INSPIRATIONAL - RIVETING - VINDICATING

Please take time and skim over this at least, whenever you get a chance. I'm not trying to change your mind, or claim that I was right. I just love to dialogue, hear opposing views, and debate. I always knew he stepped away from this administration because in a sense he felt "used", but at least he owns up to the errors that "he" made, and he really didn't point the finger at anyone either.

If only others were so forthcoming, we could probably begin to heal some of the wounds and forge ahead to a better tomorrow for the human race, not just our country. Lead by example, don't promote fear based initiatives, accept other nations for what they are but hold them accountable "if/when" they infringe on the rights of others, and never ever take a position where we are above dialogue/diplomacy.On another note, I heard the firm has gone through another wave of layoffs today.... Bad business man. May God help us all.......... ***************************************************************************GQ ICON: COLIN POWELL
He was pushed aside in the run-up to war, but as he tells Walter Isaacson, he, too, bears some of the blame
Interview by Walter Isaacson; Photograph by Martin Schoeller

“I’m a former everything,” Colin Powell jokes as he relaxes in his office in Alexandria, just across the Potomac from Washington. Indeed, he is a former national-security adviser, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former secretary of state. But before he was a former, he was a first: the first black to serve in any of those roles. And he may also, still, be a future. He turned 70 this year and makes a solid living these days giving speeches and serving on advisory boards, but he does not rule out a return to public service.


As secretary of state, when he was caught in policy struggles with Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, his smile often looked tense, pasted on his face. But when he smiles now, his eyes smile as well, and he is clearly more relaxed, as though he realizes that history is proving him right about the bureaucratic battles he lost. When I came to visit him on a quiet Friday afternoon earlier this summer, he was more relaxed than I’ve ever seen him. He exudes the genial courtesy of someone who is comfortable in his own skin, and he has none of the insecurity that in Washington often gets displayed as assertions of ego. He settled in on a couch, produced a couple of cans of Diet Coke, and started talking about his life, the changes he’s seen in America, and the current situation in Iraq.
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In reflecting on the changes in America that have occurred in your lifetime, how important to you and the nation was President Truman’s executive order integrating the armed services in 1948? Black people had served for 300 years, going back to the early Massachusetts militia. They had served the nation even when the nation had not served them. They chose a way to show their commitment to the nation, and that was to shed the same red blood that their white fellow citizens had shed. They did it time after time, through every one of our wars. And they did it knowing that while in the military, they would be discriminated against.
Truman changed that by executive order, because he knew that Congress would not approve it. When I came along in 1958, I hit the right timing. The army was leading the nation in integration. I was from a diverse neighborhood where everybody was a minority, and so I didn’t feel like a minority. All of us were immigrant-family kids from the West Indies or Eastern Europe or the South or Puerto Rico. And we called each other by our minority names, which you can’t use anymore. So when I entered the army, which then had essentially a white Episcopalian power structure, I had an advantage over some of the blacks who came out of the South. These were young men who had never been around the white power structure except to say “yes, suh.” And they were suddenly in an integrated environment. For them, the cultural change and the power-relationship change was shocking. They had never been to a lunchroom counter or a workplace or a school that was not segregated. They had been raised in an environment where white was power and black was not. It was a lot harder for them, yet many prevailed. I had the right mixture of diversity and education to enter a system that now said, You can go wherever you want inside the army as long as you can perform.
Do you consider yourself a beneficiary of affirmative action?The army wouldn’t be what it is if it hadn’t practiced affirmative action. People ask me, “Did you make general on the basis of affirmative action?” No, I didn’t. I did so on my record. But Clifford Alexander [the first black secretary of the army] was pushing affirmative action, and I get tagged with it.
Tagged with it? Do you consider being the beneficiary of affirmative action a negative thing?No! When I got command of a brigade in the 101st Airborne, one of my white friends said, “Dammit, some of the guys are saying that you’re the only one of us who got a brigade, and you got it because you’re black.” And I said, “Don’t worry about it. I don’t care how I got it—I got it. And the only thing the army is going to measure me on is, am I a good brigade commander. And that’s all I ask.”
Do you still support affirmative action?I have always supported affirmative action. I believe there is still a place for it. I spoke at the 1996 Republican convention in San Diego with my friend Ward Connerly [a black opponent of affirmative action] sitting in the audience. He had warned me that he would walk out if I made any reference to affirmative action. And when I did express my support for it, I looked right at him, and he didn’t move. Affirmative action is a concept that is probably not a growth industry. I’m glad it will eventually go away. But when I go to these inner-city neighborhoods, including across the street here in the Washington area, you can’t tell me these kids have the same opportunity that other kids have or that my kids have. Is it because they’re black that these kids are at a disadvantage? To some extent no, to some extent yes. We can’t deny it. Therefore, to the extent that we still believe it appropriate to provide some way of balancing the legacy of the past, I think we have an obligation to do so.
Going back to Truman’s executive order that the armed services must not discriminate based on race, do you foresee a president being able to do the same for gays?The military is unique, and it has rules that are different from any other institution. We had a policy that did not permit gays and lesbians to serve. Then President Clinton came in and told us he wanted to take a look at it. He never told us to change it, despite what people think. I was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and told him that we’re not just a bunch of old generals who cannot see the future. It’s more than that. It’s a problem with ministers in the armed services from denominations that have objections to homosexuality. Also, we will have problems in our housing communities. The military tells you who you’re going to share your bunk space with, and we’re having enough of a challenge with just two sexes, men and women. The armed forces are not ready for this.
We came up with “don’t ask, don’t tell,” which is still a discriminatory policy. It is prejudicial. But this is the army, this isn’t the Aspen Institute or a university or the State Department. Maybe it’s discriminatory, but that’s what we thought was best for good order and discipline.
Aren’t some of these arguments similar to those Truman probably heard, and rejected, from military leaders who wanted to retain racial discrimination?I think skin color is a rather benign characteristic which defines us one way, but I think our sex characteristic is far more fundamental and more difficult to reconcile in the context of barracks living. And we are not getting all of our recruits from the most, shall we say, liberal and open-minded parts of our society.
It’s now fourteen years later, the country has changed, and the day may well come when it will not be a problem any longer. But I’m not sure that day has come, and I have to rely on the judgment of the officers who are running our armed forces.
But do you think that day will come?I think sooner or later it will come.
Your hero General George Marshall, when he was secretary of state, oversaw the creation of amazing new institutions and doctrines—NATO, the Marshall Plan—to deal with the global threat posed by Soviet Communism. Now that we’re faced with new global threats, what type of creative responses would he and his wise men be devising?To some extent, he faced a more dangerous threat, and it was an easier one to work with. There was one identifiable enemy that was on the other side of an identifiable terrain feature. It was state versus state. They were able to put in place state-based structures.
Isn’t the new global threat we face even more dangerous?What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it’s terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?
I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there—ones that we can take advantage of? It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists.
So you think we are getting too hunkered down and scared?Yes! We are taking too much counsel of our fears.
This doesn’t mean there isn’t a terrorist threat. There is a threat. And we should send in military forces when we have a target to deal with. We should also secure our airports, if that makes us safer. But let’s welcome every foreign student we can get our hands on. Let’s make sure that foreigners come to the Mayo Clinic here, and not the Mayo facility in Dubai or somewhere else. Let’s make sure people come to Disney World and not throw them up against the wall in Orlando simply because they have a Muslim name. Let’s also remember that this country was created by immigrants and thrives as a result of immigration, and we need a sound immigration policy.
Let’s show the world a face of openness and what a democratic system can do. That’s why I want to see Guantánamo closed. It’s so harmful to what we stand for. We literally bang ourselves in the head by having that place. What are we doing this to ourselves for? Because we’re worried about the 380 guys there? Bring them here! Give them lawyers and habeas corpus. We can deal with them. We are paying a price when the rest of the world sees an America that seems to be afraid and is not the America they remember.
You can drive up the road from here and come to a spot where there is a megachurch over here, a little Episcopal church over there, a Catholic church around the corner that’s almost cathedral-size, and between them is a huge Hindu temple. There are no police needed to guard any of this. There are not many places in the world where you would see that. Yes, there are a few dangerous nuts in Brooklyn and New Jersey who want to blow up Kennedy Airport and Fort Dix. These are dangerous criminals, and we must deal with them. But come on, this is not a threat to our survival! The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn’t do it to ourselves, and we shouldn’t use fear for political purposes—scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex.
One of your legacies to history will be what’s known as the Powell Doctrine. How do you define it?Essentially it says: Avoid war—and if that’s not possible, and it’s necessary to use arms to solve a political problem, then do it in a decisive way. You remove as much doubt as you can about the outcome. In addition, you need to have a clearly defined mission, and you must have some understanding of how it’s going to end.
When the first Gulf War came along, I told President Bush [the elder] that when we had 250,000 troops in the region, we could defend Saudi Arabia from an Iraqi invasion. But if he wanted to kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait, then General Schwarzkopf will need an additional 250,000 troops. Everybody gasped. And I told the president exactly how we would use them all, and he agreed.
We also had a clear mission, which was to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait. And that’s how we built a coalition with almost every other country in the world. We thought through where it was going to end. We said we wanted to leave Iraq with enough of an army so that it is not threatened by Iran. And we want to accomplish the mission we were given, which is getting the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. We were not interested in taking down the government. It was never our mission to go to Baghdad. For twelve years, I had to listen to criticism about that part of the plan. I don’t hear it criticized too much now.
The current Iraq war seems to have violated almost all of these precepts. We talked about this before the war.The military presented its plans, and I was secretary of state, so it wasn’t really my role, but I said it didn’t seem to me that the plans called for enough force to impose our will or enough troops to deal with the problems that might come up. After one of the meetings, I felt strongly enough about it that I took the liberty to call General Tommy Franks [the regional commander] directly—something I shouldn’t have done, but I did. I said, “Let’s talk general-to-general.” I said, “I have my doubts as to whether or not you have enough force to execute.” And Tommy said, “Well, I think we do, Mr. Secretary.” And then he immediately called Don Rumsfeld, which he should have. And Don correctly said, “It’s good that Colin has been up-front, and now let’s discuss it in front of the president.” And we did. The president heard from his military commanders and his joint chiefs of staff and his secretary of defense that they felt they had enough troops.
Were they right?They were right for the first part, the capture of Baghdad. And I never really had any question about the force needed for that. My question had been, “Have you guys really thought through the aftermath?” That’s what we hadn’t done. That was the big mistake. Don had written a list of the worst things that could happen, but we didn’t do the contingency planning on what we would do about it. So we watched those buildings get burned down, and nobody told the divisions, “Hey, go in there and declare martial law and whack a few people and it will stop.”
Then the insurgency started, and we didn’t acknowledge it. They said it wasn’t an insurgency. They looked up the definition. They said it was a few dead-enders! And so we didn’t respond in a way that might have stopped it. And then the civil war started at the beginning of last year. I call it a civil war, but some say no, it’s not a civil war, it’s a war against civilians. In fact, we have total civil disorder.
Do you think the surge makes sense?You can surge all of the American troops you want, but they can’t stop this. Suppose I’m a battalion commander. My troops ask, “What do I do today, boss?” “Let’s go fight the Shia militias!” “What do I do tomorrow?” “Let’s go fight the Sunni insurgents!” “What do I do the day after tomorrow?” “Let’s go chase Al Qaeda!” “What do we do the day after that?” “We’re going to guard streets!” Our kids are fantastic. But this is not sustainable. Our surge can work only with an Iraqi political and military surge.
Are you sorry you didn’t question things more forcefully?At the time, when I felt the president might not have focused on all the potential consequences, I said I needed to see him. I went to the White House and had a private session with him. I told him that we could knock over Saddam’s regime but he needed to understand what we would be faced with once we had done that. It was my “When you break it, you own it” speech. I said that this invasion would tie up the better part of 40 percent of our army for an indefinite period of time. It will be hugely expensive. You will be dealing with this for a long time to come. I said, “Take it to the U.N. See if we can get something from the U.N. that might allow us to avoid this war.” He said, “Let’s share this with the others.” And a few days later, we had a discussion with everyone, some by videoconference. They eventually agreed that we should take it to the U.N., some more willingly than others. Dick [Cheney] didn’t think it would work, and Don [Rumsfeld] I was not sure about, because you couldn’t always tell his opinion. Had I done my duty? I think so.
Do you feel responsible for giving the U.N. flawed intelligence?I didn’t know it was flawed. Everybody was using it. The CIA was saying the same thing for two years. I gave perhaps the most accurate presentation of the intelligence as we knew it—without any of the “Mushroom clouds are going to show up tomorrow morning” and all the rest of that stuff. But the fact of the matter is that a good part of it was wrong, and I am sorry that it was wrong.
Was it twisted?Not by me. What I used was the intelligence that was also available to everyone in the administration and to the Congress. Some of these senators are now presidential candidates who are saying they didn’t read the National Intelligence Estimate they had asked for. It is fair, however, to say that some members of the administration took the intelligence to a higher plane than it deserved.
You’ve met with Barack Obama a couple of times and given him advice. Is it possible that you will support him?I will give advice to any of the principal candidates. I’ve met with others, including John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Barack called me and came by, and we had a long talk. Right before he decided to run, we talked again about the presidency and the type of decisions and problems that come in the middle of the night. I think he’s a very impressive man, I think he’s very smart, and I think he’s going to be a formidable candidate.
Do you think he’d be a good president?I don’t want to start saying who would be a good president and who wouldn’t. I will say that I don’t see any among the major candidates who I think is unqualified to be president.
Would you be tempted to support Obama, even though he’s a Democrat, because he would be transformational?He is transformational because he is a black man who has become one of the leading candidates of a major party. That is exciting. It’s transformational. But am I going to support him? I am going to be for who I think is the best person. Not the best Republican, not the best Democrat, not the best black guy or the best woman. I’m going to try to figure out who could best serve this country. And that’s who I will be voting for.
You did not say that you would be inclined to support the Republican candidate.That’s right. I did not. Because I’ve been voting now for almost fifty years, and I’ve always supported the person I thought was best. I’ve voted Democratic, I’ve voted Republican. I’m going to vote for the best person.
Might you ever go back into public service, even as something such as education secretary?I’m not looking for work. I have a terrific life. But I could see going back into government again. I can see doing such things as chairing a commission. Just not anything that involves elective politics.
You’ve been involved with a lot of people doing business in China. Do you worry that the absence of democracy and the suppression of individual rights there make them more of a potential adversary than a partner?My friends in China tell me, “We know you love the idea of Jeffersonian democracy, but we don’t know how to manage 1.3 billion people using such a system, and we’re not going to try.” Their political system will become more liberal over time. But in my lifetime, it will not become what we call a democracy. And I’m not sure I lose any sleep over that. I want the 1.3 billion Chinese people under some kind of control that allows them to better their lives economically and not fall apart. We need to be patient.
Would you really bet on a country that feels it necessary to censor Google?China will not be censoring Google forever, and most Chinese teenagers know how to go to proxy servers, anyway. The Chinese leaders know they can’t block full access to the Internet forever, but they’re trying to control it.
Do you think that the Indian model, which is more democratic and allows more free thought, will end up working better?The Indians have had a democracy for the past sixty years. And they’re now starting to realize what it takes to be successful economically. They can’t move as fast as the Chinese, because they are such a great, large democracy. Great democracies have a lot of constituents that have to be heard and dealt with.
This seems to put you solidly in what is called the realist camp, rather than the idealistic school, of foreign policy.Yes. I can give you a lesson on Jeffersonian democracy that will bring tears to your eyes, but when I was doing business as the secretary of state, the word I used was reform, less so than democracy. When I dealt with the Arab world, we had several conferences on reform. The word democracy frightened them. As a Saudi leader said to me, “Colin, please, give us a break. Do you really want to see Jeffersonian democracy in Saudi Arabia? Do you know what would happen? Fundamentalists would win, and there wouldn’t be any more elections.” President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt would say the same thing. They all were saying, “Take a look at our history and where we are. You can talk to us about reform, but don’t tell us to become Jeffersonian democracies tomorrow. It’s not possible.”
So you think we should be a bit more on guard against arrogance when we pursue a democracy agenda?[laughs] Very good, very good. We have a tendency to lecture and perhaps not think things through. We have to be careful what we wish for. Are we happy with the democracy that Hamas gave us? There are some places that are not ready for the kind of democracy we find so attractive for ourselves. They are not culturally ready for it, they are not historically ready for it, and they don’t have the needed institutions.
How can we restore America’s image?We should remember what that image was, back after World War II. It was the image of a generous country that sought not to impose its will on other countries or even to impose its values. But it showed the way, and it helped other countries, and it opened its doors to people—visitors and refugees and immigrants.
America could not survive without immigration. Even the undocumented immigrants are contributing to our economy. That’s the country my parents came to. That’s the image we have to portray to the rest of the world: kind, generous, a nation of nations, touched by every nation, and we touch every nation in return. That’s what people still want to believe about us. They still want to come here. We’ve lost a bit of the image, but we haven’t lost the reality yet. And we can fix the image by reflecting a welcoming attitude—and by not taking counsel of our fears and scaring ourselves to death that everybody coming in is going to blow up something. It ain’t the case.
Walter Isaacson is CEO of the Aspen Institute and the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe, among other books.

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