her mouth: rumsfeld’s words (1.27.2005)

The president has done the unthinkable—he has allowed
or maybe even quietly recommended that Secretary of
State Colin Powell resign from office. He will be replaced
by the new appointee, Condoleeza Rice. Powell was the
most stable and diplomatic member of the president’s
first-term cabinet. Now, with him out of the picture,
Bush seemingly has an easier path ahead if he plans
to continue using preemptive military measures globally.

For the record, Bush is hawkish and has managed
to surround himself with similarly-minded people.
Unlike Rice, Powell was a free thinker and was able
to view U.S. foreign policy and domestic needs from
an international perspective. This means that through
such practical thinking, he operated unintentionally
in a position antagonistic to the president and U.S.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Powell, being articulate and polite, was able to point
out the incessant blunders of the likes of Rumsfeld
and the former U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Brimmer
—who outlawed unions, closed newspapers and disbanded
the Iraqi military, not to mention went in without
the required military power, and entered without a
plan for keeping the peace after occupation.

With Powell gone, there will also be few–if any–people
in the cabinet willing to point out the president’s mistakes and
provide an alternative position to some of the views that he
has. Rice will be less likely to challenge the president. After
all, she was a close confidante of the president while he was
running for office. In addition, she had the advantage of being
a close friend as well, something that Powell was not.

So in the future, when you see the new Secretary of
State on television or quoted in the news, you better
believe it will be her lips that will be moving; however, the
words will be those of Donald Rumsfeld. --torrance stephens