Since his retirement from the public sector Wilkerson has on several occasions spoken out against what he perceives as the poor planning and execution of the
Iraq War as well as the global politics leading up to and following it. In particular he has denounced the decision-making process of the
Bush administration and Vice President
Dick Cheney's and
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's parts in it, and regularly describes the Bush administration as having been run by a
neoconservative cabal. In the mid-2000s, he was a regular speaker at
Ron Paul's
Liberty Caucus. In a September 2006
conference call, Wilkerson expressed support for
Wesley Clark and
Anthony Zinni. He also endorsed
Jim Webb against incumbent
George Allen in the
2006 U.S. Senate election in Virginia.
Treatment of detainees in Iraq Wilkerson made comments in a radio interview in November 2005 that the Vice President had decided that the
Third Geneva Convention (regarding treatment of
POWs) would not apply to "al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda look-alike detainees" and that the February 2002 White House memorandum regarding the "Humane Treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda Detainees" contained a loophole designed to avoid applying the Geneva convention to the detainees. According to Wilkerson, the phrase "the detainees (should) be treated humanely and, to the extent appropriate and consistent with military necessity, in a manner consistent with the principles of Geneva" was a way to appear to play by the rules while in reality, the "military necessities" would always overrule concerns about the plight of the detainees. During an October 19, 2005 speech at the
New America Foundation, Wilkerson criticized the intelligence community which compiled the Iraq War intelligence: Wilkerson did a full-length audio commentary for the documentary
Why We Fight. This film won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2005
Sundance Film Festival. In a 2006 interview, Wilkerson said that the speech Powell made before the United Nations on February 5, 2003—which laid out a case for war with Iraq—included falsehoods of which Powell had never been made aware. He said, "My participation in that presentation at the UN constitutes the lowest point in my professional life. I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international community and the United Nations Security Council." Wilkerson said in 2011 that his preparing of the presentation was "probably the biggest mistake of my life", he regrets it, and that he regrets not resigning over it. He stated in the 2006 interview that neither CIA Director
George Tenet nor the CIA analysts that gave Powell information on
mobile biological laboratories explained that there were disputes about the reliability of the informants who had supplied the information—information which was used in the speech. Wilkerson also agreed with the interviewer that Cheney's frequent trips to the CIA would have brought "undue influence" on the agency. When asked if Cheney was "the kind of guy who could lean on somebody" he responded, "Absolutely. And be just as quiet and taciturn about it as-- he-- as he leaned on 'em. As he leaned on the Congress recently-- in the-- torture issue." Wilkerson stood by his earlier description of Cheney and Rumsfeld as having formed a cabal to hijack the decision-making process: "I'm worried and I would rather have the discussion and debate in the process we've designed than I would a diktat from a dumb strongman... I'd prefer to see the squabble of democracy to the efficiency of dictators."
An Iranian overture, 2003 Wilkerson said in an interview on the BBC's
Newsnight, January 17, 2007, that an Iranian offer to help stabilise Iraq after the American invasion, was positively received at the
State Department, yet turned down by Dick Cheney. The reported offer consisted of help in stabilizing Iraq, cutting ties with
Hezbollah and greater transparency in its
nuclear program in return for lifting
sanctions and dismantling the
Mujahedeen-e Khalq, an organisation working to overthrow the Iranian government.
The Iraq war and the "Jewish lobby" In 2006, he told
Robert Dreyfuss of
American Prospect that he wondered if the "
primary allegiance" of
Doug Feith and other "neocons" in the Bush Defense Department "was to their own country or to Israel." In April 2007, Wilkerson was featured in
VPRO's
Tegenlicht Dutch documentary
The Israel Lobby. He said that "the
Jewish lobby in America" and "
AIPAC in particular" played an outsize influence in the run-up to Iraq war. Wilkerson noted Jewish officials such as
Elliott Abrams,
Paul Wolfowitz and
Richard Perle in particular, and called their loyalty to the United States into question. Wilkerson said the Bush administration was willing to continue to detain innocent men who might nevertheless be aware of useful information about the Afghanistan
"mosaic": : Wilkerson stated in 2009 that
Guantanamo Bay detention camp continues to hold innocent men.
Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Guantanamo spokesman, declined to comment on Wilkerson's specific observations. Gordon said that "dealing with foreign fighters from a wide variety of countries in a wartime setting was a complex process". These comments were termed by his critics and supporters of Israel as antisemitic.
Iran's democracy In a March 20, 2015
CNN interview, Wilkerson said, I would say very, very candidly that Iran is probably the most democratic country in the Persian gulf region right now. My Republican colleagues will boil their eyes at that, but it is the most democratic country. It's a theocracy, no question about it. But it is possessed of the democratic tendencies that far outweigh those of, say, Bahrain or Saudi Arabia or even Egypt.
Criticism by Michael Rubin In 2016,
Michael Rubin of the
American Enterprise Institute said Wilkerson had "descended into a fevered swamp of conspiracy and hate". Rubin cited his Israel false flag theories about chemical weapons, alleged he "has flirted on the margins with 9/11 conspiracy theories", was regularly a guest on Russian state broadcaster
RT, and is close to
Lyndon LaRouche associate
Robert Dreyfuss.
Trump administration foreign policy Wilkerson showed concern over the first Trump administration's foreign policy behavior, particularly on Iran and Trump's work against the
Iran nuclear deal. In September 2018, Wilkerson further said that the
neoconservative agenda regarding war on Syria and Iran also threatened conflict between the U.S. and Russia and the long-term bogging down of U.S. military forces in major conflict. Wilkerson stated: "My serious concern is about the way U.S. National Security Advisor
John Bolton and others in their positions of power now are orchestrating a scenario whereby Donald Trump, for political reasons or whatever, can use force in a significant way against Assad and ultimately Iran, because Iran's forces are there, and ultimately against Russia, because their forces are there in Syria, and this is most disquieting." The neoconservatives' military plan, argues Wilkerson, is "a recipe for" the U.S. military being in the region for "the next generation" with significant force "mired even deeper in this morass" and with the "day after day" attrition of dollars and lives.
Role of military relative to climate change Wilkerson stated in a 2022
Massachusetts Peace Action YouTube video, that
climate change and nuclear war overshadow all other concerns. In a May 2022 editorial for the
Quincy Institute, he considered the role of the U.S. and other militaries in coping with famines that result from climate change and war. ==Personal life==