Refusal by French and Germans to Back U.S. on Iraq Has Undercut Powell's Position
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
ASHINGTON, Jan. 23 — Last fall Secretary of State Colin L. Powell won unstinting praise for what the world seemed to regard as a coup: persuading President Bush to seek United Nations Security Council approval for confronting Iraq, and then lining up unanimous Council backing for that approach.
Today administration officials say Mr. Powell is abruptly on the defensive after France and Germany went public with their bluntly worded refusal to support quick action to find Iraq in breach of United Nations resolutions and clear the way for a military attack.
One of Mr. Powell's associates said the secretary was irritated at the French, and another that he was "incandescent" with rage at the French and German envoys who, American officials say, surprised him with their opposition to administration policies.
No less suddenly, Mr. Powell is described by associates as having less leverage to stop military action in an administration dominated by hawks — and less inclination to try.
"Frankly, this episode strengthens the hands of those who have been saying since last year that we don't need to go to the United Nations at all," an administration official said.
Another aide said the United Nations session on Monday was "a turning point" for the secretary. He said Mr. Powell felt the French and German comments, especially those praising the inspections as working and needing more time, signaled Iraq to continue not cooperating.
An administration official said that the State Department had been "struck dumb and stupid" after the French statements and was slow to realize what had happened. Mr. Powell and his aides are now scrambling to get the French and Germans back into line, with doubtful chances of success.
An irony, diplomats say, is that European diplomats view Mr. Powell as their only ally in the administration in favoring diplomacy over confrontation on a range of issues, from Iraq to North Korea.
"The Europeans have this idea that they can empower Powell," said an administration official. "They haven't empowered him. They have undercut him."
Mr. Powell was said by aides to be eager to turn the French around, possibly by reaching a compromise that might allow a couple weeks of delay in the inspections so that — if Mr. Hussein refuses to disclose his weapons — a war might begin in March rather than mid-February.
Today Mr. Powell acknowledged that "there are sharp differences" with France and Germany, but "there were sharp differences when we also started" with the Security Council resolution.
But swirling around Mr. Powell's position, according to diplomats who deal with him, is an uncertainty about just how he feels about going to war. Some diplomats, who insist on anonymity, say he gives them the impression that he shares their deep misgivings about it.
Some cite the secretary's public and private statements back in 1991, during the Persian Gulf war, when, as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he opposed sending American forces to Baghdad.
According to Mr. Powell's own memoir, he did so not simply because of the potential casualties, but also because he feared that an invasion and occupation of Baghdad would throw the Middle East into turmoil and in the end not be acceptable to Americans.
Some say Mr. Powell continues to feel that way. Others say he accepts the need for using force to overthrow Mr. Hussein but that doing so without international support would inflame the Arab world. French envoys indicate that they think Mr. Powell agrees with them on their reservations about a war.
On the other hand, Mr. Powell is said by aides to regard the French criticism of a war as hypocritical. In this view, the French are more interested in exercising power on the Security Council, where they sit as a permanent member, and perhaps in being guaranteed access to Iraq's oil resources.
In private, many French diplomats acknowledge that the war is inevitable. In public, they say war can be avoided. That infuriates the State Department, where aides speak sarcastically of French envoys as "the French resistance."
The story of how Mr. Powell was surprised by the French is complex. Aides say he never wanted to attend the special United Nations session on Monday, but France's foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, pleaded with him to do so. Mr. Powell kept asking aides, "Why are we doing this?" one official said.
At the Council session, aides say, Mr. Powell was taken aback when the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, said that a strike on Iraq would undercut the war on terrorism and signaled that Germany would not support a resolution to authorize an attack. That went beyond Germany's previous position that it would not participate if a war occurred.
Mr. Fischer's statement prompted Mr. Powell to depart testily from his prepared remarks and tell the Council, "We cannot be shocked into impotence because we're afraid of the difficult choices that are ahead of us."
Then after Mr. Powell left, Mr. de Villepin headed for a news conference and gave an impassioned plea for more time to let the inspections work. Later he said this could be as little as two months. But the State Department did not catch up with what he said until the next day because Mr. Powell and his entourage had left town quickly. |
