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.
The nation needs a better-coordinated policy for dealing with unmanned aerial systems that threaten domestic bases, Air Force vice chief of staff Gen. James C. Slife told a panel of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He and Pentagon acquisition and sustainment chief William LaPlante co-chair a panel looking at counter-UAS…