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What Colin Powell saw but didn't say
The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan's Iran-contra scandal
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday April 22, 2004
The Guardian
"History? We won't know," George Bush tells Bob Woodward. "We'll all be dead." But in his book, Plan of Attack, Woodward's facts move the past from the shadows, adding significant new documentation to the story of the rush to war in Iraq.
The serious constitutional issues and governmental abuses, the methods and even the continuity of some personnel that Woodward catalogues evoke memories of the Reagan Iran-contra scandal. That involved a network of aides outsourcing US foreign policy to circumvent the separation of powers - selling missiles to Iran to fund the Nicaraguan contras. The Iraq war was conceived by the president and his war cabinet in an apparent effort to evade constitutional checks and balances. In Iran-contra, the national security council, CIA and Pentagon were stealthily exploited from within; in Iraq, they were abused from the top.
When the Iran-contra scandal was revealed, the Reagan administration was placed into receivership by the old Republican establishment. Neoconservatives and adventurers, criminal or not, were purged, from Elliott Abrams to Richard Perle. Now they are at the centre of power.
Woodward reports that in July 2002 Bush ordered the use of $700m to prepare for the invasion of Iraq, funds that had not been specifically appropriated by Congress, which alone holds that constitutional authority. No adequate explanation has been offered for what, strictly speaking, might well be an impeachable offence.
Woodward also reports that the battle plan was unfurled for Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US. On its top, it was stamped "Top Secret: Noforn" - "No Foreign", not to be seen by anyone but Americans with the highest security clearance. Following Bush's instructions, the vice-president, Cheney, and the secretary of defence, Rumsfeld, briefed Bandar, who responded by promising to lower oil prices just before the election. As we can now see, prices have skyrocketed, giving oil-producers windfall profits upfront, and ultimately exaggerating the political effect of any subsequent drop in prices.
While Bandar was treated as an ex-officio member of the war cabinet, the secretary of state, Colin Powell, was kept in the dark. "Mr President," the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, gently suggests, "if you're getting to a place that you really think this might happen, you need to call Colin in and talk to him." So after Bandar had been told of the battle plan, Bush decided to inform his secretary of state, a frequent squash playing partner of the Saudi prince. After all, he was bound to learn anyway.
Powell had sought to warn Bush on Iraq: if you break it, you own it. "Time to put your war uniform on," says Bush. Powell snaps to attention.
Powell is obviously Woodward's source. Powell believed the government had been seized by a "Gestapo office" of neoconservatives directed by Cheney. "It was a separate little government that was out there," writes Woodward of Powell's view. The only precedent is Iran-contra.
Powell was appalled by the mangling of intelligence as Cheney and the neocons made their case to an eager Bush and manipulated public opinion. But Powell had put on his uniform for his commander-in-chief. In the White House, his capitulation was greeted with a combination of glee and scorn. Powell would make the case before the world at the United Nations. Cheney's chief of staff, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, gives him a 60-page brief that Powell dismisses as filled with "murky" intelligence. Powell goes to CIA headquarters himself, where he discovers that "he could no longer trace anything because it had been 'masticated over in the White House so that the exhibits didn't match the words'." He hastily constructs his own case, which turned out to be replete with falsehood.
Powell played the good soldier, not taking his qualms and knowledge to the Congress or the American people. The most popular man in the country, he never used his inherent veto power to promote his position. Rather than fighting his battles in earnest when it counted, before his army was put in harm's way, he chose to settle scores by speaking to Woodward.
Bush tells Woodward that he is "frightened" by detailed questions. He admires Cheney for not needing to explain in public. Pointedly, Bush says, unlike Tony Blair, "I haven't suffered doubt." Asked if he seeks advice from his father, the former president, Bush says: "He is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher Father that I appeal to."
Bush gazes upward for guidance, or turns to Cheney. Judgment Day may not come before election day. Here on earth, the Republican establishment that rescued Reagan after Iran-contra has become superannuated and powerless. There is no one to intervene.
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