Yes, Colin Powell was very protective of his reputation.
He didn’t want anyone to know that Powell’s chief deputy, the man who really leaked Plame’s identity, Richard Armitage, told him that he was the one who had done it.
Armitage and Powell kept silent while Fitzgerald prosecuted Scooter Libby for what Fitzgerald knew Armitage had done—and knew even before the Fitzgerald investigation began yet kept it to himself as well.
An orchestrated smear on an innocent man to get a scalp.
That was pretty slimy.
What he did to Scooter Libby is the main reason I’ve got a smile on my face. Only a truly evil, loathsome person would behave like Powell.
Powell also had a part in burying the My Lai story. The reason that no senior officer ended up in the dock was largely because of his report as G-3 of the Americal Division in 1968.
It’s pretty rich for Colin Powell to be worried about ‘his reputation’ when he had already established a dubious one while still only a major.
https://edwardrynearson.wordpress.com/behind-colin-powells-legend-the-my-lai-massacre/