Posted on 07/19/2003 2:00:56 AM PDT by kcordell
Powell a party to deception
Colin Powell has escaped the controversy that has engulfed President Bush and the intelligence services over the president's use of discredited information in his State of the Union speech. Powell didn't use those now-infamous 16 words about an alleged Iraqi attempt to purchase uranium in Africa when he addressed the U.N. Security Council in February.
But he isn't off the hook. The intelligence Powell did use was equally dubious while arguably more persuasive.
In his Feb. 5 brief making the case for war, the secretary of state repeated the canard that Saddam Hussein had forged close ties to al-Qaida, cementing in the minds of many Americans a tie-in between Saddam and Sept. 11. It was that false connection -- never explicitly stated but implied by several administration spokesmen -- that helped Bush to win popular support for his invasion of Iraq. (By October 2002, more than two-thirds of Americans believed -- wrongly -- that Saddam had a hand in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to the Pew Research Center.)
Yet, as weapons of mass destruction have not been discovered, neither has any evidence that Saddam had made common cause with Osama bin Laden. That's no surprise. The claims of an alliance between Iraq and al-Qaida were never credible.
While bin Laden is a religious fundamentalist, Saddam is a secular tyrant who worships only himself. Besides, Saddam knew that he was closely watched by U.S. intelligence services.
It's unlikely he would further inflame the United States by linking up with bin Laden.
So why would a man of Powell's intelligence and integrity -- not to mention caution -- make such an implausible claim? Why would a former military commander of Powell's stature allow young men and women to be sent off to war under false pretenses?
Powell was undoubtedly under intense pressure to get with Bush's program. The White House badly wanted to connect Saddam and bin Laden, regardless of whether the facts supported it. As early as Sept. 12, 2001, according to Bob Woodward's book "Bush at War," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld proposed invading Iraq. (And a government-in-exile of neoconservatives, the Project for a New American Century, had suggested toppling Saddam in the 1990s.)
The charitable view of Powell's conduct is that he believed he had a better chance of persuading the White House to moderate its policies on Iraq -- at least by building a strong coalition of allies -- if he were seen as a team player. It didn't work. Instead, the White House ended up using Powell's considerable credibility to build support for a risky and far-fetched scheme to remake the Middle East.
So far, that scheme has not worked out as the White House planned. Iraq is a mess; the occupation is costing $4 billion a month; and the Middle East may end up less, not more, stable.
Worse, as Gen. John Abizaid, commander of allied forces in Iraq, finally acknowledged last week, the war is not over. "It's low-intensity conflict, in our doctrinal terms, but it's war, however you describe it."
Indeed, an American soldier dies nearly every day.
Powell probably couldn't have stopped this war, no matter what he said or did. Bush was determined to invade under any pretext.
But Powell didn't have to add the sheen of his credibility to this grotesque misadventure. He might simply have resigned -- a move that would have sent a signal to allies and the American public alike about the dubiousness of this enterprise.
Reflecting on his experiences in Vietnam in his autobiography, "My American Journey," Powell wrote: "I had gone off to Vietnam in 1962 standing on a bedrock of principle and conviction. And I had watched that foundation eroded by euphemisms, lies and self-deception."
Having discerned what author Neil Sheehan called the "bright shining lie" in southeast Asia, an older Powell not only failed to discern it in Iraq; he became part of it.
Democraps only pay attention to national defense issues or foreign policy when the can utilize it for political advantage.
Otherwise, it's so much wasted time. In any case, according to her ilk, we deserved 9/11
And in the city Cynthia works, an American civilian get's murdered every day.
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