Posted by Frank James at 8:54 am CST
Colin Powell was the Sen. Barack Obama of 1995, an African-American political rock star who appeared to have as good a shot as any at his party’s nomination for the White House.
Those days seem very long ago and far away, don’t they? (Note to Obama: See how quickly political fortunes can reverse in Washington.)
Now, Powell is like the ghosts of Christmas past and present rolled into one. Seeing him, it’s hard not to think about the adulation of 1995 when he was being begged to run for president.
But he’s also a symbol of how we got into the present-day Iraqi quagmire in the first place.Yesterday, as Powell talked with CBS News “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer, it was hard not to think of that presentation he made before the United Nations in 2003.
That was when Powell assured the world Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction it turned out he didn’t have. That was when Powell held up that vial of simulated anthrax to make the case that the world should support military action in Iraq.
For many, that was the moment when Powell damaged that fragile quality called credibility that had made him such a hot item in the mid-1990s.
Yesterday, Powell had new warnings, this time about the mistakes he feared the Bush administration might be about to commit in its new way forward in Iraq.
The new warnings appeared to be part of Powell’s effort to offset those infamous 2003 U.S. warnings, to get himself on the right side of history when it is finally written 10 or 20 years hence.
He warned that the U.S. hasn’t lost but is “losing” the war in Iraq. He warned against sending more U.S. troops to Iraq, which the administration seems to be leaning towards, without a clear mission. He warned against turning U.S. troops into policemen.
Powell said the U.S. should begin a handing over significant security responsibilities to the Iraqis and drawing down its own forces in that country by mid-2007.
And, perhaps his most important warning was that victory or success in Iraq was not for the U.S. to decide.
POWELL: You have to define what you mean by victory. If victory means you have gotten rid of every insurgent, you have peace throughout the country, I don’t see that in the cards right now. What we are going to have to do is try to bring a sense of order and security to the country, even if there continues to be low level violence and insurgency. But victory is not in the hands of the American government or the American president. Victory, to be achieved or not to be achieved, as I have just defined it, is increasingly in the hands of the Iraqi leadership. If they can’t pull it off, if they can’t demonstrate the political will and means to go after the militias to create a military force that is answerable and confident in the government and to root out the corruption that exists in the police forces, if they are unable to do that, the United States is not going to be able to do it for them.
Knowing that Powell had his difficulties with now former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Schieffer tried that old journalistic tactic of baiting his guest. Powell is still too much the smooth Washington insider to fall for that.
SCHIEFFER: Let me ask you about the retirement ceremony they had for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. The vice president said Secretary Rumsfeld is the finest secretary of Defense in the history of this country — words to that effect. What is your assessment?
POWELL: Well, that’s the vice president’s judgment. I’ve known many fine secretaries of Defense. Caspar Weinberger comes to mind, and Dick Cheney comes to mind. So, it’s history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history. And it is history that I think will ultimately be written as a result of what happens in Iraq.
“So it’s history that will judge the performance of all of us in this troubling time of history.” Maybe history will be kinder to Powell now that he is publicly taking a stance against his former administration.
Or maybe it too will find the Christmas ghost of his U.N. presentation a spectral presence that overshadows all else.
