Colin Powell, the Leader who Might Have Been
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by James Goldsborough
Published on Thursday, April 22, 2004 by the San Diego Union-Tribune
Three former four-star generals have gone on to become secretary of state. Of the three, one is legendary, one was a flop and so ran for president, and the third is Colin Powell.
Powell admits he is a source for Bob Woodward's new book on the Iraq War, called "Plan of Attack." According to Woodward, Powell was kept out of the loop and only reluctantly went along with war plans. Powell refers to war planners close to Vice President Dick Cheney as the "Gestapo" and accuses Cheney of having war "fever." When President Bush decides on war, Powell asks if he understands the consequences. He warns Bush that "If you break it (Iraq), you own it."
We broke it and now we own it.
These self-serving comments have caused a stir, and Powell is doing some backtracking. He denies that he was out of the loop and says he doesn't recall the Gestapo reference. He says he talked to Woodward "on instructions from the White House," which is disingenuous because he has helped Woodward on other books.
Trying to have things both ways, Powell fails twice, appearing both irrelevant and disloyal. If he was the reluctant warrior, then he was used by the so-called Gestapo. If he was as gung-ho as the others, how can Woodward describe him as semi-despondent "because he knew that this was a war that might have been avoided?"
Powell's a soldier, his defenders say. He was outvoted on the war, so he saluted and did the mission.
There are three answers to that:
It depends on the mission.
He's not a soldier any more.
You don't do the mission, then complain when it flops.
Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall proved that ex-soldiers could become statesmen. In France, Charles de Gaulle proved the same thing. The military habit of saluting and following orders is not a DNA imprint. A retired officer is not neutered. He can become a civilian leader, even a great leader.
Marshall, chief army planner in World War II, as secretary of state became the chief civilian planner of the Cold War. Representing a Democratic president (Truman) and working with a Republican Congress – he launched the Marshall Plan, the greatest rescue mission in history. He began the negotiations that led to NATO, our first peacetime alliance. He won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Eisenhower and Marshall had something in common that Powell lacks. Neither was a political general. They earned their stars (each became a five-star general) the usual way. Leaving the military, neither became involved in partisan politics. Eisenhower could have run as a Democrat.
Marshall clashed openly with Truman, most noticeably in 1948 over recognition of Israel. He retired after the election of that year, but Truman brought him back as defense secretary when the Korean War broke out.
Powell's career resembles more that of another four-star general who became secretary of state, Alexander Haig. Both men owed their stars to politicians, who jumped them up the chain of command because of political service. Haig was a protégé of Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon. Powell rose to prominence under Caspar Weinberger, describing himself during the Iran-Contra affair as Weinberger's "faithful Indian companion."
One need not be a retired officer to be a weak secretary of state. One thinks of Dean Rusk, a career foreign service officer, during the Vietnam War. But a military career that blossoms thanks to being a faithful Indian companion is not the best way to hone leadership skills.
Haig had no such skills and was fired. George Shultz, who replaced Haig (who later ran for president), was an improvement. The State Department kept its integrity under Shultz, while the White House, CIA and Pentagon endured Iran-Contra.
From what Woodward tells us, Powell's view on the Iraq War was no different from that of Robin Cook, the British foreign secretary. Cook disagreed over war, resigned and spoke out against it. Jack Straw, his successor, lately has been speaking out.
Powell was to be the voice of reason in Bush's Cabinet. A man who might have been president himself, standing higher in polls than Bush, he was ballast to the people Woodward says he calls Gestapo.
He brought a military man's prudence – the so-called Powell Doctrine – into an administration full of civilian war hawks. Pragmatic, appealing, eloquent, he gave Bush badly needed credibility. He might have used that to influence events rather than becoming window-dressing.
The argument for remaining in place when you disagree is to influence policy. Yet Powell's presentation to the United Nations on the eve of war, which was bellicose and unfounded, served as a call to war. He blames the CIA for supplying him misinformation, but it was his presentation. Where is his sense of responsibility?
After four years as secretary of state – twice as long as Marshall – Powell's only legacy is a kind of lofty irrelevance, a quality with which he also has infected the State Department. One thinks of Noel Coward's lament on his friend Anthony Eden, following the Suez debacle: "a tragic figure, cast in a star part well above his capabilities."
© Copyright 2004 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
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