The Disloyal Powell Should Be Sacked

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell should have been fired Sunday. It was on Sunday that The Washington Post posted its first excerpt from Bob Woodward's new book, Bush At War. Like Woodward's book on the Gulf War, The Generals, Bush at War is essentially an edited transcript of Powell leaks, all of them calculated to protect himself against blame if things go wrong -- and to undermine the policies of the administration for which he theoretically works.

For more than a year, we've been reading nasty little stories in the papers about Bush adviser Karl Rove, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and Undersecretary Paul Wolfowitz -- and condescending stories about President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice. Careful readers have understood that these stories emanated from the State Department -- but until now, Powell has taken care to protect his personal deniability. In his long confessional sessions with Bob Woodward, Powell has finally abandoned that polite pretense.

In the Woodward piece, Powell scorns the President for his "Texas, Alamo macho." Powell joins Senate Democrats in complaining that acting against Iraq "would suck the oxygen" out of the anti-terror campaign. Powell denigrates Rice, snidely observing that "she had had difficulties" keeping up with what Bush was doing. When the President over-rules him, Powell complains that he thought he had a "deal" -- as if cabinet members bargain with their president rather than taking orders from him. He endlessly praises himself or repeats the praise of others: We learn from him about a personal call from Rice in which she compliments one of his presentations as "terrific," and we hear via Woodward that Powell is "smooth, upbeat ... eloquent." Amazingly, Powell even manages to insert into this long uncontrolled soliloquy of accusation against his colleagues a complaint that they sometimes leak against him!

" [Undersecretary of State Richard Armitage] had heard from reliable media contacts that a barrage was being unloaded on Powell. ... The White House was going to trim Powell's sails; he was going to fail. Armitage said he couldn't verify who was leaking this, but he had names of senior people in Defense and in Cheney's office. 'That's unbelievable!' Powell said."

Powell implicitly criticizes Bush for opining on military matters despite a lack of military experience. " 'It's nice to say we can do it unilaterally,' " Powell "bluntly" tells Bush. " 'Except you can't.' "

Yet Powell does not hesitate to pronounce on economic matters despite his own lack of expertise. "The economic implications [of action in Iraq] could be staggering, potentially driving the supply and price of oil in directions that were as-yet unimagined. All this in a time of an international economic slump. The cost of occupying Iraq after a victory would be expensive. The economic impact ... had to be considered."

When George Shultz was Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan, he used to perform a little ritual with every newly appointed ambassador. He would lead the diplomat to a globe he kept in a corner of his office, and ask him to point to his country. The eager appointee would point to Thailand or Brazil or Ireland or wherever his posting was.

"No," Shultz would say. And he would move the offending finger back to the United States. "This is your country."

Powell could use a Shultzian reminder. Again and again, his words to Woodward reveal a man who sees his job as representing the world to America rather than representing America to the world.

"The Middle East crisis was still ever-present. That [rather than Iraq] was the issue the Arab and Muslim world wanted addressed."

"They [meaning the entire rest of the administration] wanted to be pro-Israel and leave him holding the Palestinian bag all by himself."

There is no sin in a cabinet officer dissenting from the policies of his president -- in private. In public, though, he is supposed to practise cabinet solidarity. This is not always easy, but one of the strengths of the Bush administration is that almost everyone does it. Powell, though, seems to think he deserves some special merit badge for meeting the minimum requirement of his job. "One of Powell's greatest difficulties was that he was more or less supposed to pretend in public that the sharp differences in the war cabinet did not exist."

It is not necessarily wrong for a cabinet officer to take his dissent to the country. But before he makes his dissent public, he should resign. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance quit to protest Jimmy Carter's attempt to rescue the Iranian hostages by force in 1980; CIA director James Woolsey resigned because of President Clinton's reluctance to take intelligence concerns seriously. The time for Powell's resignation came and went months ago. After this latest outbreak of disloyalty, he should be sacked.