Powell The Politician, Please Rise

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell chose a British television channel to hit back at his archrival, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In an interview with ITV1, Colin said he advised President George W. Bush to send more troops into Iraq before the U.S.-led invasion was launched. The former secretary of state said he gave the advice to now-retired General Tommy Franks, who planned the Iraq invasion, and Rumsfeld. Powell said Bush's military advisors believed the troop level was adequate, a contention he said he still disagrees with.
Considering that Powell was barely on speaking terms with Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, he may have chosen to take a circuitous route to reach his former hard-line associates.
Or maybe the soldier in him asserted itself in more than one way. It emerges that Powell knew he was stretching the truth when he went before the U.N. Security Council with all those pictures proving Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction posed a clear and present danger to the United States.
We now know, courtesy of Bob Woodward, that President Bush called Powell to inform him of his decision to go to war only after National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice reminded him it would be the courteous thing to do.
Although Bush seemed to trust the Saudi ambassador more than his own secretary of state, Powell loyally went along every step of the way. Many of us recognize Powell as the “Deep Throat” for Woodward’s “Plan of Attack,” but he was as meticulous as the original man not to leave any fingerprints.
Despite all this restraint, Bush lets a brusque civilian lead America’s proud military on a ruinous path and then stubbornly stands by him. The buck may stop at the commander in chief – with or without a military background. You can’t feel the real anguish of the career people in uniform unless you have been one of them.
Who knows? Maybe a former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff feels he is under greater obligation than the rest to protect his own. Granted, the transition was shorter than usual after the 2000 elections. Maybe Powell should have insisted on Secretary of Defense more vigorously.
Rumsfeld probably knew where the six retired U.S. generals, who recently called for his resignation faulting his leadership and accusing him of making a series of major errors in the Iraq war, might have picked up the strength to speak.
Maybe he could shrug it off because he knows something else. Powell was the African-American – Republican or Democrat -- with perhaps the best chance as a presidential candidate – until the Iraq war was messed up. The politician in Powell couldn’t have forgiven that, could he?