San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Even in failure, Powell modeled character
In 1991, the Gulf War invaded America’s homes via 24-hour cable news.
Commentators narrated updates as the screen flashed with fuzzy green night vision footage, groups of soldiers in desert camouflage, fighter jets roaring into the darkness and oil smoke veiling the desert horizons.
The Gulf War coverage was the first time I’d heard of Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and one of the war’s faces. I was 13, and I remember his poise in the press briefings on television.
The run up to the Gulf War lasted six months, but the fighting only lasted 42 days. Powell, and other Vietnam-vet flag officers, such as Army Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Air Force Gen. Charles A. Horner, applied the lessons they’d learned in Southeast Asia decades before.
The operation had clear goals, public support, overwhelming force and an exit strategy, but the long-term impacts still echo. Desert Storm helped set in motion America’s ill-fated return to Iraq in 2003.
Now, in the aftermath of Powell’s passing and the shadow of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the videos of his 30-year-old Gulf War press conferences hit differently.
He briefed with Dick Cheney, the secretary of defense.
They’re optimistic, controlled and even joke with the media.
Like a warrior professor, Powell’s even-keeled presentations instilled confidence and trust. The objective, he said, is “simply to eject the Iraqi army from Kuwait.”
The general would turn to his easels with paper maps and point to Iraqi bases and air defenses throughout Mesopotamia. Americans would go to many of these places again 12 years later.
During those years, the maps stayed the same, but the people changed. By 2003, Powell was secretary of state and Cheney was vice president.
In the run up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Powell warned President George W. Bush, “if you break it, you own it.” He urged the president to avoid war and take the concerns to the United Nations. Not long after that, Powell found himself preparing to make the case to the U.N.
Vietnam and Gulf War memories must have barraged him as he reviewed the intelligence and prepared his speech.
On Feb. 5, 2003, at the U.N. Security Council, Powell pointed to different charts and images about the same place he’d briefed about years before. This time he spoke about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and links to al-Qaida to make the case for a new Iraq war.
Powell carried the same composure, concern and professionalism. He was convincing.
We watched the speech from an office on Randolph Air Force Base, not fully realizing what it would mean.
One of his slides is titled, “Iraq, Failing to Disarm, Denial and Deception.”
Three words stick out: Iraq, denial and deception.
The video from that day hits differently now, too.
Now we know about the flawed intelligence that led to the nearly nine-year odyssey. We also know of the brutal costs — an estimated 190,000 killed, including 4,505 Americans, thousands wounded and $2.2 trillion spent.
The storied general-turneddiplomat helped pave the path to a war that broke his own rules, and he regretted the
speech, which he saw as a “blot” on his record.
Powell did more than most to slow the slide to war, but in the end, it wasn’t enough. There’s no way to tell if he or anyone could have derailed the endeavor.
Since 2003, more than 1 million Americans, myself included, served in Iraq. The war forever changed a generation of Americans. While some pundits and politicians have long criticized Powell, I’ve never heard military people disparage him.
He was a leader and patriot whose decades of service to the country broke barriers and
shaped the armed forces we have today. His wisdom will live on.
The episode is a lesson in accountability. Powell had the courage and integrity to acknowledge his mistakes, which ultimately reinforced his character, credibility and life of service.
That’s an example we all can learn from.