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[Adventurer]

Bushies 'used' Colin, wife sez

But Powell wouldn't quit - book

BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER


In new book, Colin Powell's wife is quoted saying White House took advantage of husband to sell Iraq invasion.

Colin Powell fought the Viet Cong, but he was no match for the Bush administration hard-liners who "used" his prestige to sell the Iraq war to the American people, his wife says.
In "Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell," Powell's wife, Alma, says the former secretary of state was "callously used to promote a war she wished had never happened," author Karen DeYoung writes.

"They needed him to do it because they knew people would believe him," she told DeYoung, an editor at the Washington Post.

Colin Powell, who was interviewed by DeYoung six times at length, expressed reservations about invading Iraq but never considered quitting in protest once President Bush decided to go to war.

"I supported him," he said. "I can't go on long patrol and then say, 'Never mind.'"

Old soldiers like Powell "didn't quit when they disagreed with the decisions of their commanders," writes DeYoung.

Powell has called his prewar speech to the United Nations accusing Iraq of hiding weapons of mass destruction a "blot" on his record.

Just as her colleague Bob Woodward does in "State of Denial," DeYoung describes a White House riven by rivalries - with Powell and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on one side and Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on the other.

"Armitage thought simple jealousy had a lot to do with it," adds DeYoung.

DeYoung also writes that Powell believes Bush sees the Palestinian/Israeli struggle in "black and white" terms and called Rumsfeld's team "the JINSA crowd," a reference to the neoconservative Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

Originally published on October 6, 2006

[Gopher]

I think that Powell's wife is absolutely correct. But, if one is skilled at reading Washington politics between the lines, this has been clear since Powell's resignation as SecState.