Posted on 9/1/2002, 12:55:31 PM by Brian Mosely
Saturday, Aug. 31, 2002 Secretary of State Colin Powell has been a good soldier in public, even as he has had to fight for every small victory against Administration hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. But he has privately grown more frustrated, and now, sources close to Powell tell Time, he has a firm plan for his exit: he will step down at the end of President Bush’s current term. “He will have done a yeoman’s job of contributing over the four years,” says a close aide. “But that’s enough.” The aide says Powell’s view of the matter is, “I did what my heart told me to do. I got (Bush) here and set him up. I did the best I could do.” If Bush wins a second term, only the imminence of a major diplomatic victory—in the Middle East, for example—could induce him to stay a short while longer. By the same token, the aide stresses that Powell is determined to serve out the entire term—even if the U.S. launches an invasion of Iraq, which Powell has fought to delay or derail.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher repeated Powell’s public assertion that he has no intention of leaving. “He serves at the pleasure of the President,” Boucher said. A Powell exit could cause political problems for the Republicans. The loss of his moderating voice would embolden the hard-liners and hurt the party’s efforts to broaden its base. And those who dream of a Powell presidential candidacy in 2008 have little cause for hope. Powell, the aide says, will “never run for President.”
Saudi Minister: "Constantinople."
Don't let the door hit you in the a$$ on the way out!
LONDON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday that Washington wanted the "first step" toward solving the Iraq crisis to be the return of weapons inspectors to assess President Saddam Hussein's arms capability. http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=1396163
He is a great disappointment.
The defeat of terrorism requires the toughest resolve within our leaders. We cannot defeat terrorism with appeasers like Colin Powell. Terrorists must be killed. They take advantage of appeasement and see it as weakness. Terrorists retreat only from flying bullets and the gallows. We need tough people to lead the effort to destroy these barbarians. Colin Powell is not one of that kind.
Where were all these people -- Powell included -- back in 98 when Saddam Hussein kicked the inspectors out of Iraq? Seems to me the world reaction was "Oh, well..." Obviously, these whiners' goals are to pacify world opinion while they do NOTHING.
Don't let the door hit you in the a$$ on the way out!
Hey, Colonel, sir, before responding any further read this:
Powell has been, throughout his career, a proponent of a strong national defense, an extensive military presence overseas and, more generally, a unique American role in the world. He supported the Star Wars program in the 1980s and resisted relaxing the ban on gays in the military in the 1990s. His spectacular military career took him steadily from officers training at City College of New York to four-star general. Yet as he readily acknowledges, most of the key steps in his separate, parallel rise through Washington's foreign policy establishment were in Republican administrations. He was introduced to future Republican leaders as a White House fellow under Richard Nixon, became national security adviser under Reagan and was named chairman of the Joint Chiefs under George H.W. Bush.
And this:
Yet over the years, the right wing has displayed some ambivalence about Powell. Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official whose staunch pro-defense views put him at the far right of the political spectrum, recalls ruefully what happened when he agreed to argue against Powell's presidential candidacy on a 1995 television talk show about Powell's record on defense and foreign policy issues. Gaffney forgot to ask who would be on the pro-Powell side of the debate. When he arrived at the studio the next morning, he discovered his mentor, former boss and fellow hawk Richard Perle, glowering at him; Perle was there to defend Powell's record on national security.
I've met General Powell and you cannot ask for a finer example of a man or American in this country. Read the rest of the article here
Regards.
It is his department that has been unable to stop illegal visas do to self destructive PC policies. Powell has never understood the need for responsible intolerance accompanied with compassionate tolerance.
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