Colin, Colin, Colin. What on earth are you thinking?
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."
I shouldn't think he would comment, no.
If it weren't for the rather stealthy way this seems to have been handled, it would almost let me respect Powell a bit more. To be fair, his criticisms do seem to have been plainly stated to (and ignored by) the president and others. Nonetheless, to cooperate with the book and then let the administration be blindsided by its release does seem a bit much in some ways. (Not the cooperation itself, you understand, but the fact that they didn't know what was coming.)
When asked on "Fox News Sunday" about Mr. Woodward's contention that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Powell are so distant on policy matters that they do not talk, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, described the men's relationship as "friendly."
"I can tell you," she said, "I've had lunch on a number of occasions with Vice President Cheney and with Colin Powell, and they are more than on speaking terms. They're friendly."
Well, yes. Quite. And I should imagine that the less they speak, the friendlier their relations. It's entirely possible to have quite a cordial entente with someone when you make a point of not speaking to them except when forced by circumstance. It would also be entirely impolitic on both parts to have an unfriendly working relationship, since they're both senior cabinet officers.
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 publication of that particular item, however, is likely to put paid to any sort of cordiality between Powell and Cheney. I should imagine that Cheney knew what Powell thought, but what you can tolerate in private and what you can tolerate being publicised are two entirely different things.
As the article notes, this almost certainly means that Powell won't be secretary of state for the next Bush administration, should such horror come to pass. That will probably be good for his sanity, if nothing else. His reputation in Europe, reportedly, has improved with the publication of this book. It's hardly likely to enhance his reputation here, regardless of which side you fall on the debate, since it does seem rather sneaky and underhanded. His honor, meanwhile, seems to have taken such blows that it will not likely recover any time soon.
Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself. [...] Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.
-- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999
