Colin Powell -- a 'dove' in hawk's clothing?

And now it has been revealed that the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the US State Department's Intelligence Analysis Unit, along with experts from the Department of Energy, had advised Powell that the evidence he was going to use to prove Saddam was re-starting a nuclear weapons programme was "questionable." Powell, the ever dutiful servant of power, went ahead away and made the dubious case for war with Iraq.

Once again, much of the US media were willing to give Powell the benefit of the doubt. After all, he is a dove, isn't he, who must work and survive among the hawks in the Bush administration? A USA Today newspaper headline published the day after Powell's UN speech graphically illustrated the media's crush on Powell. "Case is stronger when biggest dove makes it." So now in light of this revelation, can we expect the American media to take

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the gloves off and do some hard investigative reporting on the Colin Powell-intelligence connection? Don't hold your breath, even though it's a big story.

If Powell had gone to the UN and used his authority and stature to treat the "intelligence" information in the manner he reportedly describe it in private -- as the excrement of a bull -- then Uncle Sam's relentless push to war might have sputtered or at least been slowed down long enough for rationality to return to the making of US foreign policy. Imagine what would have happened if the Secretary of State, the official with more credibility than any other Bush official, had said: "I can't present this garbage to the world. Take it out or I will resign"? But Powell didn't. Instead, the statesman who oversees the US Embassy and its American Centre in Bangladesh, stood up before the world and pointed to blurry photographs to make the Bush administration's case. "Trust me when I say Saddam is trying to re-start his nuclear weapons programme", was Powell's message to a skeptical world audience. The US went to war, thousands died and are still dying and the future of destabilised Iraq remains uncertain. Not since Ronald Reagan more than 15 years ago has there been a US statesman like Colin Powell who has been able to wear the mantle of the "Teflon Man" so comfortably.

The day after Powell's speech, journalist Norman Solomon wrote on the website of Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR), a US-based media watch dog group, that "there is no doubt about it. Colin Powell is a great performer, as he showed yet again at the UN Security Council. On television, he exudes confidence and authoritative judgment. But Powell owes much of his touted credibility to the fact that he is functioning inside a media bubble that protects him from direct challenge."

For Solomon and the few other US journalists who have shielded themselves from the strong glare of the Powell charisma, the Secretary of State's performance at the UN was deja vu. A look at Powell's career reveals that, while he may look like a dove, talk like dove and walk like a dove, he is, in fact, as hawkish as Rummy, Wolfowitz or any other leading statesmen in the Bush administration. Let's look at his war record. He is no doubt a war hero. In the Vietnam War, he received two Purple Hearts, including one for saving fellow soldiers from a burning helicopter. But the image of the reluctant warrior who believes in using force only as a last option is shattered by Powell's own words. In his autobiography, "My American Journey," Powell reveals that he saw nothing wrong with the common practice during the Vietnam War of firing a bust of machine gun fire from helicopter in front of any Vietnamese peasant who looked "really suspicious". In defending his view, Powell wrote, "If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front of him. Brutal? May be so. The killed-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong."

In writing about his first tour of duty of Vietnam, Powell also defended the American military practice of applying Zippo lighters to the britches of Vietnamese civilians. Yet as FAIR pointed out, "when journalists who yearned for Colin Powell read his memoirs, they took almost no note of Powell's strong lack of compassion when civilians were dying..."

This is certainly not the philosophy of a dove and, as for the matter of "perceptions of right and wrong," lets consider Powell's connection to one of the Vietnam War's most infamous incidents -- the My Lai Massacre. In a 2000 article in the Toronto Globe and Mail, noted American journalist Christopher Hitchens charged that "as a staff major in Vietnam, Colin Powell played a direct role in suppressing the inquiry into the My Lai massacre and related

atrocities against civilians." Hitchens charge that Powell played a "direct role" can be challenged, but there is evidence that he did nothing that could have held exposed some of

the abuses that led to the killing of hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians. In researching their book, "Four Hours in My Lai," British journalists Michel Bolton and Kevin Sim discovered a letter in the National Archives in Washington DC from a young American soldier named Tom Glen who has served in the Vietnam War. Written in November 1968, the letter is addressed to General Creighton Abrams and described how some American soldiers were abusing Vietnamese civilians and captured Viet Cong suspects.

As authors Robert Perry and Norman Solomon described the letter in FAIR's publication EXTRA (January-February, 1996), 'Glen's overall complaints encompassed some of the atrocities later dubbed "The My Lai Massacre"' (which had occurred on March 16, 1968). Though Glen made no specific reference to My Lai, he expressed deep concern about American troops who "without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves." When the letter landed on Powell's desk, he did a quick investigation, which didn't include interviewing Glen, and dismissed Glen's charge as unfounded. In a memo dated December 13, 1968, Powell wrote: "In the direct refutation of the portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent." Case closed. The Vietnam War would not be the last time that the media-created image could have been challenged by the mainstream US media, if only it was willing to do so. In 1995, for instance, when Powell was still being touted as the next U.S.

President, embarrassing allegations leaked about Powell's role in the Iran-Contra affair and how Oliver North had kept Powell fully informed of the arms for hostages negotiations.. When a US congressional enquiry asked Powell about the affair, he claimed he couldn't remember. Case closed again.

The few journalists who have been willing to challenge the Powell mystique have also questioned his military leadership and competence, especially in waging the Gulf War and in handling the military disaster in Somalia in 1993. But being competent in one's profession doesn't really matter, if you are as brilliant at networking as Powell has shown himself to be and are willing to adjust one's views to support the current party position. A wide variety of

influential individuals in Republican circles, including George Bush, Sr., Dick Cheney, Richard Armitage, Casper Weinberger and Frank C. Carlucci have helped Powell move up the career ladder. In recognition of being a life long protege of Bush Sr., Powell's detractors have called him another "SOB" (Son of a Bush). Can we judge a man by the mentors he has had? Let's look at some of the movers and shakers who have taught Powell the political ropes. Casper Weinberger, under whom Powell served in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was pardoned by Bush Sr. for his role in the illegal Iran-Contra affair.

Carlucci, Weinberger's assistant in the OMB, was accused of supervising the CIA plot that led to the assassination of the Congolese president Patrice Lumumba. Five months after Lumumba's assassination, Armitage was expelled from the Congo. Four years later, Carlucci was expelled again, this time from his CIA position in Tanzania after being accused of trying to assassinate the Burundi Prime Minister Rene Ngendandumwe.

Richard Armitage, whom Powell referred to in his autobiography as "my brother and my bodyguard", was accused of moving heroin from the Golden Triangle to the Golden Crescent so it could be used against Russian troops in Afghanistan. In his book "Called to Serve", Colonel James "Bo" Gritz, a former Green Beret officer, alleged that Armitage was a close confidant of Khu Sa, the legendary heroin trafficker of the Golden Triangle. Today, Armitage is Powell's top aide at the State Department.

And we all know about some Dick's Cheney's cozy connection to Big Business. A Federal Court is now considering a lawsuit that charges Cheney, while an executive at Haliburton, a multi-billion dollar oil-service company, misled investors. Haliburton, of course, is now getting fat off of Iraq's post-war re-construction.

Powell's detractors say he has gotten an easy ride throughout his career because of his skin color. In the increasingly politically correct America, one can't be too critical of the media darling who happens to be black unless you want to be accused of racism. But some black leaders have not impressed with the person whom many say is the perfect role model for young African Americans. In a radio interview in San Diego in November 2002, famed singer Harry Belafonte slammed Powell as being a sell out to the black race. Belafonte compared Powell to a plantation slave and added that "when Colin Powell dares to suggest other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back to pasture."

But don't bet on that happening, judging by the career of the careful but ambitious man who has been compared in stature to the popular General and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. If some day the Bush administration decides it needs to cover its behind on the Iraq War fiasco, it will once again call on the perfect servant to make its case and spin the media.

Ron Chepesiuk is a Fulbright scholar and Visiting Professor of Journalism at Chittagong University