ALONE IN A WORLD THAT'S SO COLD:

Powell: Time running out for Saddam (GEORGE GEDDA, January 26, 2003, Associated Press)

Secretary of State Colin Powell, declaring that the U.N. weapons process in Iraq has run its course, warned Sunday that Saddam Hussein could take advantage of international inaction by using his doomsday weapons or sharing his technology with terrorists.

"The nexus of tyrants and terror, of terrorists and weapons of mass terror, is the greatest danger of our age," Powell said in a speech here.

Powell delivered his remarks to a gathering of political and business leaders on the eve of a report that U.N. inspectors are scheduled to deliver to the U.N. Security Council.

Powell did not explicitly call for an end to the inspections, and some countries believe the process should continue as a means of building more public support for the policies of the Bush administration.

But Powell said he has lost faith in U.N. inspections.

It's hard to recall a time in recent memory when an administration has so thoroughly sandbagged its opponents as did this one by putting Colin Powell out front as the resident "dove" on Iraq. Now the dove is crying havoc and there's nowhere for those who've been singing his praises to hide.

MORE:
War and Consequences: The evidence against Iraq is scanty, the global opposition to an attack growing more vocal. But the Bush team's biggest dove has now grown talons. Will war make us more-or less-secure? (Richard Wolffe and Michael Hirsh, 2/03/03, NEWSWEEK)

Something snapped inside Colin Powell. For two long years the secretary of State had been the biggest dove inside the Bush cabinet, slowing the hawks' headlong rush to war in Iraq.

WHEN HIS ARCHRIVAL, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, had raised the idea of taking on Saddam Hussein only days after 9-11, Powell rolled his eyes in exasperation, insisting Al Qaeda alone should be the focus. Last summer Powell warned President Bush in dire terms not to attack Iraq unilaterally, and prodded him to go to the United Nations. But last week, as Powell listened to Europeans boast about the success of the weapons inspectors in Iraq, his patience finally gave out. Sitting across a long rectangular table inside Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, the usually genial Powell issued a stark warning to his French counterpart: the clock has run out on Saddam and the United Nations. "Don't underestimate the resolve of the United States to solve this problem without dragging it out," he said. The dove had finally morphed into a hawk.

There is no higher level of spin than that spin which leaves the spun unaware of the spinning. So this "even Powell forced into hawkishness" story is rapidly approaching the status of greatest spin of all time. Look at what even this story says: we did al Qaeda and Afghanistan first, then went to the UN while we built a coalition and moved our forces, now we're getting ready to attack at the optimal time of year. But they perceive sudden and random forces at work?

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 26, 2003 2:17 PM