Widespread torture tracked back to Cheney

More from Col. Lawrence Wilkerson.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff during
President Bush's first term, said Thursday, "It was clear to me there that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense down to the commanders in the field."

While the view of Cheney's office was put in carefully couched terms, to a soldier in the field it meant sometimes using ways that "were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war," Wilkerson, a former colonel, said on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."

"If you are a military man you know that you just don't do these sorts of things because once you give just the slightest bit of leeway there are those in the armed forces who will take advantage of that," Wilkerson said.

It has been completely clear since the Abu Ghraib pictures were published that it was the result of a failure of command control that extended back at least to the Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld. Col. Wilkerson's description of the cabal between Cheney and Rumsfeld makes it clear that the failure came from the White House where Bush has let Cheney run wild.

As if to intentionally provide support to Col. Wilkerson's statements, the Associated Press reports that Cheney is trying to get Sen. McCain's anti-torture amendment changed to at least exempt the CIA.