WASHINGTON -
In an unprecedented broadside, more than two-dozen top
retired US career diplomats and military commanders,
many of whom reached their top positions under former
president George H W Bush, have called for George W Bush
to be defeated in his re-election bid in November.
"It is time for a change," declared a one-page
statement by 26 ex-officials released at a press
conference in the capital on Wednesday. "Never in the
two-and-a-quarter centuries of our history has the
United States been so isolated among the nations, so
broadly feared and distrusted," it said.
"The
Bush administration has shown that it does not grasp
[the] circumstances of the new era, and is not able to
rise to the responsibilities of world leadership in
either style or substance," the statement concluded. "It
is time for a change."
The statement, which had
been anticipated since word of its formulation leaked
out late last week, is the latest indication that what
is sometimes called "the permanent government" - the
senior ranks of the professional corps that run US
diplomacy, intelligence and the military - has become
entirely disaffected from Bush and especially his
foreign policy.
Last month, some 60 former US
diplomats and other government officials who served
overseas released an open letter to the president
protesting his support for the Israeli government's
position in its conflict with the Palestinians,
stressing that it is "costing our country its
credibility, prestige and friends".
Signatories
of that letter, which was inspired by a similar protest
by 51 British ambassadors and senior government
officials who sent a letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair
in late April, included at least 16 former ambassadors,
a handful of who have signed the most recent statement,
which aimed at a higher-ranking group.
Also last
month, retired General Anthony Zinni, a former head of
the US Central Command, which covers the Gulf region and
Central Asia, called publicly - and on the most-watched
US public-affairs television show, 60 Minutes -
for the resignation of the top civilians in the Pentagon
as well as neo-conservative policymakers in the National
Security Council and Vice President Dick Cheney's
office. Zinni, a former Marine who was a prominent
opponent of the Iraq war, is particularly highly
regarded among the uniformed officer corps.
But
the latest letter, which was signed by men and women who
attained the highest ranks in the military and foreign
services, goes much further in essentially calling for
Bush's defeat.
While some of the signers have
identified themselves as Democrats and have been
advising Senator John Kerry, the presumptive Democratic
nominee for the presidential elections, most of them are
seen as centrists and "realists" who rose to top
positions under Bush's father, George H W Bush
(1989-1993), and probably supported him in his
unsuccessful 1992 re-election bid.
"When I
retired 10 years ago, I signed up as a Republican," said
General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, the former US Air Force
chief of staff, one of half a dozen general-rank
military officers, who also include Admiral William
Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
under president Ronald Reagan (1981-89) and General
Joseph Hoar, head of the US Central Command under Bush
Senior. McPeak added that in the 2000 election he
was a member of "Veterans for Bush", but is now
providing advice to the Kerry campaign.
Similarly, several retired ambassadors,
including two - Arthur Hartman and Jack Matlock Jr - who
served in the Soviet Union under Reagan, and several
others, such as William Harrop (Israel), Robert Oakley
(Somalia), and Charles Freeman (Saudi Arabia), who
served in sensitive hot spots under the elder Bush, have
seen their careers prosper under Republicans.
The fact that such high-ranking officials would
constitute themselves as a group and come out with a
strongly political statement is particularly striking
and was justified by their chief spokesperson, Phyllis
Oakley, a former head of the State Department's highly
regarded Bureau of Intelligence and Research by the fact
that "never before have so many of us felt the need for
a major change in the direction of our foreign policy".
"We have not only worked overseas; we have also
held positions of major responsibility in the Department
of State, Department of Defense, National Security
Council, and at the United Nations. For many of us," she
said, "such an overt step is very hard to do and we have
made our decisions after deep reflection."
"Over
nearly half a century we have worked energetically in
all regions of the world, often in very difficult
circumstances, to build piece by piece a structure of
respect and influence for the United States that has
served our country very well over the last 60 years,"
she said. "Today, we see that structure crumbling under
an administration blinded by ideology and a callous
indifference to the realities of the world around it."
The letter itself charged Bush with adopting "an
overbearing approach to America's role in the world,
relying upon military might and righteousness,
insensitive to the concern of traditional friends and
allies and disdainful of the United Nations".
It
accused the administration of leading the United States
"into an ill-planned and costly war from which exit is
uncertain", and charged that the invasion was justified
"by manipulation of uncertain intelligence about weapons
of mass destruction, and by a cynical campaign to
persuade the public that Saddam Hussein was linked to
al-Qaeda and the attacks of September 11".
In a
report also released on Wednesday, the commission
investigating those attacks said it found "no credible
evidence" of any operational link between Iraq and
al-Qaeda, claims made repeatedly by Bush and Cheney to
justify the 2003 US-led attack on the regime of former
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
Like the May
letter, signers of the Wednesday letter also assailed
the administration's alignment with the government of
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "To enhance
credibility with Islamic peoples we must pursue
courageous, energetic and balanced efforts to establish
peace between Israelis and Palestinians," they said.
"There's been a complete failure of leadership
on the issue," said ambassador Michael Sterner, who
served as Washington's envoy to the United Arab Emirates
under presidents Richard Nixon (1969-1974) and Gerald
Ford (1974-1977).
The major challenges of the
21st century, the letter went on, include weapons
proliferation, unequal distribution of wealth,
terrorism, environmental degradation, population growth
in the developing world, HIV/AIDS and ethnic and
religious confrontations. "Such problems cannot be
resolved by military force, nor by the sole remaining
superpower alone."
Some of the signers applauded
recent indications - particularly at the United Nations
and in Iraq - that the administration is prepared to
compromise with its allies and critics. But Oakley, who
also served in the State Department under Reagan, said
they might only represent a "tactical shift" rather than
a "fundamental change in approach to foreign policy".
"Everything we have heard from friends abroad on
every continent suggests to us that the lack of
confidence in the present administration is so profound
that a whole new team is needed to repair the damage,"
she said.
Several signers described the current
situation in Iraq as a "disaster" for which the
administration, particularly planners in the Pentagon,
was entirely unprepared. "The world's finest army is in
the process of being dismembered and destroyed as a
result of the lack of preparation, the demands being
made on it and the Abu Ghraib [prison] scandal," said
Freeman, who served as ambassador to Saudi Arabia during
the first Gulf War in 1991.
