"I don't think we had enough force there to impose order," he said on ITV's Jonathan Dimbleby program.
"The aftermath turned out to be much more difficult than anyone had anticipated," said Powell, adding he had favored a larger military presence to deal with the unforeseen.
"I made the case to General (Tommy) Franks, to (Defense) Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld and to the president that I was not sure we had enough troops," Powell said. But he said the military leaders felt they had the appropriate number.
Powell has apparently cast his lot with the other half dozen or so retired generals who have lately seen fit to criticize Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld, and by extension, the President, for the conduct of the war in Iraq.
I’m not sure what to make of Powell’s specific assertion here, and his seeming abandonment of the President he served. But I do know that if Powell is not quite content to retire quietly to private life, there are a couple of pertinent questions that he should address the next time he ventures in front of a microphone and a TV camera.
The first such question regards his role in advising President Bush (41) against finishing the job in Iraq in 1991 after Operation Desert Storm. In one sense or another, we have been at war with Saddam Hussein since that time, and for that fact, and the necessity of the current invasion and subsequent event in Iraq General Powell surely must bear some measure of responsibility.
Second, as former Secretary of State, General Powell ought to address his own failure to get permission from Turkey allowing the Army’s 4th ID direct and immediate access to northwest Iraq and south to the Sunni triangle as originally planned. Instead, after that last minute diplomatic failure, those troops had to be transported all the way around the Saudi peninsula and back up through Kuwait before they were deployed in the field. Had Powell and the State Department not failed with the Turks, there is every likelihood that the “insurgency” that everyone seems so concerned with today might not have had the chance to get started, since the troops necessary to quell it would have been right there, rather than some 6 weeks away.
General Colin Powell is one of the most capable officers and most astute political leaders to ever wear the uniform of the United State Army. He is a genuine American hero and a man of vital importance in our nation’s history. That said, his record is clearly not without its own question marks. And if he chooses raise questions himself, as is his right, he should not be considered immune to answering some himself.
Incidentally, my review this evening was only cursory, but I could find no reference in General Tommy Franks’ book, American Soldier, to any of the concerns Powell says he raised with Franks or Rumsfeld.