Speaking to the Washington-based New America Foundation, retired Marine Corps Col. Larry Wilkerson—Colin Powell’s top aide during his tenure as Secretary of State—ripped into a host of Bush Administration figures. According to the Washington Post, Wilkerson decried the hijacking of US foreign policy by a “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” and referred to current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as “extremely weak.” Wilkerson, a former director of the Marine Corps War College, also lambasted the planners of the Iraq war for incompetence, but qualified his remarks by saying the US must remain in Iraq. He saved one of his more colorful barbs for former Undersecretary of Defense for Plans and Policy Douglas Feith, saying “seldom in my life have I met a dumber man.” Ouch.
A top Pentagon tech official called on industry this week to help the military develop “lighter, more efficient” directed energy weapons designed to go on aircraft and conduct special operations missions or down drones—areas where the Air Force’s directed energy efforts have been quiet as of late.