MR. LEHRER: A personal question. The
conventional wisdom I would guess in this hall and the
majority opinion in this country, among all citizens
whether they be Republicans or Democrats whatever how will
they view the war is that you could, you personally could
have stopped this from happening. What is the truth? I
don't know -- I'm just saying that, that is what people
think. That is what people think.
MR. POWELL: I know, people say that to me.
But --
MR. LEHRER: What do you think, what do you say
when people say that to you 1 like I just did?
MR. POWELL: Well, I just asked you how I could
have -- I could have -- I tried to avoid this war. I went
to the President in August of 2002 after coming back from
a trip and seeing all the planning that was underway and
we had a long meeting upstairs in the residence. Dr. Rice
was there but it was essentially a conversation between
President Bush and myself. And for the better part of two
and a half hours I took him through not only the military
planning that was being done in the Pentagon but I took
them through the consequences of going into an Arab
country and becoming the occupiers. It is said that I
used the Pottery Barn Rule. I never did it, Tom Friedman
did it, he is next, he's the one who did that. But what I
did say to him, once you break it you are going to own it
and we're going to be responsible for 26 million people
standing there looking at us. And it's going to suck up a
good 40 to 50 percent of the army for years. And it's
going to take all the oxygen out of the political
environment. And you need to understand this and the
expense is going to be enormous. And he took it all
aboard and he said, “What should we do?” And I said,
"Well, we should take it to the United Nations. Because
they are the offended party. It is their resolutions that
have been offended.” And I briefed other members of the
Cabinet over the next day or two and we then had a meeting
a week or so later and every member of the national
security team agreed with the judgment that we take it to
the UN. And we worked for seven weeks after taking it to
the UN in September and got a resolution unanimously
approved by the Security Council with some get-out clauses
for Saddam Hussein to avoid the conflict. And I said to
the President, if we can solve this diplomatically are you
prepared to accept that outcome, even if it means that we
have a “changed regime” in Baghdad with Saddam Hussein
still there, but no longer a danger or a threat but we
wouldn’t have a “regime change.” And it was not something
that he was immediately attracted to. But he said yes, he
would have to and we tried. But at that time I made that
point to him I also had to say to him that you are the
President, you will have to make the ultimate judgment,
and if the judgment is this isn't working and we don't
think it is going to solve the problem, then if military
action is undertaken I'm with you, I support you. And
frankly, when military action was undertaken it looked
like it was extremely successful. It was a lack of
planning for these latter phases and the things that got
out of control that really has brought us to this point.
And so, could I have stopped it by quitting? I assure you
that would not have done it. And to quit while it was
underway was not my way of doing business in serving in
the administration. And so I stayed till 2003 and then in
early 2004 in a conversation with the President, I told
him I thought it would be wise for him to make some
changes in this team at the end of 2004 after the
election, and that it would be the time for me to leave.
I guess my Grandma and Papa are supporting Obama now since Hillary freed them.
