Another book is on the way. This one by Karen DeYoung from the Washington Post to be released October 10th titled “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell.”
The Washington Post has a long excerpt today. It describes in detail the lead-up to Powell’s speech to the UN prior to the invasion of Iraq. But I find the first few paragraphs to be the most revealing.
ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2004, eight days after the president he served was elected to a second term, Secretary of State Colin Powell received a telephone call from the White House at his State Department office. The caller was not President Bush but Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and he got right to the point.
“The president would like to make a change,” Card said, using a time-honored formulation that avoided the words “resign” or “fire.” He noted briskly that there had been some discussion of having Powell remain until after Iraqi elections scheduled for the end of January, but that the president had decided to take care of all Cabinet changes sooner rather than later. Bush wanted Powell’s resignation letter dated two days hence, on Friday, November 12, Card said, although the White House expected him to stay at the State Department until his successor was confirmed by the Senate….
The president himself made no contact with Powell after Card’s call. For two days, the only person at the State Department Powell told about it was his deputy and friend of decades, Richard Armitage. Powell dropped off his resignation letter, as instructed, after typing it himself on his home computer. (The White House later pointed out a typo and sent it back to be redone.) Loath to reveal either surprise or insult, he used the letter to claim the decision to leave as his own.
So we add to the news coming from Woodward’s book about the Bush Team’s denial and incompetence that they fired the one person who might have had an ounce of integrity left (I know he had squandered most of his integrity at the UN that day – but compared to Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld, he’s a paragon of virtue).
Folks are talking – that seems obvious. Wonder what’s prompting all of this? My guess would be a real fear that the nutjobs need to be stopped from the colossal mistake that an attack on Iran would be.
