Powell in the Oval Office

From George Packer (2005), The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq (New York: FSG: 0374299633) http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0374299633/braddelong00. Colin Powell's account of his last meeting with George W. Bush, as told by Colin Powell to George Packer:

In the same week of early January... Colin Powell was summoned to the White House for his farewell conversation with the president. All along, Powell had been the dutifully quiet dissenter on Iraq, concerned about the damage to alliances, skeptical (but not enough) of the administration's more fevered claims about weapons and terrorism, realistic about the difficulties of postwar. But his prestige was badly tarnished when his prewar speech to the UN about Iraqi weapons was proved mostly false. Though Iraq became more and more the responsibility of his agency, Powell had lost almost eery major fight back when the crucial decisions were made. His tenure as secretary of state was a great disappointment.... Now, sooner than he wanted, he was being replaced by Condoleezza Rice, a shrewder bureaucratic survivor.

After a few awkward minutes in the Oval Office, Powell realized that Bush had no idea what his secretary of state was doing there. The White House chief of staff, Andrew Card, was summoned, but he, too, was clueless. Who had called for the meeting? It began to seem entirely possible that the phantom vice president had arranged one more parting humiliation for his old colleague and more recent nemesis. Powell drew himself up and informed the president that he had come not for their weekly meeting but to say goodbye. Finding himself alone with Bush for perhaps the last time, Powell decided to speak his mind without constraint. The Defense Department had too much power in shaping foreign policy, he argued, and when Bush asked for an example, Powell offered not Rumsfeld, the secretary who had mastered him bureaucratically, not Wolfowitz, the point man on Iraq, but the department's number three official, Douglas Feith, whom Powell called a card-carrying member of the Likud Party. Warming to his talk, Powell moved on to negotiations with North Korea, and then homed in on Iraq. If, by April 1, the situation there had not improved significantly, the president would need a new strategy and new people to implement it. Bush looked taken aback: No one ever spoke this way in the Oval Office. But because it was the last time, Powell ignored every cue of displeasure and kept going until he said what he had to say, what he perhaps should have said long before.

At least, that's what Powell told Packer he said in his last meeting in the Oval Office. Is it accurate? I don't know: I do know that since his UN speech Powell's word trades at a very high discount indeed.

Comments

[david]

I think Powell's word has been delisted.

[Will Hutchinson]

I know there's a tendency to give up on the people you think are hopeless, and then pound incessently on the people who you thought were capable of more. But I wish people would have a better sense of perspective with Powell.

I can't argue for certain that he is a competent, honorable, exceptional person who got caught up and made one disasterous mistake. But that is nevertheless a very strong possibility. Why do we so meticulously savage every word he has spoken since his horrible UN blunder, when that is the only such blunder we're really sure of? Why not make it clear how different he stands -- even if it's as a no better than average civil servant -- in comparison to the people who have been systematically and without a hint of regret lying to us and continuing to lie to us without end?

[jerry]

Will? Because of his participation in the My Lai whitewash.

[christo]

The UN speech was an instance, an example, of his blunder. Another example is the why Bush exited the Kyoto agreement. His blunder was lending his respectibility to Bush in the first place. Bush signing Powell to the roster added black gravitas and avoided labeling of prejudice. While you can argue it was unclear in 1999, 2000, that Bush was going to turn out this corrupt and incompetent, it still was blunder. Keep in mind that Mrs. Powell opposed him to run for president in 1996 for fear of assassination. Who would assassinate this lion of Gulf War 1, that would be part of Bush's base. With his reputation gone, he makes only a weak critic of Bush's foreign adventure mistakes.

Adventure, that's a noble calling for a Yale man. Put down the megaphone and the pom poms, ladies, we're bringing democracy to the Middle East.

[ilsm]

Will,

It is mendacity. Mendacity is required to achieve high standing in government. Much more so with Bush, but it was always there.

Read Powell's autobiography.

I have seen this in my military career. I never achieved success at putting my career ahead of truth.

There are ways to get "ahead". Old Army traditions.

They have code names: "Breaking Starch" and "paying your Schilling".

Ethically, they are mendacity compromising ethics to achieve "integrity" in the corrupt system.

In the system integrity is not truth from an outsiders' large economy or nation view it is more of the old Pretorian Guard salute "integer", or 'I am one with the emperor'.

Despite the fact the emperor has no clothes.

That is why you must question any general's statement. They pay their ethical schilling to push the integrity of the unit's "goals".

The ethical salve is "someday I will not require my folks to pay the schilling".

Powell has always paid his schilling.

[Samuel Knight]

Oh yeah, Powell deserves all the abuse he gets. The old gang still like the guys. He's personally charming and very kind. But he did NOT serve his country well.

As noted above, he was the first investigator at My Lai. And said nothing was there. Thanks for the cover up, buddy.

Second, he campaigned for Bush in 2000. Bush would not have won in 2000 without Powell's support. He was far more popular than the governor of Texas, continuously cited as the adult who would lead foreign policy.

Third, he knew he was lying in front of the UN. He had been commander in Gulf War I. He knew that the Al Queda camp was in Kurdistan. He knew that aluminum tubes are for artillery. He knew that if intelligence had any real evidence of mobile weapons labs they would have given it to him, not some stupid drawings.

But he gave the talk anyway. And if he had resigned, do we think that Blair could still have held Labour behind him? Of course not.

And that sneaky way of constantly being the source to all the journalists, especially Woodward shouldn't be a plus. He wanted to have it both ways always. Well you can't - and he didn't. And the country lost.

He deserves every bit of scorn he gets.

[theorajones]

It's sort of an existential dilemma--brings to mind, "Who is more the fool? The fool or the fool who follows the fool?"

That said, it's acutally far worse. Powell initially legitimized the Bush Presidency, and up until the day he quit, was single-handedly capable of taking it down. If Powell had abandoned Bush publicly in 2003 or early 2004, Bush simply would not have won re-election. Arguably, if Powell denounced Bush early enough, he would have ensured at least that the "A" list Democrats got into the presidential race, and also made it possible for an "A" list Republican to mount a primary challenge to the President.

It is frustrating to many of us who were admirers of his that Powell appeared to put party before country. As a result, many of us hold him responsible for whatever sins Bush has committed or will commit in his second term. Powell could have brought down the king, but he chose not to. Let the king's crimes weigh on his head as well.

[Something Polish]

"But his prestige was badly tarnished when his prewar speech to the UN about Iraqi weapons was proved mostly false."

Here, "mostly" means 99 and 44/100%.

Earl Weaver once went out to the mound to yank Mike Cuellar and said, "Kweller, I gave you more chances than I gave my first wife." The same could be said of Powell.

[Bush Bites]

It's sad. Even when he had nothing left to lose, he didn't take Rummy and Wolfie to task. He served Bush but failed the country. He once had so much potential.

[otto]

The problem is a political system which repeatedly achieves the normalisation of small group extremism, whether insurance companies influence on US healthcare policies, or, in this case re. Feith, jewish influence in support of colonialisation of the palestinian arabs.