SPIEGEL ONLINE - October 12, 2006, 01:16 PM
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,442222,00.html
A Closer Look at Colin Powell
The Evil of Banality
By Gary Kamiya
A new biography confirms that Colin Powell went along with the Iraq war
because he was following orders. The tragic irony of the good soldier is
that he deserted the people he was trying to protect.
In 2003, then Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to convince the UN
Security Council of Iraq's alleged WMD program. He was unsuccessful.
On Sept. 19. 2005, eight months after Colin Powell resigned as George W.
Bush's secretary of state, he gave a speech to the National War College.
Afterward, an audience member asked him to explain whether he really
supported the Iraq war and whether he had ever considered resigning.
Powell replied that he had proposed trying diplomacy before going to
war, and that Bush had agreed to try. Yet he had always known, he said,
that Bush might decide to invade Iraq later. When Bush did, Powell said,
"I supported him. I can't go on a long patrol and then say 'never
mind.'" Powell concluded by saying that no, he had "never thought of
resigning."
This story, which Karen DeYoung relates at the outset of "Soldier," her
competent but constrained new biography of Powell, raises the crucial
question that will forever hang over the career of America's most famous
soldier: Why did he continue to give public support to a war that
privately he had grave doubts about? In fact, the story also provides
the answer. Powell's comparison of serving as secretary of state to
going on a combat patrol says it all: He stayed on the Bush team because
he was a loyal soldier, for whom resigning was not making a principled
stand but deserting his post. Powell's decision cleared the way to a
disastrous war, hideously bloody and apparently endless. The war,
according to a new study from the Lancet, has cost the lives of 655,000
Iraqis so far, and the Army chief of staff has announced that he plans
to keep the current level of U.S. troops in Iraq through 2010. But
Powell seems incapable of grasping that he very likely could have
stopped the war, and his biographer fails to sufficiently explore the
issue.
Powell's military mind-set was the main reason he supported the war, but
it wasn't the only reason. As DeYoung, an editor at the Washington Post,
reveals, he was also a profoundly cautious man, not particularly
ideological and not given to dramatic gestures or making waves. "He had
risen steadily through the military and four administrations by
maintaining a careful balance between deliberate prudence and intrepid
competence," DeYoung writes. Powell's pride, and his past successes,
also played a role. She notes that Powell "had been winning bureaucratic
battles for so many years that he simply refused to acknowledge the
extent of the losses he had suffered. Beyond his soldier's sense of
duty, he saw even the threat of resignation as an acknowledgment of
defeat. He was a proud man, and he would never have let them see him
sweat." But the low-key professionalism that served him well in his
illustrious military career proved a fatal impediment when it came to
standing up to the radical ideologues in the Bush administration -- or
indeed in even recognizing what he was dealing with.
Unfortunately, none of these are exactly earth-shaking revelations.
DeYoung brings nuance and psychological depth to her analysis, but most
of us already believed Powell went along with the Iraq war mainly
because he was a loyal soldier and a consummate bureaucratic survivor.
It isn't DeYoung's fault that she is unable to advance the story: The
simple fact is that there seems to be nothing else to say. Until he made
the fatal mistake of joining the Bush administration, Powell's life
story was inspiring to millions; his autobiography, "My American
Journey," was a bestseller. But his story, alas, didn't end there. And
its sad climax and depressing denouement is not only thoroughly
uninspiring, it's not even very interesting -- unless reading about a
cautious executive's bureaucratic defeat is your idea of a good time. Of
course, Powell's bureaucratic downfall had enormous consequences -- but
that still doesn't make it, or him, ultimately very interesting. Hannah
Arendt coined the famous phrase "the banality of evil" to describe the
Nazi war criminals on trial at Nuremberg; Powell's unfortunate saga
might be called "the evil of banality."
DeYoung is a solid reporter and a sympathetic but not hagiographic
biographer, and she mines Colin Powell's life story for all of the
scarce nuggets she can. Its outlines are familiar: Raised in the Bronx
by hardworking Jamaican-born parents, he was an indifferent student who
suddenly shone when he joined the ROTC. He served in Vietnam, and left
disillusioned by the war's execution but still believing in the
rightness of the cause: "The ends were justified, even if the means were
flawed." From then on, his military career went from one dazzling
triumph to the next, culminating in his appointment, at age 52, as
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, from which position he led Gulf
War I. He flirted with the possibility of running for president, but
ultimately decided he didn't have the passion for the job. (Powell hated
indecision, and his Hamlet-like inability to make up his mind tormented
him.) After starting his career politically uncommitted, he became a
Republican more by default and loyalty to his colleagues than out of any
particular conviction: a moderate in politics as in all things, he
described himself as being at best "55 percent Republican."
DeYoung paints a portrait of a decent, somewhat emotionally reticent
man, a natural leader and team player who thrived on order and
self-discipline and disliked direct confrontation. There is much to
admire about Powell, not least his unself-conscious, unself-pitying
attitude toward race. Powell's mantra about his blackness, which he
learned from his parents, was, "My race is somebody else's problem. It's
not my problem." His deep sense of comradeship with and loyalty to those
serving in the military, especially the lowest ranks, is also
commendable. As secretary of state under Bush, he tried to stick up for
diplomacy and multilateralism in a singularly hostile and dysfunctional,
indeed borderline bizarre, environment. He did his best to steer Bush
administration policy toward a more even-handed approach to the
Israeli-Palestinian crisis. He reined the hard-liners in on North Korea,
and tried to soften the blunt edges of Bush unilateralism on Kyoto and
other issues. He opposed the administration's draconian moves to approve
torture and disregard the Geneva Conventions. Generally, and admirably,
Powell was a voice of reason among the strange stew of ignorant
ideologues (Wolfowitz), enigmatic and conniving bullies (Cheney and
Rumsfeld), wet-behind-the-ears enablers (Rice), and rigid, callow
leaders (Bush) he found himself dealing with.
But none of that will be remembered. What will be is the act that will
permanently define his career -- his presentation to the U.N. Security
Council of the supposed "evidence" that Saddam Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction. Few acts of political theater have been as momentous.
The painful fact is that it was Powell's immense prestige, as much or
more than his arguments (which proved to be almost all bogus), that sold
the American people, Congress and the media on Bush's disastrous war. It
is, of course, impossible to say for sure, but had Powell resigned in
protest once it became clear to him that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld were
going to make war no matter what, there is a good chance that the whole
tricked-up case for going to Iraq would have collapsed, and one of the
greatest debacles in American history would have been avoided.
For Powell, the moment of decision was not his speech to the U.N. on
Feb. 4, 2003 -- by then he had signed off on the war and was just
following orders -- but a private meeting he had with Bush on Jan. 13.
In that meeting, originally reported by Bob Woodward in his 2004 book
"Plan of Attack," Bush told Powell that he had decided to go to war and
asked, "Are you with me on this?" Powell replied, "Yes, sir, I will
support you. I'm with you, Mr. President." Describing Powell's take on
this meeting, DeYoung (who interviewed Powell extensively for the book)
writes, "When he thought immediately afterward about what Bush had said,
Powell divined a difference between 'reaching a conclusion and [making]
a decision to be implemented. Bush had concluded that war was the only
way to resolve the situation, but he had yet to order the invasion ...
Nothing had really changed, he thought. If Saddam capitulated
completely, they could still avoid war, and the best chance of achieving
that was to convince him that the Security Council was speaking with one
voice." So Powell continued with his diplomatic efforts.
Sympathetic to Powell's difficult position, DeYoung does not point out
the rather obvious casuistry and self-deception involved in his somehow
arriving at the conclusion that "nothing had really changed" when the
president had just flatly told him he was going to war. (She also omits
some material found in Woodward's account that makes it even clearer
that Bush had definitely made up his mind, including the quote "Time to
put your war uniform on" and the paraphrase "I just want to let you know
that, Bush said, making it clear that this was not a discussion.") And
she dismisses the possibility that Powell could have stopped the war by
protesting or resigning. Instead, she seems to argue -- although in a
curiously indirect way, via an anonymous source -- that it was already
too late, and that he had no real power to influence events.
She writes, "Even if Powell had wanted to protest, the moment for real
dissent had long passed, one senior State Department official later
reflected. The only argument against invasion that might ever have
succeeded -- that it would undermine the larger war on terrorism --
'would have had to have been made early on,' in the spring and early
summer of 2002. It was an argument that Powell had not made. Instead,
the secretary had tried to play for time and erect roadblocks to slow
the march to war, in hopes that something would stop it. But
administration hard-liners, in their hurry to get to Baghdad, had rolled
right over him."
DeYoung goes on, "[T]hose who would later cite the January 13 meeting
with Bush as a moment when he should have considered resigning on
principle misunderstood both his undaunted sense of the possible and his
view of the Iraq situation."
These arguments are unconvincing. Despite the claims made by the unnamed
State Department source, it is far from clear that an earlier argument
that invading Iraq would undermine the war on terrorism would have had
any effect. The hawks wanted their war, and it is highly questionable
that any arguments would have changed their mind. Second, her statement
that Powell's critics "misunderstood" him is beside the point. They
understood him well enough -- they just didn't agree with his actions.
What she calls his "undaunted sense of the possible," Powell's critics
saw as willful self-delusion.
In one sense, DeYoung's reference to "his view of the Iraq situation" --
i.e., the fact that he shared certain hawkish beliefs -- renders these
debates and recriminations moot. Those opposed to the war tend to assume
that Powell was on their side, but it isn't that simple. As DeYoung
notes, Powell was no dove; he wanted to see Saddam gone, and although he
was aware of the risks, he wasn't opposed to a war as long as it was
done right. Still, it should have been amply clear to Powell that the
war was not being done right -- and he did nothing.
The most glaring omission, not just in this passage but in the book in
general, is DeYoung's failure to explore Powell's own awareness, or lack
thereof, of how much power he wielded as the most popular and trusted
figure by far in the administration. Woodward, in his omniscient style,
raises the key issue in "Plan of Attack": "He had not underestimated the
extent to which the president had decided that letting the *****
remain was no longer an option. But he probably had underestimated his
own usefulness to a president and vice president determined on war."
Woodward's point is that Powell failed to grasp, or did not want to
grasp, the power he had as the most trusted and moderate member of the
administration. DeYoung never explores this crucial point; in fact, she
does not seem to have asked Powell about it. Her portrait of Powell
certainly makes clear that everything about the man -- his deference to
authority and the line of command, his caution, his unwillingness to
break out of what he perceived as the parameters of his role -- made it
difficult for him to interject himself into the game in the same way
that his peers, Cheney and Rumsfeld, did. But it's an issue one would
like to have seen raised with him.
Indeed, "Soldier" would have been a more interesting book if DeYoung had
spent less time on the earlier part of Powell's career -- much of which
is well chronicled in his autobiography and which yields little insight
into this buttoned-down man -- and more on his fateful relationship with
the Bush team. It doesn't help DeYoung that her book appeared at the
same time as her Post colleague Bob Woodward's "State of Denial," which
paints a vivid portrait of Powell's conflicts with his colleagues and
contains scoops her book doesn't. For example, Woodward reports that
Powell wanted Rumsfeld out, at one point telling White House Chief of
Staff Andy Card that "If I go, Don [Rumsfeld] should go." Some of it is
a matter of tone: Woodward's book, with its breezier style and rougher
edges, creates more of a sense that Powell was aware of the shark pool
he was swimming in. This question of Powell's awareness, his personal
sense of who he was dealing with, is key: The more aware he was, the
less excuse he has for not standing up.
At the end of "Soldier," DeYoung writes, "Political Washington rehashed
moments when Powell might have played his ultimate trump card. Perhaps
overestimating their own political courage, some moderate Republicans
insisted privately that they would have lined up behind him if he had
only given them a sign." She then quotes various sources explaining once
again why he didn't. "'It's easy for us to say, why didn't he just go in
there and tell the president he's going to resign,' reflected one senior
State Department official who had thought long and hard about the
possibility that Powell would quit. 'But this man was a military officer
for thirty-five years. When I go to see the president ... I understand
that I voted for the guy and I'll vote for the next guy. That's the
great thing about America. He's not the king ... But a military officer
who's spent decades saying 'whatever the president of the United States
tells me to do I will do because that's an order -- that's different.'"
Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni praised Powell for his ability to stay above
the fray of office infighting, but added a darker note: "Powell is a
pretty ambitious guy. I don't think it was in him to stop this by
bringing down his president."
Powell is a sympathetic character, and DeYoung does a good job of
allowing us to see the situation from his perspective. But Zinni's words
are a reminder that the obedience of the soldier and the caution of the
bureaucrat can also be self-serving -- and prevent one from doing what
has to be done. There are higher duties than the military ones, or even
the personal codes one lives by.
The tragic irony is that by failing to try to derail Bush's misguided
war, Powell betrayed the very people he most wanted to protect: the
soldiers. In "Plan of Attack," Woodward characterizes Powell's reaction
to his fateful Jan. 13 meeting with Bush. "No way on God's earth could
he walk away at that point. It would have been an unthinkable act of
disloyalty to the president, to Powell's own soldier's code, to the
United States military, and mostly to the several hundred thousand who
would be going to war. The kids were the ones who fought, Powell often
reminded himself."
Today, almost 3,000 of those kids are dead, many thousands more are
shattered in mind and body, the number of dead Iraqis has passed 650,000
and the U.S. government wants to stay the course for at least four more
years. Can Powell still believe that his act of "loyalty" was worthy of
the name?
Just what Powell thinks about any of this these days is unclear. In a
March 2005 interview with DeYoung, Powell rebuked media reports, "as he
put it, that 'Powell must be so distraught.' 'Why am I distraught?' he
said testily. 'We are working on our relationships ... look at what
we've done with Russia, China, NATO, the E.U.'" And Powell went on to
cite his foreign policy successes.
Woodward, in his new book, strikes a different note -- and throws down
the gauntlet to Powell far more directly than DeYoung ever does. In an
interview with Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., Woodward tells Levin, "I
thought Powell was in anguish about what had happened in Iraq, with
130,000 troops still stuck there, facing an ever-growing insurgency.
"'I don't want to hear about his anguish,' Levin said, nearly exploding
in anger. 'I don't have the stomach to hear his anguish. He is so smart
and his instincts are so decent and good that I just can't accept his
anguish. I expected more than anguish.'
"'What did you want?' I asked. 'An apology?'
"'Honesty. I wanted honesty. I don't want to read a year later or two
years later that this is the worst moment of his life or something ...
Powell had the potential to change the course here. He's the only one
who had potential to.'
"'How could he have done that?' I asked.
"'If he had told the president that this is the wrong course,' Levin
said. 'I don't think he ever realized what power lay in his hands, and
that's an abdication. I think Powell has tremendous power' ...
"'When Bush asked Powell in January 2003 if he would be with him in the
war, Levin said, Powell was at the peak of his influence.
"'Can you imagine what would have happened if he'd said, "I've got to
give that a little thought"? Can you imagine the power of that one
person to change the course? He had it.'"
DeYoung's book confirms what we already suspected about why Powell was
not able to rise to the greatest challenge of his life. Like most good
biographies, it leaves us with a feeling of inevitability. And in the
case of Powell, a decent human being, that feeling is doubly bitter --
for him, and for the country he wanted to serve but ultimately let down.
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2006
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
More about this issue:
Related SPIEGEL ONLINE links:
Since US Invasion: New Study Estimates 600,000 Civilian Iraqi Death Toll
(10/11/2006)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,442049,00.html
Interview with Terrorism Expert Bruce Hoffman: "Al- Qaida is More
Dangerous Than it Was on 9/11" (10/10/2006)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,441695,00.html
SPIEGEL Interview with Bob Woodward: "A Systematic State of Denial"
(10/10/2006)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,441841,00.html
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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