“A Dark Blot”
How Colin Powell Could Have Stopped The War Part 2
Many of us feel betrayed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, sold out for reasons which remain murky at best. Powell almost single-handedly sold President Bush's “war on Terrorism” to the American public, squandering both his unassailable integrity and our unconditional trust in it on the failed policies of a dilettante Goober president. There was a moment in time when the eyes of the world were on Powell, and, in that moment, Powell had it in his hands to prevent this war.
There's
a great deal of sadness
surrounding the image of General Colin Luther Powell, the 65th
United States Secretary of State. Powell was, easily, the most
credible member of the Bush Administration and, truth be told,
one of the most credible voices in the country, if not the
world. Depending on whom you believe, Powell was either given
faulty intelligence information or was lied to outright. Either
way, the Bush Administration, realizing its casus beli ("cause
for war") was flimsy and largely unsupported by the American
people, saw in Powell the perfect choice to sell the president's
Iraq obsession to the country. Powell had made his reservations
about the president's Iraq policy known, most famously in the
now often quoted “Pottery Barn Rule,” referring to a “you break
it, you own it” policy of a retail store that holds a customer
responsible for damage done to displayed merchandise. Powell was
widely quoted by news media in April 2004 after being
prominently mentioned in the book Plan of Attack by Washington
Post journalist Bob Woodward.
According to Woodward, Powell cited this rule when warning
President George W. Bush, in the summer of 2002, of the
consequences of military action in Iraq. “You are going to be
the proud owner of 25 million people,” he told the president.
“You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems. You'll
own it all.”
Being first and foremost a career soldier, who'd served as
National Security Advisor (1987–89) and Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff (1989–93), Powell is a loyalist who follows
orders. And, so, on February 5, 2003, Powell addressed a plenary
session of the United Nations to argue in favor of the action.
Citing “numerous” anonymous Iraqi defectors, Powell asserted
that “[t]here can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological
weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.”
Powell also stated that there was “no doubt in my mind” that
Saddam was working to obtain key components to produce nuclear
weapons. While Powell's oratorical skills and personal
conviction were acknowledged, there was an overall rejection of
the evidence Powell offered that the regime of Saddam Hussein
possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs). A Senate report on
intelligence failures would later detail the intense debate that
went on behind the scenes on what to include in the speech.
State Department analysts had found dozens of factual problems
in drafts of the speech. Some of the claims were taken out, but
still others were left in, for example claims based on the
Yellowcake Forgery. WIKIPEDIA.ORG
Once the tanks started rolling, Powell's influence and his very
presence became increasingly diminished, as National Security
Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld dominated the foreign policy news. Time Magazine even
ran a cover story about Powell's diminishing influence in the
administration, and rumors abounded that Powell—who was wholly
unfireable as his single voice was largely responsible for
selling the president's flawed and untrue case for war—was
considering resigning. According to Powell himself, that was not
true: he never considered resigning. It's not who the man is.
The tragic irony, however, is that Powell is perhaps a man
undone by his own ethics. As the president's increasingly
irrational claims and his stubborn refusal to allow the UN
inspectors to complete their search for weapons of mass
destruction pushed the country towards war, Powell could have,
almost single-handedly, stopped the war machine in its tracks by
simply resigning. By showing no confidence in the president's
bizarre and tragic march to war.
It's unfair to suggest we are at war because of Colin Powell. We
are, most surely, at war because of George W. Bush. But,
searching about for a voice the American people would have
confidence in, a voice we would trust to do the right thing,
Bush found his rescue in Colin Powell, a man he had not much use
for outside of this cruel appropriation of the former general's
ethics.
In the terrible wake of the 9-11 attacks, President George W.
Bush had absolutely no ability to calm, reassure or comfort
Americans. Everyone sees what they want to see, and I'm sure
some folk thought he was just the nicest sort, but the credible
voice, the voice that calmed and comforted most of the nation,
was that of the former president, Bill Clinton, who was
attempting to maintain a low profile but cameras are, of course,
wont to seek him out.
The fact is, the current president comes across like a liar. His
cocky, half-lean on the podium, his clumsy inarticulation—whose
charm was exhausted long ago—his clear unfamiliarity with facts,
names, dates and places— this is not a voice that inspires
trust. Not a posture that speaks of leadership. It is not a
relationship we can rest in.
Which was why he needed to find somebody we'd trust. Someone
whose word we would take at face value. And that face had to
speak of rock-solid leadership while not upstaging the
president, as Former President Clinton does every time he draws
breath. That voice, that man, was Colin Powell. A guy whose
advice the president shunned, a man whose worldview was all but
diametrically opposed to Bush's, a man whose intellect ruled his
emotion even as the president chose to see what he wanted to see
and reject whatever didn't fit his march-to-war scenario.
Powell was cruelly used by this president.
For this president, Colin Powell served mainly one key purpose:
to shore up confidence in whatever stupid idea the president had
at the time. Just having Powell stand behind or near the
president while he was speaking would imbue the president's
remarks with greater weight; Powell's personal gravity lending
credibility to even the most incredulous claims and obvious
attempts to sell the American people a lemon of irreducibly
tragic proportions. He was the president's face. His front man.
That Powell was black was a bonus; Powell's personal popularity
and integrity completely obliterated any notice of his race,
while the Secretary's race neutralized the president's heavy
negatives in the black community and inspired African Americans
to trust what Powell—and, by extension, the president—said.
So, on February 5th, 2003, Mr. Powell went off to the United
Nations to make the president's case for war. He was, largely,
unsuccessful in convincing the international community—most of
whom realized, from jump, this was a lie and a hoax; at best a
revenge fetish for the president, at worst a naked grab for
power in the Mideast. But Powell dutifully did as he was
instructed to, and his underdog status, as well as his
humanness, his heroic stature, scored a big win with the
American pubic, even as he alienated a great deal of the
international community.
The sad part, for me, though, was that, in making Powell hold
the president's bag, Mr. Bush had also given Powell enormous
power. Secretary Powell's speech at the U.N. could have
prevented this war, or certainly, severely damaged it.
I remember sitting glued to my TV, listening to every word as
Powell began his presentation, and wondering how the nation
would reel were Powell to abruptly stop his presentation and
confess that he simply can't go on. Had Colin Powell, Secretary
of State, stood up in the UN and resigned in protest, I
sincerely doubt we'd be in the morass we're in right now.
To have done so would have violated, likely, every ethic Powell
holds dear, but it would have been for a greater good. And
Powell's place in history would be a lot less murky than it is
now: a brilliant and heroic figure brought low by the failed
policies of a dilettante Goober president.
But, here we are, with Powell sailing off into history on a flat
note. Thousands of lives lost—American, British, bust mostly
Iraqis; thousands of dead Iraqis over nothing. Over a regime
that was absolutely no threat to us. Thousands of new bin Ladens
created in the orphaned sons of dead Iraqis killed for this
nonsense.
And Colin Powell could have prevented it. Or at least, mortally
wounded the president. But he chose ethics and loyalty over
conscience. He did his duty. He obeyed orders. And, in so doing,
he's squandered, first and most immediately, the previously
unassailable trust of Black America. Many of us feel betrayed by
Powell, sold out by Powell's standing shoulder-to-shoulder with
a president who'd never allow his own kids in combat, but had no
problem sending thousands of young men and women to be maimed
and crippled for life, or killed for reasons which remain murky
at best.
Now It Can Be Told: the step-by-step true story of how the American people were sold on the Iraq war.
Checking Out Of The Process
It really is very sad, a kind of squandered greatness. This
week, while the nation's attention remains riveted on the very
sad affairs of the Gulf region, Colin Powell's admission that
his UN appearance will remain “a dark blot” on his otherwise
brilliant career, more or less flew beneath most of our radar.
Which may have been the idea.
The president's sudden shift of Judge John Roberts from
replacing retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Conner to
replacing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who died of cancer
last week, was no accident, either. Bush's main objective, of
course, is to secure his own place in history as more than just
the worst president in modern history—which he arguably is. He's
trying to seat the most conservative supreme court in the
nation's history.
Under heavy fire for his bungling of the Hurricane Katrina
disaster, Bush needs a win and a big one. So, rather than
appoint Roberts—who was likely to sail through as, for a
conservative, he's apparently not that bad—he shifted Roberts to
replace the top judge, thus locking in a conservative for the
heavily influential chief justice for, presumably, decades to
come. It was smart politics, and this president's very existence
is the product of very smart people around him, but it was also
the path of least resistance; a run to the checkered flag for a
president in desperate need of good press.
It is likely a great deal of Black America has checked out of
the confirmation process, feeling, justifiably so, that we have
little voice in what happens, and the “moral” right has a death
grip on power in this country so they're going to do whatever
they please. It is also likely many if not most of us missed
Secretary Powell's contrition, his admission of mistakes made.
That was certainly huge, and went a long way to restore my
respect for a man who abandoned his own judgment.
But I still can't help but marvel about what might have been.
How the president's war might have been delayed or, dare we
believe, denied entirely. On February 5th, 2003, Colin Powell
stood in the center of the known universe. All eyes were on him.
And he blew it.
Christopher J. Priest
12 September 2005
editor@praisenet.org
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