<< General Powell, better than anyone in this administration, understands the need for a unified chain of command especially in time of war. >>
Becoming angry over being publicly repudiated by the president is one thing, distancing oneself from the chain of command is quite another. Powell and those who side with him, understandably, are guilty of only the former.
It may be hard to believe, but disagreements in Washington are the norm, *not* the exception. They always have been and always will be. But once a decision is made, as Bush has made in this instance, everybody leaves past disagreements where they belong: in the past. These are professionals.
<< He would certainly not let any real disagreements become public knowledge >>
Usually they don't until after the fact, if ever. But in this case, refer to Bremer's piece in the special Thanksgiving issue of TNI to see Powell's ideas versus Cheney's/Rumsfeld's.
Extrapolating this piece (along with other public documents and others not-so-public) to the present, I can easily infer the following: That on the one side, there is Secretary of State Colin Powell, who is making the case that the foundation of U.S. strategy must be the creation and sustenance of the largest possible coalition. On the other side are Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Their argument appears to be that the purpose of a coalition is to enable combat operations and that an overly broad coalition will place severe restraints on such operations. Therefore, the United States should narrow the coalition as necessary, up to and including taking entirely unilateral actions, in order to destroy al Qaeda.
Pentbomb
