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Pastimes : Rarely is the question asked: "is our children learning" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Sladek who wrote (1661)	12/31/2003 9:10:28 AM
From: John Sladek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2171

31Dec03-AFP-Powell admits policy errors From correspondents in Washington December 31, 2003 US Secretary of State Colin Powell has admitted foreign policy mistakes and sought to assure the outside world that despite the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration's approach "is not defined by preemption". In a broad article in Foreign Affairs magazine released by the State Department today, the top US diplomat struck a conciliatory tone towards America's old allies in Europe, encouraged a broader international role for China and expressed optimism about a peaceful resolution of a crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. He entirely sidestepped the question of Iraq, but implicitly took issue with his presumed chief rival inside the administration, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who last September dismissed the decades-old concept of military deterrence as a theory that "has been overtaken by events". Powell, however, presented a different point of view. "As to pre-emption's scope, it applies only to the undeterrable threats that come from non-state actors such as terrorist groups," he writes in the magazine's January-February issue. "It was never meant to displace deterrence, only to supplement it." President George W. Bush's doctrine of pre-emption was spelled out in a strategy paper released by the White House in September 2002, one year after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. To the consternation of the outside world, the document made clear the United States would consider it justified to use force pre-emptively to eliminate threats to its national security. The invasion of Iraq undertaken last March with the stated goal of ridding the country of weapons of mass destruction that still remain unfound is seen as the first instance of the doctrine's practical implementation. But in his article, Powell argues that "our strategy is not defined by pre-emption". "Above all, the President's strategy is one of partnerships that strongly affirms the vital role of NATO and other US alliances - including the UN," he writes. At the same time, the secretary of state admits unspecified mistakes committed during Bush's first three years in office. "It would be churlish to claim that the Bush administration's foreign policy has been error-free from the start," he points out. "But we have always pursued the enlightened self-interest of the American people, and in our purposes and our principles there are no mistakes." Agence France-Presse news.com.au