Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (68937)	1/26/2003 3:08:25 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Here is a Newsweek cover story that goes into more depth with regard to the feelings in the halls of diplomacy, or, How Colin Powell Became a Hawk. Interesting essay. Thanks for posting it. The inside information about Powell suggests that his folk are the source. I found this paragraph telling: Yet Force on Mind is also placing unbearable pressure on America’s allies. Many Security Council members—especially some Europeans, Russia and China—say they think Bush really wanted to go to war all along. Even the president’s American critics say the case for immediate war has not been clearly made. “Initially, there was at least an implication that [Iraq] was linked to terrorism,” says retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni. “When that link couldn’t be made, it was possession of weapons of mass destruction. When that case couldn’t be made, it was lack of cooperation. Right now, it’s down to ‘You won’t let us talk to your scientists’ as the reasons for going to war. And ‘We know what the Iraqis have, but we can’t tell you.’ I just think it’s too confusing.” When an official of the U.N. nuclear agency said last week that Saddam would get a B for his cooperation thus far, the administration was furious. Condi Rice called agency head Mohamed El Baradei, NEWSWEEK has learned, and told him that his job was to report the facts—the United Nations would judge compliance. Looks like everyone is feeling pressure, Blair particularly. Zinni's line is about where I am at the moment; the item which makes the invasion seem more about something other than the public reasons. Finally, I assume that the Rice line was not true. I don't doubt the phone call; I doubt the "your job is . . ." stuff. That would be something for his superiors to say and my guess is they did not. Thus, his statement.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (68937)	1/26/2003 3:53:36 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

How Powell became a hawk seems to me not necessarily a process but is perhaps a thought-out political strategy in which Powell, whose moderate leanings were well known, may have been manipulated to serve as Bush's less-bellicose frontman, then asked to support W as the time for action comes near. When the Iraq campaign was first announced, the obvious hawk was Cheney, whose views are about as black-and-white as Bush's. It served Bush well at that time to have a moderate Secretary of State to advocate a more moderate position, deal with the Europeans and the UN, and to otherwise create the impression that, yes, Bush will listen to moderating influences. As we get closer to the campaign, Powell has probably been ordered/asked to take a turn to the right. As a loyal Bush Cabinet member, he has done so even if he has serious reservations about the go-it-alone strategy Bush is intent on pursuing. There is no way the Powell will abandon Bush at this critical juncture, and Bush knows it. The message to the world, the UN, and especially the Europeans, is: "Look, guys, get on board or get left behind. Even Powell with his cachet is willing to support my strategy." The fact that Powell has turned to the right has to be dampening a few socks in European capitals. It seems unbelievable to me that Bush's intentions have been so thoroughly misread.