Posted on 09/30/2006 6:00:05 PM PDT by jmc1969
Colin L. Powell, in his last face-to-face meeting with President Bush before stepping down as secretary of state in January 2005, tried to impress upon him one last time the dangers he saw the United States facing in Iraq, according to a new Powell biography.
The insurgency was growing and the country was spiraling into sectarian bloodshed, Powell warned. Elections in Iraq would not solve the problems, and the president’s ability to act decisively was being crippled by divisions within his own administration, according to the account in “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell” by Karen DeYoung, an associate editor at The Washington Post. Bush appeared disengaged, the book says, and brushed off Mr. Powell’s complaints about dysfunction in his government.
The book is among the latest accounts of the divisions within the administration as it hurtled toward war and stumbled through its aftermath.
The book provides an inside account of the preparation for Powell’s pivotal presentation before the United Nations six weeks before the start of the Iraq war in March 2003. Powell told DeYoung that he spent much of the five days he had to prepare for the presentation “trimming the garbage” that Cheney’s staff had provided by way of evidence of Iraq’s weapons programs and ties to Al-Qaeda.
Running throughout this book and other recent accounts are the chain of defeats and humiliations Powell suffered in service to Bush. Though Powell remained one of the most admired figures in America, it was not enough to immunize him against attacks.
“There are people who would like to take me down,” he is quoted as saying while motioning toward the White House during his last year in office. “It’s been the case since I was appointed. By take down, I mean, ‘keep him in his place.’ ”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Damned snake in the grass!
There are idiots on FR just as there are idiots everywhere else. The only decent thing Powell ever did was decide not to run for president.
Did he want to let homosexuals openly serve or be barred? Let me guess.
He was supposedly against allowing homosexuals to serve.
I don't remember the story about Powell violating federal statuts. Please fill me in as I never did believe that sullbhit story about his wife not wanting him to run.
"by Karen DeYoung" Good lord...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1110562/posts
"Several Post reporters and editors have taught courses or lectured at the IPS policy seminar "Washington School," including: "Outlook" section editor Robert Kaiser; reporter Joanne Omang; and former senior foreign editor and now London correspondent Karen DeYoung.
During a 1980 class DeYoung told her students: "Most journalists now, most Western journalists at least, are very eager to seek out guerrilla groups, leftist groups, because you assume they must be the good guys." "
And see http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A22225-2002Apr20
December 1995 or January 1996 column by Georgeanne Geyer.
Lol, I recall being flamed as a new sign-up several years ago when I slammed Powell as not presidential material because he'd rather appease than fight - and the guy couldn't even declare a party affiliation at the time.
Sadr's Men Hold Iraq Shrine in Defiance of Govt
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0821-02.htm
Iraq issues amnesty as US warns al-Sadr
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/08/1091903422134.html?from=storylhs
Ayatollah reaches peace deal with al-Sadr
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/08/26/iraq.main/index.html
Iraq ex-PM (Allawi) says survives assassination (by Sadr)
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1533829/posts
Why does the MSM side with quitters?
Even as useful tools they're still quitters?
They couldn't handle the heat, they quit!
Who cares what they have to say?
I don't know, but I would be on the lookout for one from Hannity.
I would agree with him on that. I found plenty of other things to disagree with him about.
ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2004, eight days after the president he served was elected to a second term, Secretary of State Colin Powell received a telephone call from the White House at his State Department office. The caller was not President Bush but Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and he got right to the point.
"The president would like to make a change," Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words "resign" or "fire." He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell's resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/27/AR2006092700106.html
The media never reported what happened during the August standoff. With Sistani out of the country and on his death bed Allawi saw it as his chance to bring Sadr up on the murder charges that were still against him for killing a cleric in 2003. Some forces got into a firefight near Sadr's compound. He then fled with his militia to Najaf hoping the fact he was in the most holy site of Shia Islam would give him leverage and keep US and Iraqi troops from attacking.
The State Dept. was unhappy with Allawi's actions in going after Sadr without their say so. So the State Dept. basically allowed Sistani to call the shots from his hospital bed in London. Sistani via the State Dept. was the one who let Sadr walk. The White House was mortally afraid of the whole thing at this time and Card and others just wanted the Sadr uprising so close to election time to just go away and in such a way that it didn't cause the Shia community to explode.
That is not much of a defense.
Ditto!
I never did trust him .. and he has proven to be the disloyal person I thought he would be.
His participation in the hatchet job on Bush was just over the top. He knew it was Armitage in the Plamegate thingy and HE DID NOTHING. I guess it was payback to Bush for not listening to Powell.
Just fits in with quotes brought forward by Richard Clarke, "retired" Generals, et al.
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