Colin Powell is the most heralded secretary of State since Gen. George C. Marshall at the beginning of the cold war. Last month, when Powell arrived for work at the State Department, a chronically dispirited organization, staffers lined up to shake his hand. Some wept. Charming, funny, eloquent, larger than life, Powell has become an icon, the poor black kid from the South Bronx who, it is often said, could have had the White House for the asking.
That is the mythic Powell. Among Washington insiders, however, the more human Powell is a target of considerable second-guessing. Not least on Iraq. Only a month or so ago, Powell promised to “re-energize” sanctions against Saddam. But in talks over the past weeks, even the most stalwart members of the allied coalition against Saddam, the United States and Britain, have concluded that sanctions can be salvaged only if they are dramatically scaled back, abandoning most of the trade embargo on Iraq. So Powell is offering Arab leaders a deal: the United States would agree to sanctions narrowly aimed at Saddam’s capacity to build new weapons if Iraq’s Arab neighbors will clamp down on the revenues flowing directly to Saddam from his spiraling exports of smuggled oil. The administration had wanted to step back from the failed Middle East peace process. But as Powell visits Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan this week, he will inevitably get sucked back into a complicated arena where there are no good answers.
Is Powell the right man to try to solve the Middle East riddle? And, more broadly, can an ex-soldier lead U.S. diplomacy in an age when America is at the world’s center stage and its foreign-policy problems–like global terror networks and economic and environmental meltdowns–often don’t lend themselves to traditional solutions? Despite his immense reputation, maybe not. Those who have worked closest with Powell do not see him as a strategic thinker, and while a gifted motivator, he has made misjudgments that could have ruined other, less-celebrated careers. He rose as the ultimate staff officer, indispensable to a series of powerful mentors over the years. But his critics wonder if Powell–a master spinner who has been insulated by his own legend–has learned from past mistakes.
These reservations and critiques are usually voiced off the record, and then often with a tone of regret–no one wants to appear churlish about an inspiring American success story. It is also true that the carping has a touch of perfect hindsight. And yet the criticisms deserve to be examined. On the issue the public cares about most–deciding when and where to send American troops into combat–Powell’s judgment as chairman of the Joint Chiefs was at best uneven and at times unduly swayed by his profound loyalty to the institution he has described as “my home, my life, my profession”–the U.S. Army. (Powell refused to answer NEWSWEEK’s queries about his past actions and declined, through his spokesman, to be interviewed.)
Powell is usually seen as an anti-interventionist who wants to stay out of foreign conflicts if at all possible. He is widely known for the “Powell Doctrine,” which, roughly speaking, holds that America should not commit forces to combat unless the mission is clear, vital interests are at stake, the American public is on board, the exits are well marked and victory is assured. Powell is the first to admit that the doctrine is more a wish than a statement of policy. As Powell himself has acknowledged, “There is no fixed set of rules for the use of military force. To set one up is dangerous.”
Powell is better understood as a creature of the post-Vietnam Army. He seems warm, easygoing, free of rancor. Yet, interestingly, “the key to Colin Powell is Vietnam. He is the angry Vietnam vet, still carrying all those scars,” says a close friend. Like so many career officers of his time, he believed the Army had been betrayed by the nation’s leaders, then abandoned. Powell, who had found “what I craved” by joining ROTC as a 17-year-old (“discipline, structure, camaraderie, the sense of belonging”), played a critical role in rebuilding the demoralized Army after Vietnam. Not in the field: he was such a sought-after staff officer that he was constantly getting pulled back from front-line jobs to postings in Washington, culminating with his appointment in 1987 as President Reagan’s last national-security adviser. Smooth, genial and efficient, he soon learned the fundamental rule of bureaucratic infighting: information is power. And its Pentagon corollary: control what the civilians know and you control what they do.
The “off-duty” Powell is, certainly by Washington standards, disarmingly frank. Yet as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, his civilian masters came to suspect Powell of not only controlling information, but withholding and even distorting it. It is impossible to understand Powell’s years as chairman (1989-1993)–or to fathom the doubts and frustrations that officials in two successive administrations grew to have about him–without grasping that Powell came to the job with an agenda. Simply put, Powell’s goal has been to keep naive and untrustworthy civilians from dragging the Army into another quagmire like Vietnam. He largely succeeded. And, given that it’s America’s soldiers, not Washington’s armchair hawks, who have to fight and die, many will applaud that. The question is whether Powell allowed his parochial concerns to cloud his judgment of America’s wider strategic interests in the post-cold-war world.
The first great challenge was posed when Saddam invaded Kuwait in August 1990. From the very first, the then President Bush saw the move as a threat to U.S. vital interests in the entire region. He was willing to contemplate the use of American force to drive out the Iraqi strongman. Powell dissented. At first he essentially proposed writing off Kuwait and drawing the line against Saddam invading Saudi Arabia. Cheney, then Defense secretary, blew up and took Powell behind closed doors. “Colin, you’re talking policy and that’s not your job,” he said. “I want you to give me military advice. Stop talking policy.”
But Powell didn’t give up. According to several of his military colleagues at the time, he turned to more passive resistance. Powell initially presented his civilian bosses with military options that allowed no more than the defense of Saudi Arabia; then, when ordered to produce plans for attack, he exaggerated the forces required for success. Remarkably, a frustrated Cheney set up a secret planning cell–staffed by a small group of mostly retired military officers–to sidestep General Powell. This was the group that first showed the civilian leadership the attack plan that ultimately worked: a sweeping left hook deep behind Iraqi forces. Cheney briefed President Bush on the concept without even telling Powell. When the United States launched its attack on Jan. 17, 1991, Powell was the one to go on TV and pronounce the armed forces’s strategy for defeating Saddam’s Army: “First we are going to cut it off. Then we are going to kill it.” Yet the records and recollections now available suggest that Powell, more than anyone, quietly prevented American forces from striking the death blow by cutting off Saddam’s elite Republican Guard divisions.
The ground invasion of Kuwait and Iraq by the vast allied force was only two days old when, according to President Bush’s diary, Powell told him that the Iraqi retreat was turning into a rout. “Don’t worry about the Republican Guards,” said Powell. But Saddam’s elite troops had not been encircled. Even by Day Three of the ground war, the commander, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, still wanted at least another 24 hours to finish the job. But Powell was already worried that photographs of the “highway of death,” where allied planes were shooting up Iraqis fleeing Kuwait City with carloads of loot, would tarnish the image of the Army’s victory. “We don’t want to be seen as killing for the sake of killing, Mr. President,” Powell told Bush. In response, the president suggested calling for a ceasefire by the end of the day. Powell acquiesced–then pressured a reluctant Schwarzkopf into agreeing, too. Most of Saddam’s tanks escaped after the ceasefire. They needn’t have. The 101st Air Assault Division was poised to airlift a brigade deeper into Iraq to block the main escape route. Powell canceled the operation. Saddam promptly used his surviving Republican Guard to crush a rebellion and stay in power.
If Powell was reluctant to use force in Kuwait, he was even more opposed to armed intervention into Bosnia. By 1992 the disintegration of the old Yugoslavia and the brutal “ethnic cleansing” in the countryside seemed to cry out for some sort of international action. America’s closest European allies put troops into Bosnia to try as best they could to maintain a flow of relief supplies. But Powell steadfastly resisted American involvement. He initially opposed even air drops of food, fearing that these would fail and that U.S. Army ground troops would inevitably be sucked in. His civilian bosses, who suspected him of padding the numbers when asked how many U.S. troops would be required, grew impatient. At one meeting, Madeleine Albright, then ambassador to the United Nations, famously confronted Powell. “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” she demanded. In his memoirs, Powell recalled that he told Albright that GI’s were “not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board.” An official who witnessed the exchange told NEWSWEEK that Powell also said something quite revealing that has not been reported. “You would see this wonderful society destroyed,” the general angrily told Albright. It was clear, said this official, that Powell was referring to his beloved Army.
The most serious charge of gamesmanship against Powell involves America’s brief and disastrous intervention into Somalia, the East African country torn apart by warring clans. By early 1992 half of Somalia’s 6 million people were starving. President Bush wanted to help the relief effort, but the Joint Chiefs under Powell warned the president that Somalia was a “bottomless pit.” Then in 1992 Bill Clinton unseated Bush. Suddenly the Pentagon changed its mind about Somalia. At a meeting on Nov. 21 at the White House, Powell’s No. 2, Adm. David Jeremiah, stunned everyone by announcing, “If you think U.S. forces are needed, we can do the job.”
What changed Powell’s mind? Some speculated that his humanitarian instincts had been touched. But Admiral Jeremiah had a different explanation. In a startlingly frank interview given to Jon Western, a State Department analyst-turned-academic, Jeremiah explained that Powell and the Joint Chiefs feared that the new president would force the Pentagon to intervene in the other crisis of the day–Bosnia. Delivering food to Somalia seemed less risky than mountain fighting in the Balkans. Going in big–with 30,000 troops–the military believed it could quickly establish order, then hand the job to the United Nations. The assumption proved naive.
In June the main Somali warlord, Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, for whom food was a weapon in his power struggle, ambushed a U.N. force, killing 24 Pakistanis. The United Nations called for a manhunt to track down Aidid. President Clinton later recalled that General Powell came to him to recommend that U.S. Special Forces be sent to Somalia to try to capture Aidid. The result was a debacle: a force of U.S. Rangers pinned down in a 10-hour gun battle, 18 killed, 75 wounded, and one captured–and searing photos of a bloody American corpse being dragged through Mogadishu.
In the recriminations that followed, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin was forced to resign. He was blamed for vetoing a request from the ground commander for some tanks that might have saved lives. Far more damaging, though–or so the Special Forces themselves believed–was Powell’s decision to deny their request for AC-130 gunships. Powell had retired only three days before the disaster. He has since acknowledged that Somalia was a mistake. But he has skillfully avoided any blame. “Teflon man,” said one of his four-star brethren, admiringly. Two years after the disaster, a Senate Armed Services Committee report asserted that Powell had “strongly opposed” sending special-operations forces to Somalia and only “reluctantly” complied with “civilian control.” Clinton was apoplectic. not so, he scribbled in the margin, it was his idea.
Powell benefits from the enormous good will he has earned as a charismatic hero who has overcome prejudice and devoted his life to service. The attitude of one former senior Foreign Service officer is typical: “Powell has a lot to answer for,” said this old Washington hand. “Still, I’m glad he’s secretary of State.” Powell brings enormous diplomatic skills to the job. He could be a commanding presence on the world stage. But first he has to prove that he has outgrown his Army uniform.
A Star’s Long Rise Through The Ranks
National-Security Adviser Powell’s stunning skills as a staff officer brought him to Ronald Reagan’s White House as national-security adviser in 1987. His job, he said, was to revive a “rudderless, drifting, demoralized” National Security Council.
Chairman, Joint Chiefs Of Staff Powell was the most powerful chairman ever, thanks to a 1986 law that let him alone give military advice to the White House. He wasn’t shy about giving political advice too. “I had been appalled at the docility of the Joint Chiefs of Staff” in Vietnam, he later wrote. His power was that he controlled all military information coming out of the Pentagon. When the gulf crisis began, he sought to limit U.S. military involvement and, later, to end the war quickly. In Bosnia, too, he sought to blunt the efforts of two presidents to engage the military, even opposing limited airstrikes. Later, in Somalia, he urged retaliation by U.S. Special Forces but withheld support gunships. Powell’s Biggest Headaches
The Mideast The Bush administration didn’t want to plunge in, but the region has become dangerously destabilized. Daily violence between Israelis and Palestinians threatens a wider conflict. Powell will have to find a new consensus for action against Saddam–probably by eliminating economic sanctions and just focusing on the WMD threat–and win back the Arabs, Europeans and Russians.
Europe and Russia Powell and Bush seek a strong U.S.-European alliance. But that will take a lot of diplomatic hand-holding. Some Europeans want an autonomous defense force; the administration and Congress say that plan threatens NATO. Along with the Russians, many Europeans oppose national-missile defense; the Bush administration is gung-ho for it.
North Korea North Korea declared last week it will not “indefinitely” observe its Clinton-era moratorium on nuclear-weapons and long-range-missile development. But Bush and Powell have said little about their plans for containing the threat from this hard-line communist state.
South America Powell’s nightmare could be the “Vietnamization” of a conflict between drug lords and authorities that pulls the United States in ever more deeply. The Bush administration wants to contribute U.S. military advisers and $1.3 billion to the war on narcotics production, called Plan Colombia.
