Overpowered By Scheer - The

Overpowered By Scheer - The Star Tribune Editorial Page is at it again - this time chiding Colin Powell:

One of the puzzles of America's war in Iraq has been the role of Secretary of State Colin Powell. When President Bush took office, many thought that Powell -- with his moderate views on social issues, his experience as the nation's top general and his leadership skills -- would be willing and able to dull the extreme worldviews of the more ideological people in the administration like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

And here we see the beginning of the new Democrat tack for the next few months: "The Administration is Extreme".

An administration that has triangulated much farther to the left than Bill Clinton ever did to the right, which has embraced Ted Kennedy and

He may have tried, and may still be trying, judging from the cat fights now taking place within the administration. But few can forget Powell's presentation on Iraq to the U.N. Security Council. He sounded so sure, and seemed to offer quality evidence. Many believed him -- and thus believed Bush.

This from an editorial board that believed Bill Clinton implicitly when he made exactly the same claims!

The paper begins deploying platoons of strawmen:

Hardly had Powell finished speaking, however, than large holes began to appear in the case he'd laid out. Over time, it has proven to be a case based on imagined dangers and flawed and exaggerated intelligence -- no case at all to justify a war. Why did Powell let himself be used in this way? Because he's a good soldier? In a case so crucial as Iraq, that won't wash. Because he was duped? That's hardly more flattering to Powell.

Of course, the Kay report tells us that the notion of "imagined dangers" was itself, perhaps, imaginary. The "exaggerations" in intelligence were those shared by Clinton, the UN, the French and Germans - everyone that mattered. Funny how the only way anyone knew the intel was "exaggerated" was when the US military proved it!

Now the Strib cuts to the chase:

Now comes more news that suggests Powell isn't the man many thought him to be. It's a yearlong State Department study that anticipated difficulties the United States would encounter in Iraq. Indeed, it anticipated many of the problems that have arisen during the U.S. occupation.

It was ignored.

Indeed? And why was it "ignored"?

We'll get to that.

Asked about the report during a TV interview, Powell said it was "a good, solid piece of work that was made available to the Pentagon." But what parts of the report the Pentagon put to use, Powell didn't know. Reporters would have to ask Rumsfeld about that.

Powell is secretary of state; the study was prepared in his department on his watch. He had more obligation than just to "make it available to the Pentagon."

Really?

What was Powell's "obligation?" To storm the Pentagon at the head of a team of crack State Department Report Enforcement Commandos?

More strawmen:

If Powell believed Rumsfeld was about to make mistakes that would put U.S. prestige and American troops at risk, he had an obligation to ensure everyone knew of the dangers that were being ignored. It appears that Powell failed to protect the country from what he knew was bad prewar intelligence and bad postwar planning.

"If" Powell believed..."

"It appears that Powell failed...

The Strib's editorial board's case is built on presuppositions that may or may not have any bearing on reality.

Back in July, an excellent Knight-Ridder article reported how badly the Pentagon planned for postwar Iraq. The small circle of Pentagon officials who dominated the discussion, it said, "didn't develop any real postwar plans because they believed that Iraqis would welcome U.S. troops with open arms and Washington could install a favored Iraqi exile leader as the country's leader. Pentagon civilians ignored CIA and State Department experts who disputed them, resisted White House pressure to back off from their favored exile leader and when their scenario collapsed amid increasing violence and disorder, they had no backup plan."

And so the US troops, without a backup plan, fled the country in panic. And the US abandoned Iraq to its horrible fate!

No, wait, they didn't! They adapted, and changed "the plan" that they had, and the political leaders maneuvered to reinforce their strengths and buttress their weaknesses - and six months later, while the likes of the Star Tribune Editorial Board continue second-guessing issues warmed over from June, the country at large is heading in the right direction and the guerrillas are limited to militarily and socially-insiginficant raids designed more to inflame the media than unseat the liberators.

Rumsfeld is an ideologue wearing blinders. At times, even his military commanders have had to go around Rumsfeld to make the point that the secretary's approach wasn't working.

Er, what part's not working?

Two wars in two years, won at staggeringly low cost in lives and materiel. Two nations liberated. Two years of no significant terrorist attacks on US soil, and only spoilers worldwide (albeit some of them costly).

But Powell isn't an ideologue. He was one person everybody hoped would serve as a consistent, moderate counterbalance in this administration. Again and again, however, he has failed to do that, to the nation's great regret.

Really?

The Nation's Great Regret?

Indeed?

OK, I'll appeal to my own readership; please show me this outpouring of "national regret" over Colin Powell's "failure" to rip the "ideological blinders" from Donald Rumsfeld?

And a note to the Strib Editorial Board (and I get lots of hits from the Star-Tribune offices, so I know someone over there is reading me) - did you write this? Or did you let one of your ninth-grade kids take a whack at the Editorial Machine over the weekend?

Posted by Mitch at October 27, 2003 08:52 AM