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 ...
Ah yes, Mary Christmas McCarthy. Such a trooper.
Good question......are any of them ever prosecuted?
Oh fer crying out loud.....from the exerpts in this article, Colin sounds like a crybaby....but THEN try to say he is too "loyal" to complain out loud....
If so, why did he have THIS book come out a month before th election with all kinds of poor, pitiful Colin and how he was being "kept in his place" (race card anyone?).
STAR....I saw that show...and was very surprised to hear Fund come out and just state that the leaks are because of a concerted effort in the CIA to take down Bush...
He mentioned Curt Warner's campaign..and how Mary McCarthy and Sandy Berger are financing his opponent...interesting, since he was the one pushing for the Able Danger hearings.
Curt Weldon ..... and I wonder where SHE'S getting the $$ to finance a PA candidate??
And note how they infer that he "stepped down."
Who's to say W didn't say .. buh-bye, insurgent.
And ... BLABBERMOUTH!
One who "stepped down" would not be so damn bitter.
Don't forget that this POS turned W down flat for the GOP spot, thus allowing Gore to win the popular vote and almost steal the Presidency.
Powell is a big fat opportunist. I had him pegged a long time ago.
Maybe she is working with Berger...he has business in Dubai with the biggies in that country...as does Bill Clinton...and Maddie Albright, I do believe.
It shows you that they lie...and Bush doesn't correct them...because he is not a vindictive person.
Has there been anyone that has worked for President Bush that hasn't written a book, before his terms are over...and NOT been vindictive??
That's what he is most worried about .. his legacy?
17 June 1998
TEXT: BERGER APPOINTS MCCARTHY SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR INTELLIGENCE
(And senior director on NSC Staff for intelligence programs) (370)
Washington -- National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger announced June 16 the appointment of Mary O'Neil McCarthy as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs.
She succeeds Rand Beers in that post, an announcement by the office of the White House Press Secretary said.
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1998/06/98061701_tpo.html
Weldon Disputes Sestak Contribution from Mary McCarthy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1621175/posts
Mary McCarthy's Leftist Ties
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49957
Sounds like someone else, doesn't it?
Slap bracelets, yeah. That was a fad that faded fast. But ska is still cool, when done right. To replace "ska," I submit "pogs."
I don't actually think it had to do with trust as much as it had to do with Powell following the President and not vice versa.
I believe Powell was under the impression that he was going to RUN the state dept by making POLICY decisions .. and he was caught several times making decisions which were not sanctioned by the WH. Powell then had to apologize to the public and make a statement to that effect. I don't think he much appreciated Bush making an example of him. He resorted to saying - I serve at the President's pleasure .. but I don't think Powell ever got over it.
To add to the fray .. Armitage was on Powell's side against Cheney and Rummy. And .. I don't think he was exactly helpful in smoothing over the Bush/Powell dustups.
But .. I never liked the choice of Powell from the beginning so none of what he did was much of a surprise to me.
Well .. I know Powell was against continuing Desert Storm - after seeing the carnage our military had left on the "highway of death". And .. he and Cheney got in a big fight over it. That's why I was very surprised when Bush chose Powell to work with Cheney.
But then .. I guess you need one liberal for the other 3 hawks (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld).
Powell was the ultimate bureaucrat. He successfully got to the top of the heap in the world's largest bureaucracy, the Pentagon. Powell had no strategic foreign policy vision. He was liked at State because he went along with the bureaucracy. He was very effective in getting resources for the Department, which endeared him more to the careerists. However, he did so by cultivating the image that he was nonpartisan and by leaking to the MSM and the Dems to feather his own nest. He was definitely not a team player.
Substitution approved. Colin Powell is the Pogs of SecStates.
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