Powell criticises Iraq troop levels and rift with Europe

Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, has for the first time publicly criticised troops levels in Iraq and spoken of the rifts between himself and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, that undermined his role as architect of American foreign policy.

Admitting that Mr Rumsfeld's controversial plan to fight the war with limited troop numbers had been an outstanding success, Mr Powell said the "nation building" that followed had been deeply flawed.

There had been "enough troops for war but not for peace, for establishing order. My own preference would have been for more forces after the conflict."

"This place will crack like a goblet and it will be a problem to pick up the bits. It was on this basis that he decided to let me see if we could find a United Nations solution to this."

source:
telegraph

well what is this?
former US secretary of state criticizing current foreign policy of US goverment?
could he be right?
or is he just jelaous because he is not "in the game" anymore?
do you think that if mister powell was stil the secretary of state, that situation in the middle east would be diffrent now?
especially the situation in iraq?
mister powell warned president bush in early 2002 that the problem in iraq is not going to be the invasion, but what follows.
a smart man.

No i think the situation would have been different if he was secretary of defence at the beginning of the war. Rumsfeld outright refused to believe the head of the army when they said they would need about 500 000 troops in post war Iraq. Powell would have either agreed with him or at least not had such a big ego and would have decided that they knew their stuff better than he as a politican did. I know Powell was a general but when the Iraq war started he was a politican. Rumsfeld is great when it comes to political power moves and talking to the media but i think he should leave the war planning to the guys who are more experience in that area.

This documentry explains this better than i care to spend time doing and is a good watch for anyone interested in this topic, you can stream it from the page i have linked.

www.pbs.org...

[edit on 27-2-2005 by Trent]

Souljah Good find
You cant say that Powell dosnt have guts even if hes not a member of the Bush Admin anymore. We have known for quite a while that post war Iraq was bungled its only Bush supports and Neo cons that are in denial. Isnt it funny how your a Bush basher if you live in the real world.

Originally posted by Trent
www.pbs.org...

great page!
i need to explore it some more.

This should be bumped to an ATS news story IMO