Just watching his interview with Wolf and wondering what his prospects might have been had he run, or if his involvement in the whole Iraq debacle ruined his chances.
You should forward your concerns to Powell himself, since from his own mouth, he considers his role in selling the war to be a mark on his record. That is the debacle I'm referring to.
Guy doesn't have the stones to run. He's always taken the high road, bitten the bullet and stayed above the fray as much as possible. Too nice a guy to run for Pres. Wish he would, as I would vote for him in a heartbeat.
In my opinion, yes he was. For one thing, there was the U.N. speech in which he essentially laid his reputation on the line, assuring everyone that Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction was a fact rather than a supposition. I like Colin Powell, but if you go back and read that speech he comes off as either a liar or a stooge. Then there is the matter of the invasion itself. Granted he was Secretary of State. I get that. But the invasion was a repudiation of his own philosophy regarding the use of military force, otherwise known as the Powell Doctrine. The best thing you can say about his tenure as Secretary of State is that he was loyal to his boss. Also, I am not fond of the way former high-ranking officials in the Bush administration like to write books in which they express the misgivings they had all along about this or that aspect of the administration's policies. If they felt like Bush was pursuing policies that were genuinely detrimental to the nation's interests, they should have spoken out when it might have made a difference.
Was he used by the administration hawks? IMHO, yes. But that does not excuse that performance. _________________________________________________ Good to know you do not believe the secretary of state should follow the orders from the office of the president of the united states.
I still think the presentation, with information known at the time, Powell made to the UN was in good faith with the best intelligence we had at the time. When you have dual use technology the one side will say it is for peaceful use while the other will provide emphasis to the negative uses for that same equipment.(mobile labs for instance) That teh US or other intelligence agencies didn't know Saddam was lying about his WMD or WMD capability, according to what we know know of course, is not Powell's fault. We, the leadership of teh US and Britain, Austrailia, Japan, etc, weren't going to take a chance that Saddam was lying. (not unreasonable since he gassed teh Kurds for instance) Powell's time has passed. He would have made a solid President.
Hith, Your hindsight is breathtaking. Was Woodward's book around before Powell made his speech? Do you think the whole state department full of careerists of many different political ilks are brought in or trusted for decisions? (CIA too for that matter) Unfortunately the Bush team and who they used for their intelligence gathering were apparently proven wrong in many of the cases. The dual use trailers were found though. They didn't have traces of WMD in them but Saddam admitted in his interviews with the Marine shown on 60 minutes that he was prepping the precursors and multi-use items for the impending time when sanctions were to be raised.(by France and Russian influence to that effect)
zork, see my last post here: The Link The WMD story was contrived in an effort to sell war to the public and the world. I posted a thread a few days ago about McCain's dishonesty in his comments about Iraq and made the point that he is cut from this same cloth. Look for more unnecessary war if he becomes CiC, IMO.
For comedy I'd like to remind everyone of Tony Blair's assertion that Saddam could deploy a nuclear bomb in six month.
Zork, Tom Wino, general35 et al., Go learn about Rafid Ahmed Alwan (source Curveball) and how many of these erroneous claims in Iraq (and in the speech) were sourced to him. Learn how experienced analysts who indicated he was unreliable were ignored or silenced. Do think it was just coincidence that Powell had Tenet sitting directly behind him during the speech?
Powell's main reason for not running was his wife's mental health. I doubt that has changed. He may be a cabinet member for either party.
I would just like to point out that Intelligence Analysts often violently disagree about any information. Thats why there are multiple analyst. Most information sources in situations like this are questionable. Establishing reliability is very difficult. Analysts have to determine what is reliable (mostly guesswork in the best of circumstances) and what the relavant piece of info actually means. Then they have to come up with a projection of what effect this has on the situation in the real world. Keep in mind that verification only usually comes years later and after the fact. That being said, any leader is going to have to make a decision based on many factors. Just because they elect to use one set of info that may jibe more closely with what they believe is the correct actions doesn't mean they are deliberately lying or suppressing information. If the the information was readily available and verifiable they wouldn't need all those analysts. I shouldn't be surprised but I find it really amusing when people accuse other people of lying about something after the actual info comes out 5 years later. Maybe the did use the info that supported their conclusions, but that doesn't mean that they knew if was wrong at the time. In fact, most people have no idea how hard it is to get accurate info about something like this. They were wrong and they are now paying the price for that, but that doesn't mean they lied except in middle-school world.
Powell felt he was ultimately deceived by Bush, just as many of those that voted to give the President the authorization to potentially use force as a last resort felt they were deceived by Bush. It was sad to me to see Powell later find out how he was duped and that his far superior reputation (to that of Cheney or Bush) was used to "sell" the war. I can only imagine the shame and anger Powell must feel having been used to send soldiers needlessly to their deaths and maiming. He won't come back to politics unless he changes parties....
Actually come to think of it Powell might be in a good position in 2012, depending on if the Southern GOP supporters would turn out for him and the direction of the GOP.
