By: Mark Memmott and Jill Lawrence
September 10, 2007
In an interview with GQ magazine that's scheduled to be put
online here at 11 a.m. ET, former secretary of State and one-time
potential presidential candidate Colin Powell has this to say
about terrorism and the threat it poses to the USA:
"What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will
say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world
who can change the American way of life or our political system?
No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody?
Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves.
So what is the great threat we are facing?"
Powell adds, in an interview with Walter Isaacson, that to
improve its image in the world, the USA should focus on welcoming
newcomers. He takes on the immigration debate that has become
a hot-button issue in the presidential race:
"America could not survive without immigration," he
says. "Even the undocumented immigrants are contributing
to our economy. That's the country my parents came to. That's
the image we have to portray to the rest of the world: kind,
generous, a nation of nations, touched by every nation, and
we touch every nation in return. That's what people still want
to believe about us. They still want to come here. We've lost
a bit of the image, but we haven't lost the reality yet. And
we can fix the image by reflecting a welcoming attitude --
and by not taking counsel of our fears and scaring ourselves
to death that everybody coming in is going to blow up something.
It ain't the case."
As for the Iraq War, Powell a retired general and former chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- tells Isaacson that as he and
others in the Bush administration debated strategy in the lead-up
to the war, he did not think the Pentagon and then-secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had planned for what would happen
after Baghdad fell.
"That was the big mistake. Don had written a list of
the worst things that could happen, but we didn't do the contingency
planning on what we would do about it. So we watched those
buildings get burned down, and nobody told the divisions, 'Hey,
go in there and declare martial law and whack a few people
and it will stop.' Then the insurgency started, and we didn't
acknowledge it. They said it wasn't an insurgency. They looked
up the definition. They said it was a few dead-enders! And
so we didn't respond in a way that might have stopped it. And
then the civil war started at the beginning of last year. I
call it a civil war, but some say no, it's not a civil war,
it's a war against civilians. In fact, we have total civil
disorder."
Also today, GQ has already posted a lengthy interview with
Rumsfeld. Author Lisa DePaulo sums up her conclusions this
way:
"If you're expecting Don Rumsfeld out of government now,
on his farm, in a moment of repose -- to play the bitter, angry,
reflective, tragic fallen hero ... ain't gonna happen. If he
feels any of those things, he's not showing it. (And if he
did, he probably wouldn't be Donald H. Rumsfeld.) The man does
not do regret. Over the course of the next few hours, he will
answer every question asked of him, and even when the answer
is 'I'm not gonna talk about that,' there's never a flash of
anger. Impatience, yes, but never anger."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(In accordance with Title
17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and
educational purposes. BadConcress.com has no affiliation
whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is BadCongress.com
endorsed or sponsored by the originator.
|
