Group Seeks Change In Security Policy

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Angered by President Bush's conduct of foreign policy and dismayed about America's diminished reputation abroad, more than two dozen former top diplomats and military leaders will release a statement this week calling for a change in U.S. national security policy.


Members of the group -- a mix of Republicans and Democrats -- have served in capitals from Moscow to Tel Aviv and Lima to Kinshasa. The list includes a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a former head of U.S. Central Command, a former CIA director and a decorated array of former ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state and defense. "We all have this extremely strong feeling that this administration has failed in its responsibilities to the nation," H. Allen Holmes, former assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said yesterday. "We have never been so isolated in the world, and feared. It's incredible that the United States should be in that position."

As a group, they are the latest and most prominent collection of former national security figures to complain about the direction of Bush administration foreign policy. They came together at a moment of growing public doubt about Bush's handling of foreign affairs and the war in Iraq.

While their views are largely shared by Bush's Democratic rival, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), the group avoided including people connected to the Kerry campaign. To gain the maximum impact, organizers said, they also tried not to enlist figures whose anti-administration views are well-advertised. "Our ethos is that we're professionals. We serve the president, whatever party. It's very unlike the vast majority of people in our group to do this," Holmes said. "If you're working for Kerry, we don't really want you in the group. This is supposed to be independent."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37557-2004Jun12.html

[LittleApple81]

1. Great! I am glad they are avoiding any non-professional/partisan ties.

This should strengthen their statements.

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2. Retired Officials Say Bush Must Go

The 26 ex-diplomats and military leaders say his foreign policy has harmed national security. Several served under Republicans.

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, plan to issue a joint statement later this week arguing 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 former President Bush and one of the group's principal organizers.

Those signing the document, which will be released in Washington, 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.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/2004/la-na-diplo13jun13,1,1142936.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[shraby]

3. WOW!!!

This is unprecedented.