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View Full Version : Rift between Powell, Cheney remains



thedrifter
11-24-02, 06:52 AM
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
The New York Times



ASHINGTON - As Secretary of State Colin L. Powell recalls it, he and Vice President Dick Cheney had many friendly disagreements under the first President Bush. One dispute involved Powell's proposal to deactivate thousands of small, artillery-fired nuclear weapons in Europe and elsewhere.

Cheney, then the defense secretary, told Powell, who was then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that not one of his civilian policy aides favored such a step. "That's because they're all right-wing nuts like you," Powell says he replied, jokingly.

The story, recounted in Powell's memoirs, illustrates that the philosophical discord becoming increasingly obvious in the current Bush administration has deep roots in the last.

Hawk vs. dove, unilateralist vs. multilateralist, whatever one calls these disagreements, few experts think they will go away. In fact, the divide in the administration is likely to affect not only future choices on Iraq but on North Korea, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians, and military issues like missile defense.

Whatever the debate, White House officials say, Bush likes to hear conflicting opinions, though he expects them to remain private.

Administration officials describe the relationship between Powell and Cheney as cordial but sometimes uneasy. The two do not see each other socially as often as Cheney sees Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a friend since the 1970s.

Moreover, many diplomats passing through Washington maintain that to do business with the administration, they must check in with the vice president's office.

More internal disagreements are expected in coming weeks and months over Iraq. Cheney, who was highly skeptical of Powell's proposal to seek a Security Council resolution to send inspectors to Baghdad, will probably disagree again over whether to ask for Security Council approval before using military force, officials and diplomats predict.

"This a profound philosophical argument that may come up again and again," said a Western diplomat close to Powell. "At issue is whether the United States should continue to operate through the international system or go it alone. Powell is keeping the hard-liners at bay."

Another potential flashpoint internally could involve the Bush administration's stance that Iraqi firing on U.S. planes enforcing the ban on flights is also a "material breach" of Security Council resolutions, and therefore grounds for military retaliation. Similarly, disagreements could flare over how to respond if Iraq submits a false list of its weapons sites to inspectors next month. At a NATO conference in Europe with Bush, Powell again warned last week that if the declaration of sites was "patently false" and if Iraq impeded inspectors, the president was "fully ready" to use military force. But unless Iraq does something egregious or provocative, like shooting down a U.S. plane, diplomats and administration officials predict that Powell is likely to counsel patience and consultation with the United Nations first.

Last week there was talk in Washington about whether a new book by Bob Woodward, "Bush at War," would weaken or strengthen Powell's standing. The book depicts the secretary as having won over the president with his plea to pursue diplomacy on Iraq and to seek war only as a last resort.

Some in the administration say Bush is uneasy with what he regards as self-promotion by his aides. He is known to refer to Powell, with a teasing edge, as the world's greatest hero. This month, Bush joked in a private meeting with Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general, that the United States could have paid up all its U.N. dues with the cost of 150 well-publicized telephone calls that it made while negotiating the recent resolution on Iraq.

The situation is similar to the one of 1990. After Iraq invaded Kuwait, aides to the elder George Bush disagreed over what sort of threat the invasion represented. Powell was among those who reacted cautiously, opposing force to repel Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Instead, he favored using troops to defend Saudi Arabia from attack, according to various memoirs and accounts.

Cheney, while initially cautious, quickly swung around to favor military force, showing impatience with Powell for failing to present options for pushing Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

Later, both Cheney and Brent Scowcroft, then the national security adviser, prodded Powell and the military to be more creative in attacking Iraqi forces.

Another internal division occurred over diplomatic tactics in the last war. In 1990, Cheney opposed seeking authorization to use force from either Congress or the United Nations, fearing that failure to get a resolution would weaken the United States' standing. That position foreshadowed his stance this year.

Perhaps the most traumatic long-term effect of the war occurred over the inconclusive way it ended, with an ejection of Iraqis from Kuwait but with Saddam Hussein still in power.

Powell opposed sending troops to Baghdad at the end of the war in 1991, not only because he feared an "annihilation" of Iraqi troops but because he thought the "conquest and occupation" of Iraq would create instability in the region and was unlikely to be supported by Americans. These latter factors are still cited by many who oppose a war today, and some associates say they still are part of Powell's thinking.

Many conservatives in and out of the administration today regard the failure to move on Baghdad as the war's fatal error, which they hope can be corrected with a new invasion. In 1993, Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was an aide to Cheney in the Pentagon during the Gulf War and is now deputy secretary of defense, wrote that it was a mistake to announce that U.S. troops would not go to Baghdad before the war was over.

Although no one says so for quotation, some in the administration remain bitter about Powell and fear that his devotion to the United Nations has made a war impossible in the short term.

In his memoirs, Powell recalled that he took a "pounding" after Woodward's book "The Commanders" portrayed him as a "reluctant warrior." The elder Bush called to offer his support, he wrote, but "I heard nothing from my boss, Dick Cheney."

Part of him felt that Cheney wanted him to be "cut down to size," he wrote. Another part felt that Cheney believed that if "you get into trouble in this league, you get yourself out." But for all the similarities between the arguments of 1990-91 and today, there are also enormous differences.

Cheney now has many allies in the administration, and Powell is said to have not quite so many, though the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, supported him on the United Nations, officials say.

The vice president has Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was an aide to Cheney in the Pentagon during the Gulf War and is now deputy secretary of defense. And the younger Bush is widely described as more sympathetic to their views than his father was.

By contrast, the secretary of state's most influential allies are outside the administration, particularly Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, who favors a tough approach on Iraq but also strenuous diplomacy to try to avoid a war. Diplomats at the United Nations say they tried to broker a deal on a resolution this month to strengthen Powell's hand against his rivals in the administration.

Some experts say the biggest contrast between the situation now and in 1990-91 relates to the rationale for war. The first President Bush mobilized the world by invoking the principle that nothing justifies one nation's invading another. The current President Bush is trying to rally the world around the principle a pre-emptive invasion is sometimes justified- an admittedly hard sell for Powell.

"Colin Powell has defined for himself a very specific role as secretary of state," says a colleague from the first Bush administration. "That role will always be to press for diplomatic solutions. It's his mission. He won't change.


Sempers,

Roger