What the Hell Happened, Sir?

By Warren Whipple
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Wednesday 22 February 2006

Liberal Democrats, these days, are mad about a lot of things. They think that the Democrats in Congress haven't done enough to oppose the Republican agenda. They're mad about the prescription drug plan and they're mad about the Patriot Act.

But mostly, they're mad about The War. Not the one in which we went after al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and quit too early. The other one. The stupid one.

They look at the Democratic leadership in Washington and they consider that they are every bit as responsible, via their complicity, for the devastation and war crimes and abject travesty that this invasion has become as the Bush administration.

It's a tough point to argue. I think we've got some fantastic, brilliant Democratic leaders in Congress, in both houses. But the fact is, they did sort of roll over and die and let what was such an obvious boondoggle go ahead, with their support.

Why did we fall for it? How in the world could so many otherwise coherent liberals get so fooled? I count myself among them. At the same time I felt it was bogus, I didn't hit the streets in protest over invading Iraq at first. Why?

My little brain keeps spinning around and I keep coming back to the same answer and I don't like it. It's unnerving, uncomfortable, and the kind of idea that the mind just wants to reject out of hand because it's just too difficult to grasp.

It wasn't Bush's 16 words, and it wasn't any connection to 9/11. I think that the main reason Bush was able to get away with getting us into this war was that Colin Powell said that we had to.

Powell's presentation to the UN was not intended to impress the UN (It didn't, by the way.). That speech was for us. That speech was to sell this war to Americans, and it worked.

Powell had become such an icon, the closest thing to a hero that our country had seen in a long time, that it was simply not possible to not believe him. He was so respected and admired on both sides of the aisle that it was patently inconceivable that he could sit up there and lie to us.

Could Colin Powell have lied to us?

Making Powell Secretary of State was the most important thing that Bush did to legitimize his administration. In spite of all the party hacks and cronies and ex-Senators who had lost to dead people, the General was there, and he had that magic effect. He made you feel like somehow, in the end, everything would be all right.

Powell's name had been bandied about as a Presidential candidate with bipartisan support. When's the last time that happened? He had a dignity, an aura of integrity, a sort of a moral righteousness (the real kind, not the fake Pat Robertson kind) that literally glowed around him.

So when he spoke that day, even if you didn't really buy all the evidence, the creative part of the brain would kick in and fill in the blanks. Surely he knows more information that he can't tell us. It's top secret, right? That's Colin Powell up there, for Pete's sake! If he says we need to invade Iraq, then who am I to disagree?

And so we went to war.

Even today, it's hard for people to wrap their heads around this. We want to believe that Powell was fooled, too. We want so badly to believe that he really didn't know that the Italian Intelligence documents about the yellowcake sale from Niger were forged. We want to believe that he wasn't told that German Intelligence had already discredited "Curveball" and his story about the mobile biological weapons factories. We want to believe that he actually thought that that meeting between an al-Qaeda operative and an Iraqi official was somehow significant.

We need to believe. This is painful.

It is time for the General to talk to us. His ex-Chief of Staff has been all over the place, dissing the Rumsfeld-Cheney-Rove "cabal," but the General has been very quiet. If his Chief of Staff had reason to suspect that intelligence might be being manipulated to fit a political agenda, might not he have as well? If they suspected something was amiss as far away as Downing Street, could he have been that far out of the loop?

Colin Powell has had an incredible and very distinguished career. If ever someone in this country, in modern times, who isn't Jimmy Carter, had achieved the status of almost being completely above reproach, it is him.

But it would be tragic if his legacy were largely those stupid aluminum pipes he went on and on about (which is right up there with duct tape, now). There is no doubt in my mind that that speech was the single most important event in putting the pieces of the puzzle together toward leading us into the invasion of Iraq.

The country bought it. The Democrats bought it. I bought it.

But it wasn't true, and there are some questions to be asked that only the General himself can answer. This is not about letting anybody off the hook, on either side of the aisle. It's just about setting the record straight.

Is it possible that Powell, being the good soldier that he has always been, may have had reservations but followed the orders of his Commander in Chief? Is it possible that the "cabal" was able to keep him in the dark? Is it remotely possible (and I cringe, too) that he was in on it?

Colin Powell has always been one of those people who has always been there for his country when we needed him.

Well, Sir, this is one of those times. With all due respect, what the hell happened?

We need to hear it from you.

Warren Whipple is a freelance writer in Austin, Texas, a little blue island in a big red sea.