# Could Colin Powell have stopped the Iraq war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535 "2013-03-21T14:36:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/21 "2013-03-23T13:48:53Z")
A more fervent war tocsin-beater than Powell was Christopher Hitchens, who had been converted to the NeoCon holy grail of interventionism as he witnessed the slaughter in the former Yogoslavia. During that conflict, Powell stood up to Madeline Albright’s “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” Apologists for Powell who say he was just capping a good soldier’s career by following his orders forget that he was committed to the doctrine of fighting only the right war at the right time. In fact, [the Godamn thing is named after him](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell_Doctrine). He was just as much a true believer as William Macnamara, post-retirement breast-beating notwithstanding ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/22 "2013-03-23T14:41:37Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > pretty much what soldiers are supposed to be, very obedient lapdogs with razor sharp teeth who will do what they’re told including rip people apart on master’s order. He was ACTING as a soldier, following orders, but he WAS a civilian, and as such was supposed to following policies he agreed with but resigning and making a public stink about those policies he believed strongly to be dangerously destructive and utterly wrongheaded. > [@](#): > > I find it disturbing that by his own account he “opposed” the war by merely emphasizing the difficulties and costs, and apparently never expressed an actual opinion by telling the president he thought it was a bad idea. Yeah, that’s not opposition. It’s CYA–if the war went swimmingly, then he could claim he was merely illustrating a worst case scenario. > [@](#): > > Also, if he expected GW to be swayed by facts, he was a terrible judge of character.[/ Here’s a fact Bush might have found persuasive: “Mr. President, if you don’t call off this war immediately, I will resign and I will express my reasons publicly until you do call it off.” Maybe not, but using his public reputation for honesty in the anti-war cause might have–MIGHT have–galvanized the anti-war movement. Now that reputation is shot anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/23 "2013-03-23T14:55:59Z")
> [@](#): > > But here is my problem with this. At the time, didn’t everyone, and I mean everyone: Dems, Republicans, the UN, the French, etc. believe that Saddam absolutely and without question had these WMDs? Everyone knew that he had had WMDs at one point, because we gave them to him. Not everyone believed that he still had them, though. And in fact, of those who did, the most common argument was “Well, the President told us he had them, and he wouldn’t lie to us that blatantly, would he?”. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/24 "2013-03-23T15:03:25Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > He was just as much a true believer as William Macnamara, post-retirement breast-beating notwithstanding Robert Macnamara. William Westmoreland. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/25 "2013-03-23T15:04:03Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > But here is my problem with this. At the time, didn’t everyone, and I mean everyone: Dems, Republicans, the UN, the French, etc. believe that Saddam absolutely and without question had these WMDs? The only debate was with the necessity to use force to disarm him versus letting sanctions do the trick. > > Unless my memory fails me, everyone believed that Iraq possessed these weapons. So Powell would have needed a crystal ball to say that they didn’t have them. Your memory has failed you. This is absolutely not true. There were numerous people saying Iraq did not have any currently active WMD programs (while acknowledging Iraq had had WMD programs before the first gulf war and probably would start them up again in the future if he could get away with it). There was a major public debate on this issue. Many people were saying the evidence said Saddam was not working on WMDs in 2003. The Bush administration responded by saying it had better evidence than these people had and it knew for a fact that Saddam was working on WMDs in 2003. So if you trusted that the Bush administration was telling the truth about the evidence it said it had, you believed Iraq had WMDs. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/26 "2013-03-23T15:10:04Z")
In a sane world (or more precisely a sane administration) the second war in Iraq would never have occurred. But, I remember, very well indeed, that the US populace was told by its leaders that not only did Hussein and Sons have WMD (specifically gases) but they also had used those weapons against their own people. This was bolstered by the undeniable fact that the US had sold those weapons (or was instrumental in the sale thereof) to the Hussein regime. Could Colin Powell have stopped us from entering into this disastrous conflict? Perhaps, as was posited upthread, if he had done so, it would have allowed political cover for Hillary Clinton to oppose the war. Even then, the people behind the Project for the New American Century were firmly committed to invasion, regardless of the validity of the perceived provocation. The Bush administration may not have gone in with as much popular support as they had, but in retrospect it seems to me that they would have continued with their plans. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/27 "2013-03-23T15:10:46Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > But here is my problem with this. At the time, didn’t everyone, and I mean everyone: Dems, Republicans, the UN, the French, etc. believe that Saddam absolutely and without question had these WMDs? The only debate was with the necessity to use force to disarm him versus letting sanctions do the trick. > > Unless my memory fails me, everyone believed that Iraq possessed these weapons. So Powell would have needed a crystal ball to say that they didn’t have them. Yes and no. I believe the common thinking was that he had some sort of WMDs somewhere, but of what kind, how much, and how useful they were was up for debate. Certainly, the whole business about having a nuclear program was not generally accepted around the world. And saying some country has “WMDs” is a pretty meaningless statement, since it’s such a broad term it could be argued that pretty much every country has them. At the time, remember, we had SH hemmed in with a No Fly Zone, and his was probably one of the most spied upon regimes we were dealing with. The threat to the US, with our without WMDs, was a pure fabrication. As for the OP, I doubt that Powell, by himself, could have stopped the war. He’d have to take all the Democratic Senators with him, plus a few of the Republicans to boot. The Bush administration was intent on war, and the opposition was too timid to mount an effective defense against that intent. IMHO. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/28 "2013-03-23T15:52:44Z")
Don’t kid yourselves. Colin Powell was never truly the peace-seeking-diplomat that he and others have made him out to be, ever since the WMD justification that he helped construct for the war turned out to be a black mark on his career. In the following “Guardian” report, Powell revealed his own lust for war. He just wanted the UN to sanction it, which when working inspections resumed, the UN would have been as nuts as Bush to sanction an invasion. Powell could have stopped the war right there and then by advising Bush in private that it was true that inspections were working quite well and if as you keep saying Mr. President that you want Iraq to be disarmed peacefully, and the public here in America are behind me on this… "we need to agree with France, Russia and probably eight other members on the UNSC that the inspections should continue and be beefed up. And Powell could have asked the President what evidence he had at that exact moment in time that Iraq was ‘stiffing’ or decieving UN inspectors right then and there… Because Powell should have known that UN Res 1441 called for the US to turn all WMD intel over to the inspectors. Had Powell came out publically and agreed with France and Russia, it most likely would have turned the course of history. It would have reminded the entire war-mongering horde on the right and in the mainstream media, just exactly why the inspectors were in Iraq in the first place. TO DISARM IRAQ PEACEFULLY if possible. Powell could have remained silent on the issue, and refused to carry out Bush and Blair request for UN Sanction for the war, that had no future but to fail. Powell’s during the Bush Admin rage at France Germany and Russia over continued inspecitons in February 2003, may have cut down on the chance that the Brits might have pulled out. But Powell was publically and very visibly angry at \*\*Dominique de Villepin \*\*for calling for continued inspections. See Below. > [@](#): > > "I don’t think the next step should be ‘Let’s send in more inspectors to be stiffed’ [deceived]. Those are not the words of a man who believed in disarming Iraq peacefully. Those are the words, verbatim that would come out of the mouth of Cheny, Bush or Rumsfeld or any the neocon advisers. > [@](#): > > US fury at European peace plan > > Transatlantic tensions burst into public slanging match as French and Germans call for more > > Ian Black in Brussels, Richard Norton-Taylor in Munich and Julian Borger in Washington > > The Guardian, Sunday 9 February 2003 21.34 EST > The Bush administration reacted with rage last night to a Franco-German initiative to extend arms inspections in Iraq, portraying the plan as a thinly disguised attempt to derail the US timetable for war. > > With relations between the three nations plummeting, leaders on both sides of the divide made no attempt to hide their growing contempt. Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, called on Paris and Berlin last night to study the UN resolution which they had backed. “What France has to do and what I think Germany has to do … is read 1441 again.” > > The Franco-German plan, revealed at the weekend, would triple the number of UN weapons inspectors and back them up with surveillance flights. One unconfirmed report said thousands of UN troops would be sent into Iraq to support the inspectors. > Colin Powell swiftly dismissed the initiative: “I don’t think the next step should be ‘Let’s send in more inspectors to be stiffed’ [deceived]. Tripling the number of inspectors doesn’t deal with the issue. This idea of more inspectors, or no-fly zones, or whatever else may be in this proposal that is being developed is a diversion, not a solution.” > > The Franco-German plan threatens to be a serious complication for Washington, which wanted Friday’s security council meeting to pose a single question: was Saddam Hussein disarming or not? [US fury at European peace plan | World news | The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/feb/10/iraq.richardnortontaylor1) > [@](#): > > To make matters worse, from Washington’s position, Russia last night backed an extension of time for the UN weapons inspectors. Speaking after a meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Russian President Vladimir Putin said: “We are convinced that efforts for a peaceful resolution of the situation regarding Iraq should be persistently continued.” > > US anger was compounded by the fact that the first it knew of the initiative was in a report in the German news magazine Der Spiegel. France insisted the plan was neither new nor secret, but rather an extrapolation of last week’s **call by Dominique de Villepin, its foreign minister, for extra inspectors backed by spy planes.** > > {From Same Link as above.} ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/29 "2013-03-23T16:32:24Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Had Powell done the right thing and refused to be part of the misinformation campaign, he would have given people like Hilary Clinton the cover they needed to also do the right thing and vote against giving the authorization for the war. You seem to dramatically misunderstand and misremember how Hillary Clinton felt about the war. She wasn’t some reluctant warrior, she was a huge hawk as was her husband. Frankly she’d have denounced Bush if he’d backed down as would her husband who was chomping at the bit to go to war against Saddam. Here’s Bill Clinton in 2002. > [@](#): > > “[Saddam] is a threat. He’s a murderer and a thug. There’s no doubt we can do this. We’re stronger; he’s weaker. You’re looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I’d be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished,” You also have to remember that she was very much not a fan of Colin Powell who’d been a real thorn in the side of her husband’s administration repeatedly accusing Bill of being far too aggressive in his use the American military culminating in the infamous exchange with Madeline Albright when Albright proclaimed, “what’s the use of having an army if you’re not going to use it!” She’d have just seen Powell doing this as another example of him being paranoid and soft-hearted the same way he’d been, from her POV, regarding the situation in the former Yugoslavia. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/30 "2013-03-23T17:52:46Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Today 12:32 PM 082p0032 Here’s Bill Clinton in 2002. {cite} “[Saddam] is a threat. He’s a murderer and a thug. There’s no doubt we can do this. We’re stronger; he’s weaker. You’re looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I’d be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished,” {cite} Of course you have not included the continuation of the Letterman Interview. > [@](#): > > “I wouldn’t be opposed to trying these inspections one more time because I know that they did work even when he was trying to undermine us, we kept getting tons of stuff out of there,” he said. > [@](#): > > Wednesday night on The Late Show, former President Bill Clinton gave David Letterman a few laughs - and a few lessons on the tense situation between the United States and Iraq. CBS News Correspondent Tracy Smith reports for The Early Show. > Letterman asked, “Are we going into Iraq? Should we go into Iraq? I’d like to go in. I’d like to get the guy. I don’t like the way the guy looks.” > > “He is a threat. He’s a murderer and a thug,” said Mr. Clinton. “There’s no doubt we can do this. We’re stronger; he’s weaker. You’re looking at a couple weeks of bombing and then I’d be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished.” > > Even if the U.S. wins a war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein, Mr. Clinton said, a threat remains. He noted, “If he’s got these stocks of chemical and biological weapons, and if he knows he’s toast, don’t you think he’ll use what he can and give away what he can’t to people who’ll be using them on us for years to come so he can have the last laugh…” > > Mr. Clinton clearly supports his successor. > > “I think the President is doing the right thing to go to the United Nations, to ask them to do something and I hope that whatever we do - I think we need to turn up the heat, I think it’s just a mistake to walk away from this,” said Mr. Clinton. > > But he finds the idea of the U.S. acting against Iraq - with only British support – problematic. Even President Bush has expressed such reservations. > > Mr. Clinton told Letterman that - for now - the next step should probably be more weapons inspections. > > “I wouldn’t be opposed to trying these inspections one more time because I know that they did work even when he was trying to undermine us, we kept getting tons of stuff out of there,” he said. > > [http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/12/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main521789.shtml](http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/12/earlyshow/leisure/celebspot/main521789.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/31 "2013-03-23T17:53:41Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > But here is my problem with this. At the time, didn’t everyone, and I mean everyone: Dems, Republicans, the UN, the French, etc. believe that Saddam absolutely and without question had these WMDs? The only debate was with the necessity to use force to disarm him versus letting sanctions do the trick. > > Unless my memory fails me, everyone believed that Iraq possessed these weapons. So Powell would have needed a crystal ball to say that they didn’t have them. Everyone “knew” he had WMDs in the sense of NBC weapons. The issue was that the war was sold on the basis that he had or was about to obtain _nukes_. > [@](#): > > [On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Vice President Dick Cheney accused Saddam of moving aggressively to develop nuclear weapons over the past 14 months to add to his stockpile of chemical and biological arms. > > “Increasingly, we believe that the United States may well become the target of those activities,” Cheney said. > > “And what we’ve seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest … is that he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium – specifically, aluminum tubes,” Cheney said, referring to one of the elements for making nuclear weapons. > > Citing Bush administration officials, The New York Times reported Sunday that Iraq tried to buy thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes. > > The tubes, Rice said, “are only really suited for nuclear weapons programs, centrifuge programs.” > > Centrifuges are one way to separate weapons-grade uranium from natural uranium. > > White House sources also tell CNN that Saddam has in recent months met several times with Iraq’s top nuclear scientists and encouraged them to continue their work. > > Sources say Iraqi defectors who used to work for Iraq’s nuclear weapons “industry” tell administration officials Iraq’s top priority is acquiring nuclear arms. > > Rice acknowledged that “there will always be some uncertainty” in determining how close Iraq may be to obtaining a nuclear weapon but said, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”]([http://articles.cnn.com/2002-09-08/politics/iraq.debate\_1\_nuclear-weapons-top-nuclear-scientists-aluminum-tubes?\_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS](http://articles.cnn.com/2002-09-08/politics/iraq.debate_1_nuclear-weapons-top-nuclear-scientists-aluminum-tubes?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS)) Remember, Powell’s whole UNSC presentation was about nuclear weapon development. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/32 "2013-03-23T18:24:08Z")
Here is a better link and excerpt to the David Letterman Interview with President Clinton on September 11, 2001 the first anniversary of the attacks on our soil killing several thousand Americans. This is for those who are interested in hearing what the Presdent actually said in full context. If you are not interested in such reality, please disregard this post. Remember in context that Bush and Cheney prior to September 2002 were hell bent on invading Iraq without trying to go the inspection route. This interview wraps that up perfectly well. President Clinton later criticized Bush shortly after the invasion for not allowing the inspectors more time to finish their work as the broad international community wanted Bush and Blair to do. > [@](#): > > DL: We’re really running out of time and I’ve got things to ask you. Are we going into Iraq? Do you want to go into Iraq? Should we go into Iraq? I’d like to go in. I’d like to get the guy, I don’t like the way the guy looks. > > BC: Short answer is he is a threat. He is a murderer and a thug. When he’s felt his existence threatened twice he used chemical weapons. He has chemical and biological stocks and he kicked the inspectors out and America and Britain were almost alone in fighting it when I was in. There are two big questions that have to be asked and answered. Number one, what kind of precedent would it set if we with only British support took a unilateral pre-emptive strike instead of doing something with our allies? That’s why Senator Dole and I said last week that we ought to go back to the UN and try these inspections one more time. People have forgotten the vast quantities of biological and chemical stocks we got and destroyed because of those inspections. > > Number two, since he only used these things when he felt his existence threatened and there is no doubt we can do this. **The American people should know the sanctions work. They cost him way over $100 billion, his military is less than half of what it was in the Gulf War. We’re stronger, he’s weaker.** You’re looking at a couple of weeks of bombing and then I’d be astonished if this campaign took more than a week. Astonished. But if he’s got these stocks of chemical and biological weapons and if he knows he’s toast, don’t you think he’ll use what he can and give away what he can’t to people who’ll be using them on us for years to come so he can have the last laugh. Those are the two big questions. > > I think the President is doing the right thing to go to the United Nations to ask them to do something and I hope that whatever we do, I think we need to turn up the heat. I think it is just a mistake to walk away from this but **I think that we should if at all possible try to take an approach that has broad international support because the precedent of our acting alone might someday come back to haunt in something somebody else does.** > > DL: And I heard right, you said the campaign would take no more than a week? > > BC: No, I think the security problems people should be worried about is not a great problem for our military. It is if he has these stocks and I believe he does have biological and chemical stocks of some quantity and he knows he’s going to be killed and deposed, then I think he’ll certainly try to use them and try to give away what he can’t use. So that’s the big problem the military has to think through. The other problem is the political problem. How will we explain it if we do this without any international support? \*\*I think the President’s decision to go to the United Nations, make a case is a good one \*\*and I agreed with Senator Dole the other night. \*\*I would [not] be opposed to trying these inspections one more time because I know that they did work even when he was trying to undermine us \*\*we kept getting tons of stuff out of there. > > [http://best-page.us/Maybeso/transcripts/clinton\_letterman.html](http://best-page.us/Maybeso/transcripts/clinton_letterman.html) ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/33 "2013-03-23T21:03:35Z")
Thank you for pointing out that Bill Clinton was an enthusiastic proponent of the invasion and thought it would be quick and easy. For everyone familiar with how willing Clinton was to rattle sabers while he was President and how willing he was to use military force it’s not surprising that while Barack Obama was opposing the invasion he was supporting it. The fact that he believed in going to the UN for authorization first hardly proves he objected to that. Sadly White trash Bill wasn’t nearly as smart as Barack Obama and was instead a hardcore chickenhawk.\* \*I’m not a fan of the term “chickenhawk” but based on the logic displayed by **NotfooledbyW** in other threads he was. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/34 "2013-03-23T22:26:11Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Today 05:03 PM 082p0503 > > “The fact that he {President Clinton in September 2002} believed in going to the UN for authorization (to make war) first hardly proves he objected to that.” That is not what President Clinton said to David Letterman. -NF > [@](#): > > That’s why Senator Dole and I said last week that we ought to go back to the UN and \*\*try these inspections \*\*one more time. People have forgotten the vast quantities of biological and chemical stocks we got and destroyed because of those inspections. “Go back to the UN and try these inspections one more time” That means before going to war, we should try to get Saddam Hussein to allow UN inspectors back in. That is to avoid war if at all possible. And that is exactly what Saddam Hussein did about two months after Bill Clinton said what he said. You may be a pacifist and don’t believe in war for any purpose, I don’t know. But the majority concensus of most Americans on September 11, 2002 was that Saddam Hussein needed to be brought into compliance with international law with regard to his WMD disarmament obligations from the First Gulf War. And on that day when Clinton spoke to Letterman, the Bush Administration had been steaming toward an invasion of Iraq without giving another round of inspections a chance so that war could be avoided.. At about that time Bush broke publically against the Cheney camp and joined the Powell camp to go for another UN Resolution giving Saddam Hussein one final opportunity to comply. It was an emerging approach to force Saddam Hussein to resume allowing the UN to inspect his country for illegal weapons and illegal weapons programs And this approach included avoiding war if at all possible. That is what Bill Clinton was talking about. Why must you misinterpret what President Cliinton actually said, and then attack him on that basis? If you do not agree that Saddam should have been forced to comply with his diarmament obligations, that is what you should be saying. Clinton was saying war would be necessary if Saddam Hussein would not agree to do what the UN and international law, required of him. That is what you disagree with President Clinton about. I and many Americans disagree with you on that. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/35 "2013-03-23T23:12:34Z")
Er… Clinton was an avid supporter of the war and was a huge cheerleader for President Bush in the events leading up to the war as your own rather long-winded links prove. Do you honestly think he disagreed with his wife when she voted for the war? He was an avid hawk during the 90s who used the military far more aggressively than the previous President and actually criticized George H. W. Bush for not acting more aggressively in Yugoslavia. I have to admit being surprised by your supporting a “chicken hawk” like Bill Clinton after posting long posts attacking Republican “chicken hawks” whom you attacked for not serving in Vietnam. Sadly we did not in 2002 have a leader like Barack Obama because both Bush and the Clintons were adamant in taking the US to war against Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/36 "2013-03-23T23:37:39Z")
When Clinton bombed Iraq, just a few years before we invaded, he certainly believed Iraq had WMDs. Hans Blix (who was openly anti-war) also said at one point prior to the war that Saddam most likely still had WMDs. That’s all irrelevant though, at the end of the day it was Bush’s claim of WMD presence in Iraq, not Colin Powell’s UN speech, that resulted in us invading. The UN speech didn’t even result in the UN approving the invasion, so it basically served little/no purpose. Colin Powell had little to no ability to stop the invasion because he couldn’t have stopped the AUMF against Iraq being passed in 2002. Powell also likes to portray himself differently in retrospect, he wasn’t “anti-war” he was against parts of the war plan but he was mostly in favor of invading Iraq and he has (successfully) tried to make it look like he had nothing to do with it. Powell did seem to change his mind fairly early on, but he was still overall in favor of us invading prior to the invasion so any attempts on his part to portray himself as the lone voice of “reason” inside the administration are simply self-serving lies. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/37 "2013-03-24T00:24:04Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Do you honestly think he disagreed with his wife when she voted for the war? No. Senator Clinton expressed the same exact views as her husband had done on the Letterman Show, yet more specific just before casting her vote to authorize force if diplomatic means to disarm Iraq were not forthcoming. She voted for war if necessary. Inspections resumed and they worked. War was not necessary. You may dissagree with voting for war if necessary, but you should express it the way it really was. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > He was an avid hawk during the 90s who used the military far more aggressively than the previous President and actually criticized George H. W. Bush for not acting more aggressively in Yugoslavia. If we disregard the First Gulf War under HW Bush, I guess you might have something there. I supported the First Gulf War. It was done as right as war can be done. Where you OK when Obama contributed to enforcing NFZ over Libya? Or is Obama too much Hawk for you in Libya and fir tripling troops in Afghanistan for two surges of his own? ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/38 "2013-03-24T04:16:56Z")
> [@](#): > > But here is my problem with this. At the time, didn’t everyone, and I mean everyone: Dems, Republicans, the UN, the French, etc. believe that Saddam absolutely and without question had these WMDs? > > The only debate was with the necessity to use force to disarm him versus letting sanctions do the trick. > > -jtgain #018 03-23-2013 09:02 AM 082a0902 To answer your first question properly, there must be clarification of whether you are inquirng in reference to a period prior to a certain landmark event that took place in the middle of December 2002. We must also revise your phrase “believe that Saddam absolutely and without question had these WMDs?” to “believe that Saddam could likely have had these WMDs because he has not allowed UN inspections for about four years” The landmark event was the return of UN inspectors in December 2002 that is quite well known. However a very significant event took place within the timeframe of the start of renewed inspections. That was when Saddam Hussien directed his science adviser and liaison to the UNSC to make an unprecedented offer to the Bush Administration that Iraq was willing to allow the CIA to enter Iraq to seek evidence of WMD on their own. So if you are asking about a period prior to the landmark event that I have cited, it is quite possible and reasonable for many concerned people to believe it was somewhat likely that Iraq had WMD. However after that landmark event, every passing day brought about a revision in thinking, in the minds of many Democrats, “Republicans, the UN, the French” etc. More and more it began looking like Iraq may not have them. By February 2003, the French, Russians and most members of the 15 member UN Security Council, did not see Iraq hiding WMD and made a case in public that it would be best to keep the UN inspections going. Regarding your point that “The only debate was with the necessity to use force to disarm {SH}versus letting sanctions do the trick.” The debate was not about ‘sanctions’ since sanctions were always in effect and were not lifted prior to the US invasion of Iraq. Sanctions did not answer the question of whether Iraq had the WMD or not. So the debate was purely about whether to continue the UN inspections that were doing quite well. The Germans and French had a proposal to make the the inspections even stronger. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/39 "2013-03-24T10:29:53Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > So if you are asking about a period prior to the landmark event that I have cited, it is quite possible and reasonable for many concerned people to believe it was somewhat likely that Iraq had WMD. > > However after that landmark event, every passing day brought about a revision in thinking, in the minds of many Democrats, “Republicans, the UN, the French” etc. More and more it began looking like Iraq may not have them. > > By February 2003, the French, Russians and most members of the 15 member UN Security Council, did not see Iraq hiding WMD and made a case in public that it would be best to keep the UN inspections going. As I think more about it, this does seem to be correct. When Blix was in there and not finding anything, the administration simply said that Iraq was hiding these weapons and shuffling them around. Blix kept saying that he wasn’t so sure. I remember thinking at the time that if Iraq had these gazillion WMDs that Blix ought to be finding SOMETHING. But I did take the President at his word that he had the intel about Iraq’s weapons and supported the war because of that. I’m sure that Powell was operating under the same assumption that I, and most Americans at the time, were. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2013, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/40 "2013-03-24T11:04:18Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > As I think more about it, this does seem to be correct. When Blix was in there and not finding anything, the administration simply said that Iraq was hiding these weapons and shuffling them around. Blix kept saying that he wasn’t so sure. I remember thinking at the time that if Iraq had these gazillion WMDs that Blix ought to be finding SOMETHING. But I did take the President at his word that he had the intel about Iraq’s weapons and supported the war because of that. > > I’m sure that Powell was operating under the same assumption that I, and most Americans at the time, were. Wait, you think Powell thought that Bush had access to information that Powell, the SoS didn’t? That seems extremely unlikely. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535.md?page=3)