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Powell hasn’t changed his tune
On Monday afternoon on his home turf at the State Department, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell answered the question that has been on many minds since his speech in Davos -- when exactly did President Bush's peacemaker join his administration's hawks in pushing for war?Snicker, they still haven't figured it out. At a press conference only hours after chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix presented his first formal assessment of Iraqi cooperation on disarmament, Powell was asked, "Up until a week ago yesterday, you were a strong advocate for a diplomatic solution to the Iraqi situation ... what changed your mind?" The secretary responded on the offensive, claiming credit for the Nov. 8 U.N. resolution mandating Iraqi disarmament and insisting his position had never changed. He then told the gathered audience that Saddam Hussein had failed to take the "diplomatic exit ramps" the resolution afforded him missing chances to build confidence among the weapons inspectors and the international community. Finally, Powell summed up his view as follows: "I'm a great believer in diplomacy and a great believer in finding a peaceful solution, but I also recognize that when somebody will not accept a peaceful solution by doing their part of creating a peaceful solution, one must never rule out the use of force." Bwahahahaha! In that phrase Powell separated himself from the doves in European capitals and elsewhere who had hoped his counsel would help avert a war the president has pushed for since his "Axis of Evil" State of the Union speech almost exactly a year ago. Look for the attacks on him to begin. Last week his counterparts in Germany and France said Iraq's level of cooperation did not warrant the use of force, a position the secretary characterized as accepting Iraq's passive acceptance of weapons inspections. The weekend before, close to 400,000 people marched in Washington to protest the coming war. In the last week, Democratic Party leaders have called on the president not to exercise the authority their party granted him in their votes last fall to declare war on Iraq without consent of the United Nations. For these diverse constituencies, Powell's insistence back in August that the president work with and through the United Nations to draft a resolution to return inspectors in lieu of soldiers to Iraq was seen as a victory for peace. But Powell was never against a war with Iraq a priori, he has always held out the possibility that war may be necessary in order to disarm Saddam Hussein. The United Nations resolution was not for the State Department a way to head off a war with Iraq, but rather a way to move toward one through a process that would not be diplomatically costly to the United States. In this respect, the only difference in the secretary's message last week and before has been his emphasis. On Dec. 19 at a press conference responding to Iraq's initial report to the United Nations only 12 days earlier, Powell said, "It should be obvious that the pattern of systematic holes and gaps in Iraq's declaration is not the result of accidents or editing oversights or technical mistakes. These are material omissions that, in our view, constitute another material breach." Before that, his Nov. 10 Washington Post commentary on the new U.N. inspections regime ended in these ominous words: "The Security Council has confronted Saddam Hussein and his regime with a moment of truth. If they meet it with more lies, they will not escape the consequences." Those consequences appear to be coming soon. Colin Powell was always the "Good Cop" to Donald Rumsfeld's "Bad Cop". You make a deal with the good cop or the bad cop takes you in the back room and busts your head. Sammy wouldn't or couldn't make a deal. Now Colin sighs, gets up from the table, picks up his coffee cup, looks over at Rummy and says "I need a refill. You take over." Posted by: Steve 2003-01-28 |
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