This article originally provided by The LA Times
Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go
26 ex-diplomats and military leaders say his foreign policy has harmed national security. Several served under Republicans.
By Ronald Brownstein
Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — A group of 26 former senior
diplomats and military officials, several appointed to key
positions by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George
H.W. Bush, plans to issue a joint statement this week
arguing that President George W. Bush has damaged America's
national security and should be defeated in November.
The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military
Commanders for Change, will explicitly condemn Bush's
foreign policy, according to several of those who signed the
document.
"It is clear that the statement calls for the defeat of
the administration," said William C. Harrop, the
ambassador to Israel under President Bush's father and one
of the group's principal organizers.
Those signing the document, which will be released in
Washington on Wednesday, include 20 former U.S. ambassadors,
appointed by presidents of both parties, to countries
including Israel, the former Soviet Union and Saudi Arabia.
Others are senior State Department officials from the
Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations and former
military leaders, including retired Marine Gen. Joseph P.
Hoar, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East
under President Bush's father. Hoar is a prominent critic of
the war in Iraq.
Some of those signing the document — such as Hoar and
former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill A. McPeak — have
identified themselves as supporters of Sen. John F. Kerry,
the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. But most
have not endorsed any candidate, members of the group said.
It is unusual for so many former high-level military
officials and career diplomats to issue such an overtly
political message during a presidential campaign.
A senior official at the Bush reelection campaign said he
did not wish to comment on the statement until it was
released.
But in the past, administration officials have rejected
charges that Bush has isolated America in the world,
pointing to countries contributing troops to the coalition
in Iraq and the unanimous passage last week of the U.N.
resolution authorizing the interim Iraqi government.
One senior Republican strategist familiar with White House
thinking said he did not think the group was sufficiently
well-known to create significant political problems for the
president.
The strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity,
also said the signatories were making an argument growing
increasingly obsolete as Bush leans more on the
international community for help in Iraq.
"Their timing is a little off, particularly in the
aftermath of the most recent U.N. resolution," the
strategist said. "It seems to me this is a collection
of resentments that have built up, but it would have been
much more powerful months ago than now when even the
president's most disinterested critics would say we have
taken a much more multilateral approach" in Iraq.
But those signing the document say the recent signs of
cooperation do not reverse a basic trend toward increasing
isolation for the U.S.
"We just felt things were so serious, that America's
leadership role in the world has been attenuated to such a
terrible degree by both the style and the substance of the
administration's approach," said Harrop, who served as
ambassador to four African countries under Carter and
Reagan.
"A lot of people felt the work they had done over their
lifetime in trying to build a situation in which the United
States was respected and could lead the rest of the world
was now undermined by this administration — by the
arrogance, by the refusal to listen to others, the scorn for
multilateral organizations," Harrop said.
Jack F. Matlock Jr., who was appointed by Reagan as
ambassador to the Soviet Union and retained in the post by
President Bush's father during the final years of the Cold
War, expressed similar views.
"Ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the U.S. has built up
alliances in order to amplify its own power," he said.
"But now we have alienated many of our closest allies,
we have alienated their populations. We've all been
increasingly appalled at how the relationships that we
worked so hard to build up have simply been shattered by the
current administration in the method it has gone about
things."
The GOP strategist noted that many of those involved in the
document claimed their primary expertise in the Middle East
and suggested a principal motivation for the statement might
be frustration over Bush's effort to fundamentally reorient
policy toward the region.
"For 60 years we believed in quote-unquote stability at
the price of liberty, and what we got is neither liberty nor
stability," the strategist said. "So we are taking
a fundamentally different approach toward the Middle East.
That is a huge doctrinal shift, and the people who have
given their lives, careers to building the previous foreign
policy consensus, see this as a direct intellectual assault
on what they have devoted their lives to. And it is. We
think what a lot of people came up with was a failure — or
at least, in the present world in which we live, it is no
longer sustainable."
Sponsors of the effort counter that several in the group
have been involved in developing policy affecting almost all
regions of the globe.
The document will echo a statement released in April by a
group of high-level former British diplomats condemning
Prime Minister Tony Blair for being too closely aligned to
U.S. policy in Iraq and Israel. Those involved with the new
group said their effort was already underway when the
British statement was released.
The signatories said Kerry's campaign played no role in the
formation of their group. Phyllis E. Oakley, the deputy
State Department spokesman during Reagan's second term and
an assistant secretary of state under Clinton, said she
suspected "some of them [in the Kerry campaign] may
have been aware of it," but that "the campaign had
no role" in organizing the group.
Stephanie Cutter, Kerry's communications director, also said
that the Kerry campaign had not been involved in devising
the group's statement.
The document does not explicitly endorse Kerry, according to
those familiar with it. But some individual signers plan to
back the Democrat, and others acknowledge that by calling
for Bush's removal, the group effectively is urging
Americans to elect Kerry.
"The core of the message is that we are so deeply
concerned about the current direction of American foreign
policy … that we think it is essential for the future
security of the United States that a new foreign policy team
come in," said Oakley.
Much of the debate over the document in the days ahead may
pivot on the extent to which it is seen as a partisan
document.
A Bush administration ally said that the group failed to
recognize how the Sept. 11 attacks required significant
changes in American foreign policy. "There's no
question those who were responsible for policies pre-9/11
are denying what seems as the obvious — that those
policies were inadequate," said Cliff May, president of
the conservative advocacy group Foundation for the Defense
of Democracies.
"This seems like a statement from 9/10 people [who
don't see] the importance of 9/11 and the way that should
have changed our thinking."
Along with Hoar and McPeak, others who have signed it are
identified with the Democratic Party.
Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., though named chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff under Reagan, supported Clinton in
1992. Crowe has endorsed Kerry. Retired Adm. Stansfield
Turner served as Carter's director of central intelligence
and has also endorsed Kerry. Matlock said he was a
registered Democrat during most of his foreign service
career, though he voted for Reagan in 1984 and the elder
Bush twice and now is registered as an independent.
Several on the group's list were appointed to their most
important posts under Reagan and the elder Bush. These
include Matlock and Harrop, as well as Arthur A. Hartman,
who served as Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet Union from
1981 through 1987; H. Allen Holmes, an assistant secretary
of state under Reagan; and Charles Freeman, ambassador to
Saudi Arabia under the elder Bush.
Many on the list have not been previously identified with
any political cause or party. Several "are the kind who
have never spoken out before," said James Daniel
Phillips, former ambassador to Burundi and the Congo.
Oakley, Harrop and Matlock said the effort began this year.
Matlock said it was sparked by conversations among
"colleagues who had served in senior positions around
the same time, most of them for the Reagan administration
and for the first Bush administration."
Oakley said frustration over the Iraq war was "a large
part" of the impetus for the statement, but the
criticism of President Bush "goes much deeper."
The group's complaint about Bush's approach largely tracks
Kerry's contention that the administration has weakened
American security by straining traditional alliances and
shifting resources from the war against Al Qaeda to the
invasion of Iraq.
Oakley said the statement would argue that,
"Unfortunately the tough stands [Bush] has taken have
made us less secure. He has neglected the war on terrorism
for the war in Iraq. And while we agree that we are in
unprecedented times and we face challenges we didn't even
know about before, these challenges require the cooperation
of other countries. We cannot do it by ourselves."
*
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
The signatories
Although not explicitly endorsing Sen. John F. Kerry for
president, 26 former diplomats and military officials,
including many who served in Republican administrations,
have signed a statement calling for the defeat of President
Bush in November. Their names and some of the posts they
have held are:
Avis T. Bohlen — assistant secretary of
State for arms control, 1999-2002; deputy assistant
secretary of State for European affairs, 1989-1991.
Retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr. — chairman,
President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Committee,
1993-94; ambassador to Britain, 1993-97; chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1985-89.
Jeffrey S. Davidow — ambassador to
Mexico, 1998-2002; assistant secretary of State for
inter-American affairs, 1996.
William A. DePree — ambassador to
Bangladesh, 1987-1990.
Donald B. Easum — ambassador to Nigeria,
1975-79.
Charles W. Freeman Jr. — assistant
secretary of Defense for international security affairs,
1993-94; ambassador to Saudi Arabia, 1989-1992.
William C. Harrop — ambassador to Israel,
1991-93; ambassador to Zaire, 1987-1991.
Arthur A. Hartman — ambassador to the
Soviet Union, 1981-87; ambassador to France, 1977-1981.
Retired Marine Gen. Joseph P. Hoar — commander
in chief of U.S. Central Command, overseeing forces in the
Middle East, 1991-94; deputy chief of staff, Marine Corps,
1990-94.
H. Allen Holmes — assistant secretary of
Defense for special operations, 1993-99; assistant secretary
of State for politico-military affairs, 1986-89.
Robert V. Keeley — ambassador to Greece,
1985-89; ambassador to Zimbabwe, 1980-84.
Samuel W. Lewis — director of State
Department policy and planning, 1993-94; ambassador to
Israel, 1977-1985.
Princeton N. Lyman — assistant secretary
of State for international organization affairs, 1995-98;
ambassador to South Africa, 1992-95.
Jack F. Matlock Jr. — ambassador
to the Soviet Union, 1987-1991; director for European and
Soviet affairs, National Security Council, 1983-86;
ambassador to Czechoslovakia, 1981-83.
Donald F. McHenry — ambassador to the
United Nations, 1979-1981.
Retired Air Force Gen. Merrill A. McPeak — chief
of staff, U.S. Air Force, 1990-94.
George E. Moose — assistant secretary of
State for African affairs, 1993-97; ambassador to Senegal,
1988-91.
David D. Newsom — acting secretary of
State, 1980; undersecretary of State for political affairs,
1978-1981; ambassador to Indonesia, 1973-77.
Phyllis E. Oakley — assistant secretary
of State for intelligence and research, 1997-99.
James Daniel Phillips — ambassador to the
Republic of Congo, 1990-93; ambassador to Burundi,
1986-1990.
John E. Reinhardt — ambassador to
Nigeria, 1971-75.
Retired Air Force Gen. William Y. Smith — deputy
commander in chief, U.S. European Command, 1981-83.
Ronald I. Spiers — undersecretary-general
of the United Nations for political affairs, 1989-1992;
ambassador to Pakistan, 1981-83.
Michael Sterner — deputy assistant
secretary of State for Near East affairs, 1977-1981;
ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, 1974-76.
Retired Adm. Stansfield Turner — director
of the Central Intelligence Agency, 1977-1981.
Alexander F. Watson — assistant secretary
of State for inter-American affairs, 1993-96; deputy
permanent representative to the U.N., 1989-1993.
*
Source: Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change
|
