This is the first of three days of excerpts from the book "Bush At War" copyright 2002 by Bob Woodward, Simon & Schuster.
In early August, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made the diplomatic rounds in Indonesia and the Philippines and, as always, kept in touch with what was happening at home. Iraq was continuing to bubble. Brent Scowcroft, the mild-mannered national security adviser to President Bush's father, had declared on a Sunday morning talk show Aug. 4 that an attack on Iraq could turn the Middle East into a "cauldron and thus destroy the war on terrorism."
Blunt talk, but Powell basically agreed. He had not made clear his own analysis and conclusions to the president and realized he needed to do so. On the long flight back, from nearly halfway around the world, he jotted down some notes. Virtually all the Iraq discussions in the National Security Council had been about war plans -- how to attack, when, with what force levels, military strike scenario this and military strike scenario that. It was clear to him now that the context was being lost, the attitude and views of the rest of the world that Powell knew and lived with. His notes filled three or four pages.
During the Persian Gulf War, when he had been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell had played the role of reluctant warrior, arguing to the first President Bush, perhaps too mildly, that containing Iraq might work, that war might not be necessary. But as the principal military adviser, he hadn't pressed his arguments that forcefully because they were less military than political. Now as secretary of state, his account was politics -- the politics of the world. He decided he had to come down very hard, state his convictions and conclusions so there would be no doubt as to where he stood. The president had been hearing plenty from Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, a kind of A-team inside the war cabinet. Powell wanted to present the B-team, the alternative view that he believed had not been aired. He owed the president more than PowerPoint briefings.
In Washington, he told Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, that he wanted to see the president.
It had been a long, hard road that brought Powell to make that request. During his first months as secretary of state, he never really closed the personal loop with Bush, never established a comfort level -- the natural, at-ease state of closeness that both had with others.
Karl Rove, the president's top political adviser, felt Powell was beyond political control and operating out of a sense of entitlement. "It's constantly, you know, 'I'm in charge, and this is all politics, and I'm going to win the internecine political game,' " Rove said privately. Rove, for one, thought Powell had somehow lost a step, and that it was odd to see him uncomfortable in the presence of the president.
Even after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Powell at times was isolated politically, and the White House kept him off the television talk shows. Powell and his deputy and closest friend, Richard L. Armitage, joked privately that Powell had been put in the "icebox" -- to be used only when needed.
In early October 2001, the White House called Armitage and asked him to make the rounds on the television talk shows. He had little interest in appearing, and he politely declined. When they pressed, Armitage went to Powell and said, "Look, that's not my deal."
"Nah, I'm in the icebox again," Powell replied. Maybe because he was pushing to release a white paper detailing evidence against Osama bin Laden. "We've got to get the story out, so go do it," he told Armitage.
On Oct. 3, Armitage dutifully appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America" and CNN's "Live This Morning."
One of Powell's greatest difficulties was that he was more or less supposed to pretend in public that the sharp differences in the war cabinet did not exist. The president would not tolerate public discord. Powell was also held in check by his own code -- a soldier obeys.
Bush might order, Go get the guns! Get my horses! -- all the Texas, Alamo macho that made Powell uncomfortable. But he believed and hoped that the president knew better, that he would see the go-it-alone approach did not stand further analysis. Hopefully, the success in the first phase of the war in Afghanistan had provided the template for that understanding.
The ghosts in the machine in Powell's view were Rumsfeld and Cheney. Too often they went for the guns and the horses.
A Nearly Impossible Mission
In the spring of 2002, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict became so violent that it threatened to overwhelm the war on terrorism. The president said he wanted to send Powell to the Middle East to see if he could calm things down. Powell was reluctant. He said he didn't have much to offer, too little leverage with either side.
We are in trouble, the president told Powell. "You're going to have to spend some political capital. You have plenty. I need you to do it."
"Yes, sir," Powell said.
He went to the region, made little headway and after 10 days was preparing his departure statement that proposed an international conference and security negotiations.
Rice called Armitage at the State Department to ask him to tell Powell to scale back his statement, make less of a commitment about future negotiations. There were real concerns that Powell was going too far.
In Washington, Armitage was almost chained to his desk so he could talk to Powell between his meetings. It was midnight, 7 a.m. in Jerusalem, when Armitage explained Rice's concerns.
Powell went nuts. Everybody wanted to grade papers! he said. No one wanted to step up, face reality! They wanted to be pro-Israel and leave him holding the Palestinian bag by himself. They had sent him out on a nearly impossible mission.
While Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell were meeting in the Middle East, sources in the office of Vice President Cheney were trying to get Powell from leaning too much toward Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. (Reuters)
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"I'm holding back the [expletive] gates here," Armitage reported. "They're eating cheese on you" -- an old military expression for gnawing on someone and enjoying it. People in the Defense Department and the vice president's office were trying to do him in, Armitage said. He had heard from reliable media contacts that a barrage was being unloaded on Powell. He was leaning too much to Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. The White House was going to trim Powell's sails; he was going to fail. Armitage said he couldn't verify who was leaking this, but he had names of senior people in Defense and in Cheney's office.
"That's unbelievable," Powell said. "I just heard the same thing." He had had cocktails with some reporters traveling with him, and they reported that their sources in Cheney's office were declaring he had gone too far, was off the reservation, and about to be reined in.
"People are really putting your [expletive] in the street," Armitage said.
Rice reached Powell and said all the others thought it was best he say nothing more, and announce that he was going back to Washington to consult with the president.
Powell, who had been engaged in a grueling diplomatic shuttle, erupted. Was he just supposed to say, thank you very much for your hospitality, good-bye!
Rice said she was worried that he was committing the president and the administration more deeply than they all wanted.
Guess what? Powell countered. They were already in. They couldn't launch an initiative with a high-profile presidential speech like the one Bush had given in the Rose Garden on April 4, and not expect to propose some plan or follow-up. But he agreed to trim back on his statement.
Powell was up to about 3 a.m. writing his remarks, knowing that he was out at the end of a long stick.
On April 17, he made his departure statement in Jerusalem. It was 20 paragraphs of Powell at his diplomatic best -- smooth, upbeat, even eloquent. He was able to dress it up and point toward a negotiated future, while avoiding mention of his failure to get a cease-fire.
It didn't make much of a splash. He hadn't solved the Middle East problem; there was no breakthrough. But it settled some things down for the moment, and the president later thanked him.
Face Time, and Headway
Powell still had not squared his relationship with the president. During the first half of 2002, Armitage had received reliable reports that Rumsfeld was requesting and having periodic private meetings with Bush. Powell was not particularly worried, because he could usually find out what had transpired through Rice, though she had had difficulties initially finding out herself.
"It seems to me that you ought to be requesting some time with the president," Armitage suggested to Powell. Face time was critical, and it was a relationship that Powell had not mastered.
Powell said he recalled his time as national security adviser for Reagan when everyone was always trying to see the president. He didn't want to intrude. If Bush wanted to see him, any time or any place, he was, of course, available. He saw Bush all the time at meetings, and he was able to convey his views.
"You've got to start doing it," Armitage said. Powell was the secretary of state. It wouldn't be an imposition. Better relations would help in all the battles, would help the department across the board.
In the late spring of 2002 -- some 16 months into the Bush presidency -- Powell started requesting private time with Bush. He did it through Rice, who sat in on the meetings that took place about once a week for 20 to 30 minutes. It seemed to help, but it was like his experience in the Middle East: no big breakthroughs.
As President Bush addressed the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, left, followed along. (Reuters)
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During the summer, Powell was over at the White House one day with time to kill before a meeting with Rice. The president spotted him and invited him into the Oval Office. They talked alone for about 30 minutes. They shot the breeze and relaxed. The conversation was about everything and nothing.
"I think we're really making some headway in the relationship," Powell reported to Armitage afterward. The chasm seemed to be closing. "I know we really connected."
The Big Picture and a Breakthrough
It was in this context that Bush invited Powell and Rice to the White House residence on the evening of Monday, Aug. 5, to discuss Iraq. The meeting expanded into dinner and then moved to the president's office in the residence.
Powell told Bush that as he was getting his head around the Iraq question, Bush needed to think about the broader issues, all the consequences of war.
With his notes by his side, a double-spaced outline on loose-leaf paper, Powell said the president had to consider what a military operation against Iraq would do in the Arab world. He dealt with the leaders and foreign ministers in these countries as secretary of state. The entire region could be destabilized -- friendly regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan could be put in jeopardy or overthrown. Anger and frustration at America abounded. War could change everything in the Middle East.
It would suck the oxygen out of just about everything else the United States was doing, not only in the war on terrorism, but also in all other diplomatic, defense and intelligence relationships, Powell said. The economic implications could be staggering, potentially driving the supply and price of oil in directions that were as-yet unimagined. All this in a time of an international economic slump. The cost of occupying Iraq after a victory would be expensive. The economic impact on the region, the world and the United States domestically had to be considered.
Following victory, and Powell believed they would surely prevail, the day-after implications were giant. What of the image of an American general running an Arab country for some length of time? he asked. A General MacArthur in Baghdad? This would be a big event within Iraq, the region and the world. How long would it last? No one could know. How would success be defined?
"It's nice to say we can do it unilaterally," Powell told the president bluntly, "except you can't." A successful military plan would require access to bases and facilities in the region, overflight rights. They would need allies. This would not be the Gulf War, a nice two-hour trip from a fully cooperative Saudi Arabia over to Kuwait City -- the target of liberation just 40 miles away. Now the geography would be formidable. Baghdad was a couple of hundred miles across Mesopotamia.
The Middle East crisis was still ever-present. That was the issue the Arab and Muslim world wanted addressed. A war on Iraq would open Israel to attack by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who had launched Scud missiles at it during the Gulf War.
Hussein was crazy, a menace, a real threat, unpredictable, but he had been largely contained and deterred since the Gulf War. A new war could unleash precisely what they wanted to prevent -- Hussein on a rampage, a last desperate stand, perhaps using his weapons of mass destruction.
On the intelligence side, as the president knew, the problem was also immense, Powell said. They had not been able to find Osama bin Laden, Mohammad Omar and other al Qaeda and Taliban leaders in Afghanistan. They didn't know where Hussein was. He had all kinds of tricks and deceptions. He had an entire state at his disposal to hide in. They did not need another possibly fruitless manhunt.
Powell's presentation was an outpouring of both analysis and emotion that encompassed his entire experience -- 35 years in the military, former national security adviser and now chief diplomat. The president seemed intrigued as he listened and asked questions but did not push back that much.
President Bush, with Powell, appeared in the White House Rose Garden reacting to the United Nation's vote on Iraq. (Associated Press)
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And Powell realized that his arguments begged the question of, well, what do you do? He knew that Bush liked, in fact insisted on, solutions, and Powell wanted to take his views all the way down the trail. "You can still make a pitch for a coalition or U.N. action to do what needs to be done," he said. International support had to be garnered. The United Nations was only one way. But some way had to be found to recruit allies. A war with Iraq could be much more complicated and bloody than the war in Afghanistan, which was Exhibit A demonstrating the necessity of a coalition.
The president said he preferred to have an international coalition, and he loved building one for the war in Afghanistan.
Powell responded that he believed the pitch could still be made to the international community to build support.
What did he think the incentives and motives might be of some of the critical players, such as the Russians or the French, the president asked. What would they do?
As a matter of diplomacy, Powell said he thought the president and the administration could bring most countries along.
The secretary felt the discussion became tense several times as he pressed, but in the end he believed that he had left nothing unsaid.
The president thanked him. It had been two hours -- nothing of Clintonesque, late-night-at-the-dorm proportions, but extraordinary for this president and Powell. And Powell felt he had stripped his argument down to the essentials. The private meeting with just Bush and Rice had meant there was not a lot of static coming in from other quarters -- Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Rice thought the headline was, "Powell Makes Case for Coalition as Only Way to Assure Success."
"That was terrific," Rice said the next day in a phone call to Powell, "and we need to do more of those."
The tipoff about the potential importance of the evening was when White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. also called the next day and asked Powell to come over and give him the same presentation, notes and all.
The dinner was a home run, Powell felt.
Public Speculation, Private Decisions
Bush left for his Crawford, Tex., working vacation the next afternoon, as Iraq continued to play to a packed house in the news media. There was little other news, and speculation about Iraq filled the void. Every living former national security adviser or former secretary of state who could lift pen to paper was on the street with his or her views.
On Wednesday, Aug. 14, the principals -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice and CIA Director George J. Tenet -- met in Washington without the president.
Powell said they needed to think about getting a coalition for action against Iraq, some kind of international cover at least. The Brits were with us, he noted, but their support was fragile in the absence of some international coalition or cover. They needed something. Most of Europe was the same way, he reported, as was all of the Arabian peninsula, especially the U.S. friends in the Gulf region who would be most essential for war. And Turkey, which shared a 100-mile border with Iraq.
The first opportunity the president would have after his vacation to formally address the subject of Iraq was a scheduled speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 12, Powell pointed out. There had been talk about making the speech about American values or the Middle East. But Iraq was Topic A. "I can't imagine him going there and not speaking about this," Powell said.
Rice agreed. In the atmosphere of continuing media discussion, not to talk about Iraq might suggest that the administration was not serious about Hussein's threat, or that it was operating in total secrecy. And Bush liked to explain to the public at least the general outlines of where his policy was heading.
They discussed how they would face an endless process of debate and compromise and delay once they started down the U.N. road -- words, not action.
"I think the speech at the U.N. ought to be about Iraq," Cheney said, but the United Nations ought to be made the issue. It should be challenged and criticized. "Go tell them it's not about us. It's about you. You are not important." The United Nations was not enforcing more than a decade of resolutions ordering Hussein to destroy his weapons of mass destruction and allow weapons inspectors inside Iraq. The United Nations was running the risk of becoming irrelevant and would be the loser if it did not do what was necessary.
Rice agreed. The United Nations had become too much like the post-World War I League of Nations -- a debating society with no teeth.
They all agreed that the president should not go to the United Nations to ask for a declaration of war. That was quickly off the table. They all agreed that a speech about Iraq made sense. But there was no agreement about what the president should say.
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