WASHINGTON – State Department mouthpiece P.J. Crowley quit yesterday amid political fallout from his calling the Pentagon “stupid” for its treatment of an Army private accused of leaking secrets to the WikiLeaks Web site.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, put on the hot seat by Crowley’s harebrained comment to university students in Massachusetts Thursday, said she accepted the resignation “with regret.”
“P.J. has served our nation with distinction for more than three decades, in uniform and as a civilian,” Clinton said in a statement. “I wish him the very best.”
It wasn’t the first time Crowley’s blunt remarks burned Clinton, who hasn’t taken Crowley with her overseas in more than a year.
Crowley, a retired Air Force colonel, said it was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid” to hold accused WikiLeaks abettor Pfc. Bradley Manning, 23, in solitary confinement, subject him to nightly strip searches and put him in a suicide-proof smock to sleep.
Manning is accused of carrying out the largest leak of classified documents in US history.
Crowley, 60, said in a statement yesterday that he took “full responsibility” for what he said.