[Marxism] Powell's "coming out" highlights serious divisions in ruling circles over Iraq

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Powell's "coming out" as a critic of administration policy from within
highlights the impact of the popular anti-occupation upsurge in Iraq
(coupled with the election of Zapatero who has strongly reaffirmed his
intention of withdrawing Spanish troops quickly.  The moves toward
Spanish withdrawal are a reminder that, despite the power of our
enemies, mass protests like March 20 can affect the course of this war.


Powell's surfacing in the Woodward book shows the depth of differences
within the Republican as well as Democratic parties over how to conduct
the war.  Divisions of this type do not arise when a war is going well.

It also represents substantial increase of ruling class pressure on Bush
to dump Cheney and replace him with someone more broadly acceptable to
the rulers as Acting President (perhaps McCain or Giuliani or even
Powell himself).  Otherwise Bush faces possible open or covert
desertions from within the Republican Party.  There is no sign yet that
Bush is ready to do this, but Cheney's health can deteriorate rapidly or
suddenly if that is needed, pretty much up to the last minute.

Powell's contribution to the Woodward book seems little short of an
ammunition shipment to Kerry, who is campaigning not on a platform
proclaiming the goal of ending the war in some way, but openly to
replace Bush as commander-in-chief of the war on terrorism. Back in
1992, Powell's open declaration of his opposition at that time to an
attack on Yugoslavia by the administration of Bush the Elder was one of
the signs that a broad, bipartisan sector of ruling-class opinion was
tilting toward Clinton.

Powell, of course, is a war criminal, going back to the Gulf war and all
the way back to Vietnam.  But while the limits of  the debate among the
US rulers over Iraq have to be recognized,  we need to really reconquer
the attitude that division among our enemies is a good thing, and unity
in their camp is bad.  We shouldn't try to prove that they are really
united when the good news is that they are not.  Fred Feldman





New York Times April 19, 2004

Airing of Powell's misgivings tests ties in the Cabinet

By Steven R. Weisman

Washington, April 18 - For more than a year, Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell and his aides have tacitly acknowledged that he was concerned
before the war about what could go wrong once American forces captured
Iraq.

But Mr. Powell's apparent decision to lay out his misgivings even more
explicitly to the journalist Bob Woodward for a book has jolted the
White House and aggravated long-festering tensions in the Bush cabinet.
Moreover, some officials said, the book has created problems for the
secretary inside the administration just as the situation in Iraq is
deteriorating and President Bush is plunging into his re-election drive.

Mr. Powell has not acknowledged that he cooperated with Mr. Woodward,
but the book presents the secretary's reservations in such detail that
it leaves little doubt. A spokesman for Mr. Powell said again Sunday
that he would not comment on the book, "Plan of Attack."

Critics of Mr. Powell in the hawkish wing of the administration said
they were startled by what they saw as his self-serving decision to help
fill out a portrait that enhances his reputation as a farsighted
analyst, perhaps at the expense of Mr. Bush. Several said the book
guaranteed what they expected anyway, that Mr. Powell will not stay as
secretary if Mr. Bush is re-elected.

The view expressed Sunday by people in the administration that Mr. Bush
comes across as sober-minded and resolute in the book, asking for
contingency plans for a war early on but not deciding to wage one until
the last minute, saves Mr. Powell from any immediate difficulties that
might grow from seeming to betray his confidential relationship to a
president who prizes loyalty, several officials said.

"Look, a lot of people have been struck by the degree to which Secretary
Powell is using this book as an opportunity - to be fair - to clarify
his position on the issues," said an official. "But what this book does
is muddy the water internally, which is very unfortunate and unhelpful."

Another official, who like others declined to be identified because of
the political sensitivity of their criticism, accused Mr. Powell of
having a habit of distancing himself from policies when they go wrong.
"It's such a soap opera with him," this official said.

Democrats seized on Mr. Powell's portrayal, saying it would give them
ammunition to criticize the administration for going to war without
broad international backing or adequate planning for an occupation.

Throughout the day Sunday, Senator John Kerry brought up the Woodward
book, mentioning it twice in his interview on "Meet the Press" on NBC
and once at an outdoor rally at the University of Miami.

"Here we have a book by a reputable writer," Mr. Kerry told several
thousand students at the afternoon campus rally. "We learn that the
president even misled members of his own administration."

Asked if material in Mr. Woodward's book would be grist for his party,
Jano Cabrera, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said
in annterview: "Absolutely. It's one thing for us to assert it. It's
another thing for it to be stated as fact by his secretary of state."

[snip]

Mr. Powell's standing around the world was less easy to measure this
weekend. But a European diplomat said he thought the secretary's
standing in Europe especially would only be enhanced because he would be
seen as sharing the view of many there that the administration had been
overly optimistic about subduing dissidents in Iraq.

For the people long familiar with Mr. Powell's thinking, his misgivings
about an American occupation of Iraq, and his insistence on getting full
international backing for American actions, goes back many years. So,
they note, does his fighting with Mr. Cheney.

For example, Mr. Powell's memoir, "My American Journey," published in
1995 after he retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said
that he had opposed a final push to oust Saddam Hussein in the 1991
Persian Gulf war on the ground that an occupation would provoke a
counterinsurgency and criticism among Americans.

In addition, many accounts of the planning for the first gulf war say
that Mr. Cheney, then secretary of defense, opposed going to the United
Nations or Congress for backing to remove Iraq from Kuwait, fearing that
failure would weaken the first President Bush's administration's ability
to go to war.

In 2002, Mr. Cheney was openly disdainful of Mr. Powell's insistence on
getting approval of the United Nations Security Council before going to
war, spreading consternation at the State Department. Mr. Powell won
that argument, and President Bush authorized a bid to get a Security
Council resolution supporting war.

Mr. Powell's memoir also recalls an exchange in the early 1990's, in
which Mr. Powell accused Mr. Cheney - jokingly, he insisted - of being
surrounded by "right-wing nuts like you." In the last year, the Woodward
book says, Mr. Powell referred privately to the civilian conservatives
in the Pentagon loyal to Mr. Cheney as the Gestapo.

The Woodward book also attributes to Mr. Powell the belief that although
he had misgivings about going to war, it was his obligation to support
the president once Mr. Bush decided to do so.

Mr. Bush told Mr. Woodward that he did not ask the secretary's opinion
on whether to go to war because he thought he knew what that opinion
would be: "no."

But a senior aide to Mr. Powell asserted this weekend that the secretary
was not as opposed to war as some people presume, no matter what the
implications in the book.

"The portrait of Powell in the Woodward book is pretty consistent with
what everybody knows," the official said. "We were with the president if
we had to do this. We set up an exit ramp for Saddam, and he didn't take
it. Powell in the end was very comfortable knowing that."

Adam Nagourney contributed reporting from Washington for this article
and Jodi Wilgoren from Miami.








<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19POWE.html?ex=1083350210&ei
=1&en>
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/19/politics/19POWE.html?ex=1083350210&ei=
1&en

=83c1a65f1ad679ba

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