If you couldn't see this coming. I think this is due to Mr. Powell's desire to spare "innocents". I predict that if we don't at least occupy Afghanistan & Iraq, we are going to face more terrorist attacks in the near future.
Hawks gang up against Powell
By Toby Harnden in Washington
(Filed: 26/09/2001)
Edited to add [url]http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/26/whawk26.xml[/url]
THE political consensus over the September 11 attacks has begun to fracture in Washington with mounting criticism of Colin Powell by prominent conservative hawks.
William Kristol, a leading figure on the Right, accused the Secretary of State of undermining President Bush's war aims.
Mr Kristol, chief of staff to the former vice president Dan Quayle, wrote in the Washington Post: "Virtually every major political figure has gone out of his way to support the president. Except for his secretary of state . . . Colin Powell has revised or modified many of his boss's remarks."
The article, the first public attack on Gen Powell by a prominent Republican since the devastating assault on America, also warned Mr Bush that he could face trouble from his own party if he steers too moderate a course.
"Eleven years ago, then-President Bush [Snr] overrode Powell's resistance to fighting Saddam. Bush was vindicated in doing so. Will the current President Bush follow Powell's lead? Or will Bush lead and demand that Powell follow?"
Many Republicans are uneasy about Gen Powell's approach, which appears to be based on limiting the war against terrorism to narrowly focused action against Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa'eda network.
Gen Powell has argued against taking action against "rogue states" such as Iraq and Libya and advocated bringing another, Iran, into the coalition against bin Laden.
There was widespread dismay among Republicans on Sunday when Gen Powell seemed to brush aside Mr Bush's implication that removing the Taliban from power was an American goal.
"With respect to the nature of the regime in Afghanistan, that is not uppermost in our minds right now," he said in an interview with NBC.
"I'm not going to say that it has become one of the objectives of the US government to either remove or put in place a different regime."
He added that he didn't know whether "we should even consider a large-scale war of the conventional sort".
Gen Powell also said that "in the near future, we will be able to put out a paper, a document, that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him [bin Laden] to this attack".