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Journalism of Courage
What does Colin Powell really think about a war on Iraq? That question arises because a top Senate Democrat says Powell played a double game in the run-up to the last Iraq war a dozen years ago.
As Powell told ABC News8217; This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Iraq needs to 8216;8216;come clean8217;8217;. But as for coming clean, one might ask the same of Powell, in light of an exchange on another weekend talk show. On Fox News Sunday, Sen. Carl Levin, an opponent of George W. Bush8217;s Iraq war plan, was asked if he regretted his 1991 vote against the earlier war. Levin replied that he indeed regretted his vote, but added that 8216;8216;we were following Colin Powell8217;s advice at the time in saying that sanctions could work a little longer8217;8217;.
Hume, determined to make sure that Levin was being heard correctly, queried him further, asking if Powell was secretly working against his boss8217;s wishes. To which Levin answered, 8216;8216;He was telling us privately, and I don8217;t think there8217;s too much doubt of that, if you read the literature on this subject. Colin Powell and a number of other people were saying, give sanctions a longer time.8217;8217;
Indeed, one important book abut the Gulf War, Bob Woodward8217;s The Commanders, published in 1991 8212; the same Woodward who chronicled Powell so knowingly and sympathetically in his 2002 book Bush at War 8212; confirms that Powell was, in fact, a strong proponent of giving sanctions against Iraq more time. He took his go-slow argument directly to Bush, meeting with him in the Oval Office.
To be sure, just because Powell made the case for more sanctions within the internal councils of the executive branch, that does not prove he took that same case to Congress 8212; an act that would have been viewed by his administration colleagues as an act of disloyalty.
Levin was not available for further comment, but a look at Powell8217;s 1995 autobiography, My American Journey, reveals some circumstantial evidence for the lawmaker8217;s claim. Powell recalls testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on December 3, 1990, just six weeks prior to the start of Operation Desert Storm. He writes that Chairman Sam Nunn 8216;8216;opposed going to war without giving sanctions a hard ride8217;8217;. Although Powell was on Capitol Hill to promote the Bush war plan, he remembers emphasising the difficulty of the military challenge ahead: 8216;8216;I had no intention of letting anyone on that committee think it was going to be a cakewalk.8217;8217;
Interestingly, another Democrat on that committee, then as now, was Carl Levin. Fast-forwarding again to the present, Levin conceded on Fox News that whatever Powell had done in the past, he was sending out no mixed messages now. But one still might wonder what Powell really thinks about the idea of intervention in Islamic lands.
In that same best-selling memoir, the retired general reflects upon another Mideast endeavour, the 1982 insertion of American forces in Lebanon. As he puts it, 8216;8216;What I saw from my perch in the Pentagon was America sticking its hand into a thousand-year-old hornet8217;s nest.8217;8217; His concerns were soon validated, tragically, by the 1983 suicide bombing in Beirut: 8216;8216;The shattered bodies of Marines in Beirut were never far from my mind in arguing for caution.8217;8217; In fact, as his memoirs make clear, his two tours in Vietnam had soured him on foreign wars with no clear victory strategy and no clear 8216;8216;exit strategy.8217;8217; He declared in print that he never wanted to see such mistakes repeated.
That was then. But today, the same questions could and should be raised: How will we know when we8217;ve won in Iraq? When will we leave? Surely Powell still thinks about those matters. But probably we8217;ll have to wait till the next book 8212; by either Woodward or perhaps Powell himself 8212; to find out what he8217;s really thinking right now. LATWP
