A new article in GQ Magazine quotes many of Secretary of State Colin Powell closest aides and confidantes openly criticizing the Bush administration. Powell’s chief of staff Larry Wilkerson says the US sanctions policy against countries such as Pakistan and Cuba is “the dumbest policy on the face of the Earth”. Wilkerson also said that Powell does not trust and has disdain for the hawks in the administration especially Paul Wolfowitz who Wilkerson compares to Vladimir Lenin for having utopian visions about the world. Powell’s mentor from the National War College, Harlan Ullman, is also quoted saying about Powell: “This is, in many ways, the most ideological administration Powell’s ever had to work for. Not only is it very ideological, but they have a vision. And I think Powell is inherently uncomfortable with grand visions like that.” Also in the article Powell’s deputy, Richard Armitage, said his boss’s speech to the United Nations making the case for war against Iraq has become “a source of great distress for the secretary.”