Former State Department Official Says Sentiment From Cheney's Office Helped Bring Prison Abuses

"WASHINGTON (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney's office triggered abuse of Iraqi prisoners with word that filtered down to soldiers in the field that interrogations were not providing needed intelligence, a former senior State Department official has alleged.

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff in the first Bush administration, 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.

Asked if Powell was aware of Wilkerson's remarks, his spokeswoman, Peggy Cifrino, said, "Colonel Wilkerson does not speak for or work for him.""
AP News