Powell: "I Tried to Avoid This War"

Talk about too little, too late. Powell tells Times Online that he tried to talk the President out of the war. What Powell didn't understand is a good soldier is required when in uniform.
A statesman requires much more than blind obedience. Sometimes when the good of the country is at stake, one speaks the truth and forces the hand of others. Powell had an obligation to America to emphatically state his warnings to Congress and the people before this war started. His first loyalty was to the American people, not to Bush.

THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today'€™s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.


"€œI tried to avoid this war,"€ Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. "€œI took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."€


Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. "€œThe civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,"€ he said. "€œIt'€™s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don't know any way to avoid it. It is happening now."€


He added: "€œIt is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States." All the military could do, Powell suggested, was put "€œa heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew".


[...]According to Powell, the US cannot “blow a whistle one morning” and have all American forces just leave. The former secretary of state has twice met Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, to advise him on foreign policy. Despite his antiwar stance, Obama supports a phased withdrawal that could leave a “significantly reduced force” in Iraq for “an extended period”.


Defence experts believe it will be impossible to maintain the surge’s high troop levels beyond February at the latest, given the need to rotate and refresh troops. Powell, who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, said in Aspen that America’s volunteer army was already overstretched. He predicted that Bush would be forced to “face the situation on the ground” and alter course by the end of this year.