Colin Powell allowed his credibility to be shredded when he agreed to make the public case for a war he apparently opposed in private.
Published April 20, 2004
If Secretary of State Colin Powell opposed the war in Iraq as strongly as portrayed in Bob Woodward's new book, Plan of Attack, why is he still in the job? According to Woodward, Powell felt Vice President Dick Cheney and what Powell referred to as a "Gestapo" of ideological allies in the administration were so determined to go to war that they used ambiguous intelligence to press their case. Powell is quoted as warning President Bush that if he insisted on going to war in Iraq, "you're going to be owning the place."
Officials in past administrations have resigned as a matter of principle on narrower grounds. For example, former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned from the Carter administration in 1980 over his opposition to the failed military operation to rescue U.S. hostages in Iran. Yet Powell soldiers on.
Except Powell is no longer a soldier. Our military leaders properly defer to the decisions of their civilian superiors even when they may privately disagree with them. According to Woodward, Gen. Tommy Franks, then the head of Central Command, let loose a string of obscenities when he was ordered to devise a battle plan for Iraq at the height of the war in Afghanistan. Franks ultimately followed orders - and did so admirably, given the constraints placed on him by the Pentagon. Powell no doubt would have responded similarly during his long military career.
However, secretaries of State have a different responsibility. Their most valuable asset is their credibility, and that of the administration they represent. Whatever his misgivings about going to war in Iraq, Powell agreed to put his hard-won credibility on the line by agreeing to make the administration's case before the United Nations in February 2003. Much of the evidence presented by Powell has since been discredited, and no weapons of mass destruction have been found. Powell's reputation has been shredded as a result. That would be reason enough for some diplomats to tender their resignations.
Of course, it would be far better if the architects of the White House's disastrously misguided war plan were held accountable, too. Woodward's book reinforces some common perceptions: President Bush ordered detailed plans for attacking Iraq long before he acknowledged. Cheney was the hard-edged power behind the scenes. And the president and his inner circle were naively overconfident about the task of transforming societies in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.
Some people in the White house are unhappy with Powell for what they see as the self-serving revisionism of his version of events in Plan of Attack. But the book's account of Powell's reservations about the war are consistent with the long-standing tenets of the so-called Powell doctrine: Commit to the use of force only when our vital interests are threatened; only when our troops have a clear goal and exit strategy; only when we can apply overwhelming military force; and only when the military goals have broad public support. The Iraq war plan violated those tenets, so Powell's concerns were predictable.
They also turned out to be well-founded. But having chosen to mask those concerns to support the administration's plans in public, Powell shares responsibility for this war with the true believers who pushed us into Iraq.
