or just part of the good cop - bad cop routine? Today's WaPo has an article re Powell and WMD entitled
Powell Expresses Doubts About Basis for Iraqi Weapons Claim .
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell voiced new doubt yesterday on the administration's assertions of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, saying the description in his U.N. presentation of mobile biological weapons laboratories appears to have been based on faulty sources.
(...) "Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid," Powell said yesterday. "But at the time I was preparing that presentation it was presented to me as being solid."
Powell, who asked Tenet to sit behind him during the speech to demonstrate CIA backing for the facts cited in it, stressed yesterday that "I'm not the intelligence community." He said that "it was presented to me in the preparation of that as the best intelligence and information that we had."
"I made sure, as I said in my presentation, these were multi-sourced," Powell said. "And that was the most dramatic of them, and I made sure it was multi-sourced. Now, if the sources fell apart, then we need to find out how we've gotten ourselves in that position. I've had discussions with the CIA about it."
Add to this 'concern' buzzing about Woodward's profile of Powell in his forthcoming book, "Plan of Attack" (fascinating media column, btw, from Frank Rich in the IHT discussing books vs TV) and refusal to dis Richard Clarke (on the News Hour) and one gets a picture of a non-neocon embellishing his image as that of reasonable statesman. Contrast Powell with McCain, for example, who has defended Kerry, and most recently the Democratic Party. He's the classic off-the-reservation Repub, who is a loose cannon as far as Junior is concerned. Hagel might be another. They are bi-partisan in defending John Kerry, one of the band of brothers. Powell is strictly defending himself.
With the return of Karen Hughes, expect more from Powell and (to the extent they can) less of McCain in forthcoming days. As Rich notes all too well,
But print, even best-selling print, doesn't matter much in the 21st-century American arena. The Bush administration's game was to keep these revelations away from the center stage of wall-to-wall TV coverage. To this end, it succeeded in blocking the formation of the 9/11 commission for a year. Then it threw every conceivable roadblock in its path, from Henry Kissinger (the original appointee as chairman) to delays in providing documents and testimony. That the investigation got going anyway is a tribute not to Clarke, the Democrats or any journalist but to the telegenic clout of the
9/11 families. Like all victims of horrific crimes, they are sought after as television "gets" in a culture that likes up-close-and-personal TV replays of tragedies. The families used their many on-air minutes to keep pushing for a commission until the White House had to cry uncle.
Expect Powell to be used as the soft face of Imperialism, just as Hughes pushes the soft face of 'compassionate conservatism' while Powell allows himself to be out there in his own interest of somehow rescuing his reputation from the ash-heap of history. And with Hughes' assistance, expect television to be his chosen medium. They both have a stake in Colin's rep. Bush can't win without it.