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There was a time when I had a lot of respect for this man.

I never trusted him. For a General, he was much too timid. Much like a General McClellan.

Q: How concerned that the President was receiving, not only conflicting advice, but very strong advice from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in America, General Colin Powell, who was saying "let's give sanctions the chance to work?"

Thatcher: We had sanctions because the United Nations resolution prescribed that we have a period of sanctions and you have to give them a chance to.... sanctions you know don't usually work.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/thatcher/1.html

Q: Lots of people have talked about it...that you became concerned that containment--sanctions--wasn't receiving proper consideration. Tell me what the President said back to you when you laid out this particular option.

Powell: The build up continued through all of August and into September. The sanctions policy was in effect by then, we were intercepting ships at sea and we were building up.

The President had a major political problem. How do you keep this coalition together, how do you get public support for whatever we might have to do and how long are we going to be stuck with this problem.

There were a number of people around who were suggesting to the President that--just bomb them a little bit and they'll quit. We were getting this from the Egyptians, we were getting this from the Saudis, we were getting these ideas from a lot of different people and it went counter to my view, counter to the views of the Joint Chiefs of Staff frankly and to Norm Schwarzkopf. We could not just rely on a simple strike as the way to get this taken care of and therefore we should not jump into a war that we were not prepared to prosecute to its conclusion.

But the President had a problem, he wanted to get this on. My concern was that it was going to take us a while to build this force up and the President should not be just looking at a single option of invading at the end of a time....I felt it was important that he look at all options available to him.

The option that was being executed at that time was not a counter invasion or an offensive option, it was a sanctions option. And so I wanted to make sure he understood how we could prosecute that until some point when the force was built up.

I also wanted to make sure he understood that there was yet one more option and it was an option that said "Maybe you don't want to undertake a major regional conflict in the area. You might want to adopt a policy of continued sanctions and strangulation to bring the Iraqis to their senses and reverse the invasion without having to go to war."

And so on during this period in early September, Cheney and I talked about it, I talked about it with Paul Wolfowitz, I talked about it with Jim Baker who had some slight enthusiasm for it. Scowcroft and I also talked about it. He listened to it but Scowcroft, he was, "You know, this just isn't going to work in a timely manner and I don't think the President will buy it."

And then finally on a Monday afternoon, I think it was the 24th of September, it's been reported as some time in October but it was the 24th of September, Cheney and I got to talking about it again and he says, "Well let's just go over and talk to the President."

At this point he was allowing me to give all kinds of advice again having, you know, put me in my box. But Dick was wonderful in that regard. He gave me full opportunity to vent whatever was on my mind that I felt was important.

We go to the White House. It is not a full meeting of the NSC, nobody from the State Department was there, Baker's not there, Eagleburger's not there. It's just sort of a regular afternoon meeting that Cheney occasionally had with the President and the President, myself, Cheney, Scowcroft and Sununu were the only ones in the room.

And we sat around the President's desk, we didn't even go off to the normal seating area, and just leaning over the President's desk I took him through the state of the build up following up from what I said earlier, how the build up was going and from the 15th August now to the 24th of September.

I laid out for him when we'd be ready to go on the attack and then I laid out for him what a sanctions policy might look like and how it would work. And when I was through, he listened intently in that way he has, somewhat slouched in his chair with his chin slightly down. The picture's been published and it's kind of famous. And when I was through he took it all in. We chatted for just a moment or two and his response was "Well Colin, that's all, very very interesting. It's good to consider all options but I just don't think we're going to have time for sanctions to work."

And I said "That is the problem. You don't know how long it takes sanctions to work, you're not seizing the initiative from your enemy, you're essentially hoping that this pressure will cause your enemy to come to a decision rather than you making the decision for him. That's the problem with sanctions but I felt you should hear it all."

Q: In terms of the reluctant warrior, do you object to the characterisation of reluctant warrior?

Powell: No I'm guilty.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf/oral/powell/2.html