GQ: Powell Frustrated, Will Not Return

GQ Magazine, in it's latest issue, details Sec. of State Colin Powell's frustration with the Bush administration, his battles with the Pentagon, his 'real' relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney, and whether he'll return for a second term.

Secretary of State Colin Powell is exhausted, frustrated, and bitter, uncomfortable with President George W. Bush's agenda, and fatigued from his battles with the Pentagon, reports GQ magazine writer-at-large Wil S. Hylton in the June 2004 issue of GQ magazine. Hylton's exclusive article, "Casualty of War," in which he talks with Powell and his closest friends and colleagues openly and on the record, is available online at http://www.gq.com.

• Powell's chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, on whether Powell will return for a second term: "He's tired. Mentally and physically. And if the president were to ask him to stay on -- if the president is re-elected and the president were to ask him to stay on, he might for a transitional period, but I don't think he'd want to do another four years."

• Powell's mentor from the National War College, Harlan Ullman on Powell's discomfort with the Bush team: "This is, in many ways, the most ideological administration Powell's ever had to work for. Not only is it very ideological, but they have a vision. And I think Powell is inherently uncomfortable with grand visions like that ... There's an ideological core to Bush, and I think it's hard for Powell to penetrate that."

• Ullman on Powell's relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney: "I can tell you firsthand that there is a tremendous barrier between Cheney and Powell, and there has been for a long time ... It's like McCain saying that his relations with the president are 'congenial,' meaning McCain doesn't tell the president to go f*ck himself every time."

• Ullman on National Security Advisor's Condoleeza Rice's comments that Powell and Cheney are "on more than speaking terms," and that they're "very friendly": "Condi's a jerk."

• Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Powell's presentation pre-war presentation before the U.N.: "It's a source of great distress for the secretary."

Rice insists that Powell had not been sent to the U.N. per se, because he was the only one who could have made the speech, and says: "There's really nobody else that can do it ... Everybody said it would have to be Colin ... We wanted to have enough of a profile. It was an important presentation. So we wanted to have enough profile."

Hylton reports that Rice described Powell as enthusiastic about the presentation, spending four days and nights at CIA headquarters and scouring the evidence against Saddam Hussein for ways to punch it up. She tells Hylton: "He wanted to be sure that we put in the best, strongest aerials we had, both from the point of view of the ones that were best documented but also the ones that were going to be punchiest."

But Armitage and Wilkerson describe Powell's four-day immersion at the CIA in very different terms -- not punching up the evidence but frantically scouring it for mistakes and faulty intelligence.

Armitage on Powell's preparation for his U.N. presentation: "Four days! And three nights! The secretary is a man of honor! He values being credible. To be credible, you have to be able to stand behind what you say. That's why he fieldstripped it."

Armitage refers to the process, common in Vietnam, of tearing up smoked cigarettes so they will decompose quickly and leave no trace for the enemy. "On the last day and night [at the CIA], the secretary called me, and he said, 'I need a little extra reinforcement.' So I went out there and spent Sunday and Saturday night with him. He needed someone. He was the voice throwing everything out, and he wanted another loud voice at the table."

Wilkerson describes those four days at the CIA as a battle, with Powell's team scrambling in the final hours to save the general from humiliation: "I was down at the agency as his task-force leader, and we fought tooth and nail with other members of the administration to scrub it and get the crap out."

Wilkerson on the neocons: "I make no bones about it. I have some reservations about people who have never been in the face of battle, so to speak, who are making cavalier decisions about sending men and women out to die.

"A person who comes immedately to mind in that regard is Richard Perle, who, thank God, tendered his resignation and no longer will be even a semioffcial person in this administration.

"Richard Perle's cavalier remarks about doing this or doing that with regard to military force always, always troubled me. Because it just showed me that he didn't have the appreciation, for example, that Colin Powell has for what it means ... I call them utopians ... I don't care whether utopians are Vladimir Lenin in a sealed train going to Moscow or Paul Wolfowitz.

"Utopians, I don't like. You're never going to bring utopia, and you're going to hurt a lot of people in the process of trying to do it."

Wilkerson on using sanctions against Cuba: "Dumbest policy on the face of the earth. It's crazy."

Wil S. Hylton's article, "Casualty of War," is available online at http://www.gq.com, and will be available on newsstands in New York and Los Angeles on May 18, and nationwide on May 25. GQ is the leading men's general-interest magazine and part of Conde Nast Publications, Inc.

What Black person would any white conservative vote for as President of the US?

Welcome to FR. What does race have to do with it? To answer your question, however: Colin Powell and Condi Rice are both decent options. If Herman Cain wins the Senate seat in Georgia and acquits himself well in his first term, he's a possibility too. The "bullpen" keeps growing as more and more blacks leave the Democrat plantation.

Condi. I like her but there's no chance she could head the ticket. Maybe after 10 years as Senator, Governor, etc., but "as is", no way.

Bill Frist. He doesn't even impress me as Maj Leader.

Ashcroft. We would vote for him, but no one else would (for Pres.) He doesn't have the looks or the personality.

Rudy. He could win. But he's pretty liberal. I would like to see him high up in a GOP Administration.

I don't think any of your choices holds a candle to Powell (except Juliani.) Powell would still be better.

There is a good chance Powell will be drafted to run for president at some point.

I keep reading that Powell is unhappy with his place in the Bush team, but what I see is Powell playing good cop to Rumsfeld's bad cop, and both working to implement Bush's policy. When Powell speaks, I hear a guy who thinks clearly and has a good grasp of the issues.

I know he isn't as conservative on social issues as I would like, but there isn't anyone as experienced as he is in foreign policy. In either party. I don't agree with everything he is purported to believe but I generally agree with his public remarks, the ones I hear come directly from his own mouth. He isn't the ideological purist that Cheney is, but then neither is Bush. He isn't the military firebrand that Rumsfeld is, but he has proven himself to be militarily competent if a little timid for my taste.

But even compared to these guys that I admire a great deal, he is pretty solid. As a president we could do worse. And have done worse many many times.

He should have run in 2000. He is the most skilled and experienced candidate, in military and diplomatic terms since Eisenhower. Instead he accepted SOS. Since then he and the State dept have been bushwacked by Rumsfeld and the rest of the AEI hacks ever since. I've lost track of the number of times he has made public policy statements in good faith only to be contradicted by his fellow cabinet members and forced into humiliating public "clarifications".

BIOGRAPHY

Lawrence B. Wilkerson
Chief of Staff,
Term of Appointment: 08/01/2002 to present

Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired) Larry Wilkerson joined General Colin L. Powell in March 1989 at the U.S. Army’s Forces Command in Atlanta, Georgia as his Deputy Executive Officer. He followed the General to his next position as Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving as his special assistant. Upon Powell's retirement from active service in 1993, Colonel Wilkerson served as the Deputy Director and Director of the U.S. Marine Corps War College at Quantico, Virginia. Upon Wilkerson’s retirement from active service in 1997, he began working for General Powell in a private capacity as a consultant and advisor.

In December 2000, Secretary of State-designate Powell asked Wilkerson to join him in the Transition Office at the U.S. State Department and, later, upon his confirmation as Secretary of State, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to his Policy Planning Staff with responsibilities for East Asia and the Pacific, and legislative and political-military affairs. In June of 2002, the Director for Policy Planning, Ambassador Richard Haass, made Wilkerson the associate director. In August of 2002, Secretary Powell moved Wilkerson to the position of Chief of Staff of the Department.

Wilkerson is a veteran of the Vietnam war as well as a U.S. Army “Pacific hand,” having served in Korea, Japan, and Hawaii and participated in military exercises throughout the Pacific. Moreover, Wilkerson was Executive Assistant to US Navy Admiral Stewart A. Ring, Director for Strategy and Policy (J5) USCINCPAC, from 1984-87. Wilkerson also served on the faculty of the U.S. Naval War College at Newport, RI and holds two advanced degrees, one in International Relations and the other in National Security Studies. He has written extensively on military and national security affairs–especially for college-level curricula--and been published in a number of professional journals, including the Naval Institute’s Proceedings, The Naval War College Review, Military Review, and Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ).
[End]

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/26731.htm

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