POWELL PLAYED HIS GOOD-SOLDIER ROLE ALL TOO WELL
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<<..."Powell thought that Cheney had the fever. The vice president and (Deputy Defense Secretary Paul) Wolfowitz kept looking for the connection between Hussein and Sept. 11. ... Cheney now had an unhealthy fixation. Nearly every conversation or reference came back to al-Qaida and trying to nail the connection with Iraq. He would often have an obscure piece of intelligence. Powell thought that Cheney took intelligence and converted uncertainty and ambiguity into fact," Woodward writes.
Nevertheless, when Powell had the opportunity to clearly tell his countrymen that there was no connection between Saddam and al-Qaida, he caved. Instead, he repeated the deception, helping to explain why polls taken last year showed that 69 percent of Americans believed -- incorrectly -- that Saddam had a hand in the terrorist atrocities.
Powell's admirers point to his career in the military and its inculcation of an ethic of duty and loyalty. As a good soldier, they say, Powell would always follow the orders of his commander in chief, even if he disagreed. But Powell had a higher duty to his fellow Americans, and he failed us.
In his autobiography, "My American Journey," he wrote of his sense of betrayal over Vietnam:
"I had gone off to Vietnam in 1962 standing on a bedrock of principle and conviction. And I had watched that foundation eroded by euphemisms, lies and self-deception."
But when his country needed him to expose the lies of another war, he didn't. Instead, he lent his name to the lies...>> |
