielding dictator.
Powell is expected to visit Syria during the first week of May as part of a Middle East tour.
"He is going to Syria because the president wants him to have a frank talk with President Assad about all the issues that worry us, be they terrorist training camps or the need to close the borders to Saddam Hussein's collaborators or the question of weapons of mass destruction," Jones said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. diplomats hit back at former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, likening his attack on the State Department this week to Sen. Joseph McCarthy's witch hunt for communist infiltrators in the 1950s.
"You have essentially accused these employees of treason. ... However you do not have proof. Your charges are spurious," the American Foreign Service Association told Gingrich in a letter dated Wednesday and released on Friday.
"As such, they will be consigned to the dust bin of history where they belong, along with that paper Senator Joseph R. McCarthy held up ... claiming to 'have in my hand a list' of traitors in the State Department," said the letter, signed by association president John Naland.
The association represents the professional interests of more than 10,500 U.S. foreign service officers and negotiates on their behalf with the U.S. government.
Gingrich, in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, said the State Department was "pursuing policies that will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory" in Iraq and trying to undermine the Middle East policies of President Bush.
He specifically accused the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, which runs Middle East policy, of perpetuating "a culture of propping up dictators, coddling the corrupt and ignoring the secret police" in Arab countries.
Naland replied: "Sir, these are serious charges indeed. If you have proof you should run, not walk, to the office of the nearest U.S. attorney."
Some State Department employees were "incandescent" at Gingrich's attack, widely seen as an indirect attack on Bush's own policies, one official said.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the department was faithfully carrying out Bush's policies.
The newspaper USA Today quoted Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as saying: "It's clear that Mr. Gingrich is off his meds (medications) and out of therapy."
The late Sen. McCarthy's 1950 accusation of communist infiltration of the State Department was one of the highlights of his campaign to expose "un-American" activities.
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