By that, I mean your reputation. You are trying to take a victory lap with a Modern Master of Management book.
Sorry, Colin. This is like Gerald Levin writing a book called "Worship My Brilliance -- How The Time-Warner/AOL Merger Enlightened My Life And Added Value To The World."
At least Robert McNamara, who also caused thousands of American soldiers to die in a debacle and squandered American treasure in a feckless, misbegotten war had the common decency to admit his mistakes and ask for forgiveness. But you? You were the one who could have stopped this catastrophe. You didn't. Because of you, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost and trillions were wasted. And you want to share your management genius with us? Let's take this apart after the jump.
The Daily Beast has an excerpt of Powell's book.
Colin Powell wants us to admire him. He believes he is a man of integrity. He wants to share his wisdom with world. Just one problem with that -- he was an incompetent, feckless leader who folded when the going got tough. When Powell was confronted with the greatest crisis (and opportunity) of his career, he flinched. He choose convenience over courage. And because of his actions, thousands of American soldiers -- and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -- died.
Let's go through this mendacious narrative, evasion by evasion.
First, the infamous U.N. speech. The American people (and the pundits who pretend to inform them) were a bit uneasy about going to war on such a flimsy pre-text (WMD we hadn't found) until YOU, Colin Powell, Mister Credibility, got up and said presented rumors, hearsay and stovepiped intel and described in these words:
Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.
Here's what you say in your leadership book about this:
"My infamous speech at the U.N. in 2003 about Iraqi WMD programs was not based on facts, though I thought it was.
"The Iraqis were reported to have biological-agent production facilities mounted in mobile vans. I highlighted the vans in my speech, having been assured that the information about their existence was multiple-sourced and solid. After the speech, the mobile-van story fell apart—they didn’t exist."
A pair of facts then emerged that I should have known before I gave the speech. One, our intelligence people had never actually talked to the single source—nicknamed Curveball—for the information about the vans, a source our intelligence people considered flaky and unreliable...Two, based on this and other information no one passed along to me, a number of senior analysts were unsure whether or not the vans existed, and they believed Curveball was unreliable. They had big don’t knows that they never passed on."
So...admirable, wise Colin Powell, making the speech of his life that he knew would be the tipping point for either going to war or standing down, did not bother multiple-sourcing his intel. Powell obviously knew Cheney was panting for war, and that Cheney and his henchman David Addington were stovepipping the flimsiest stuff his way. (This isn't mentioned.) Powell didn't demand the truth. He didn't confront Cheney, or Bush. He decided not to make waves. What the heck? I mean, there
MIGHT be WMD, right? Maybe he'd luck out. And so sent the country to war, just as he promised he'd NEVER do again after Vietnam.
Here's how Powell describes his culpability for his deadly, catastrophic mistake:
"The leader can’t be let off without blame in these situations. He too bears a burden. He has to relentlessly cross-examine the analysts until he is satisfied he’s got what they know and has sanded them down until they’ve told him what they don’t know. At the same time, the leader must realize that it takes courage for someone to stand up and say to him, “That’s wrong.” “You’re wrong.” Or: “We really don’t know that.” The leader should never shoot the messenger. Everybody is working together to find the right answer. If they’re not, then you’ve got even more serious problems."
Notice Mr. Powell's little syntactical magic trick here -- the substitution of the word "the leader" for "I." He's describing what a great leader should do -- a neat summary of all the things he failed to do.
And for this he wants our admiration. Mistakes were made, Colin.
Okay, so for the first time in American history we invaded a country for the wrong reason, because of Mr. Powell's lack of nerve in demanding his staff tell him the truth. So what happened next? Here's Modern Master of Leadership Powell...
"When we went in, we had a plan, which the president approved. We would not break up and disband the Iraqi Army...The plan the president had approved was not implemented. Instead, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, our man in charge in Iraq, disbanded the Army and fired Baath Party members down to teachers. These actions surprised the president, National Security Adviser Condi Rice, and me, but once they had been set in motion, the president felt he had to support Secretary Rumsfeld and Ambassador Bremer."
So, in other words SecDef Rumsfeld and Ambassador Bremer directly defied a plan by the Commander-In-Chief...and your reaction was...
Do nothing. A complete pass. Hold no one accountable.
Whew, some leadershipping there, Colin!
Recently, Powell said...
“I get mad when bloggers accuse me of lying -- of knowing the information was false. I didn’t.”
Powell obviously longs for his old place in the culture -- Revered Warrior-Turned-Wise-Village-Elder-Peacemaker. He forfeited his right to any kind of deference forever. When it was all on the line, when America needed a great leader, Powell let Dick Cheney use him as a sock puppet.
You lied, Colin. You chickened out. You flinched. People died. Sorry.