Richard Armitage, the President of Armitage Associates L.C., has held senior troubleshooting and negotiating positions in the Departments of State, Defense, and the Congress since 1978.

Michael Gordon was the national security correspondent of The New York Times and will be the Moscow correspondent of The New York Times. He is the co-author with Bernard Trainor of The General's War.

Lt. General Bernard Trainor is the Director of Security Programs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. From 1985 to 1990, he was the military affairs correspondent of The New York Times. Mr. Trainor co-authored The General's War with Michael Gordon.

Robert Woodward is Assistant Managing Editor of The Washington Post and author of The Commanders.

Michael C. Desch is Assistant Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University.

Sharon K. Weiner is a PhD Candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This panel discussion was co-sponsored by The John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, and The Foreign Policy Institute, the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

ELIOT COHEN Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Eliot Cohen. I'd like to welcome you to the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University for our panel discussion on Colin Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This panel is being co-sponsored with the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University and I would like to call on the Associate Director of the Olin Institute, Professor Stephen Rosen of Harvard, to make a few remarks.

STEPHEN ROSEN Thank you Eliot. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome. As Eliot said, I am the Acting Director of the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. I would like to welcome you to this afternoon's discussion of the legacy of Colin Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This talk is being sponsored by the Olin Institute and hosted by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

This afternoon's discussion is part of a larger project being sponsored by the Olin Institute concerning the future of civil-military relations in the United States. This project began when a number of observers -- including Michael Desch, my associate at the Olin Institute; Samuel Huntington, the founding director of our institute; and myself -- noted that there have been a number of serious and long-term changes that are likely to bring about major changes in American civil-military relations. The first change was in the international environment. The collapse of the Soviet Union brought increasingly to the fore problems we now refer to as "operations other than war." This has changed the balance between the requirement for that kind of capability and the requirements for more traditional warfare. The second change taking place is within the civilian portion of the American government. A generation of civilian political leaders who had direct experience with military affairs has retired and been replaced by men and women who have had less direct experience with the American military and war. The third change has been in the nature of American society. Sexual politics and racial politics have taken on new and different dimensions in American domestic social politics. Fourth, and finally, are the changes in the American military itself. The American officer corps has increasingly played a different role, and perhaps a larger and more powerful role within the American government, as a result of many changes. The Goldwater-Nichols legislation is among those changes as most certainly is the impact of a forceful chairman such as Colin Powell. The combined impact of the changes in the international environment, American society, the civilian portion of the American government, and the military branches of the American government made us think that in fact there was, if not a crisis in American civil-military relations, a set of new and interesting problems which deserved focused attention.

In that spirit, we are happy to sponsor this discussion of the legacy of Colin Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Let me now return the podium and the microphone to the moderator of the discussion, Professor Cohen.

ELIOT COHEN Thank you Steve. In today's panel we will be discussing Colin Powell's tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Despite some loose talk about first amendment rights by members of the panel, I would like to rule discussion of his presidential prospects out of order. Indeed I would argue that the panel discussion that we are having today would be no less important, although it would undoubtedly be less well attended, if Colin Powell had declared yesterday that he had no intention whatsoever of running for President of the United States. Why is that the case? There are, I think, three reasons. The first is that Colin Powell was possibly the most powerful and the most influential Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the history of that office, by virtue of the expanded powers available to him under the Goldwater-Nichols legislation of 1986 and his own personality and experience. Secondly, General Powell presided over the American military at a time of both demobilization from the Cold War and yet a tremendous amount of operational activity. The United States put military operations in Panama, the Gulf, and Somalia and has engaged in a very heated debate, which is not yet ended, about American military involvement in Yugoslavia. Curiously as well, he presided at a time in the history of American civil-military relations that, on one hand, involved tremendous public approbation for the military and support for it, and yet at the very same time, strong, although by historical standards hardly unique, civil-military conflict. Thirdly, Colin Powell is the author of the Powell Doctrine of overwhelming force, an approach to the use of military power that is widely shared in the American military and to only a somewhat lesser extent among civilian decision makers as well.

I have asked the panelists to address the following questions. First, did Powell's exercise of the office of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff change the views that people have had of that office and of its power within the Department of Defense? How do you evaluate those changes? Secondly, what was Powell's understanding of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation? How did he act in accordance with it and with what consequences? Thirdly, Powell has alternatively been portrayed as someone who pushed the margins of military autonomy vis-a-vis civilian authority. He has, on the other hand, been portrayed equally forcefully as a dutiful soldier in the George C. Marshall mold. Which of those two pictures is closer to the truth? Finally, how did Powell's relationship with his civilian superiors shape the advice he gave and the responsibilities he bore vis-a-vis the Panama, Iraq, Somalia, and Yugoslav crises?

Each panelist has been asked to speak on one or more of these questions for five to fifteen minutes. We will follow that with a quick round of replies and then move to questions from the floor. I will not recognize questions from the floor that are not directed to the subject of General Powell's tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We will conclude the discussion at 7:00 pm.
I regret to announce that one of our panelists, Professor Stephen Ambrose, had to withdraw due to a sudden illness in his family.

Our first speaker today will be Lt. General Bernard Trainor, Director of National Security Programs at the Kennedy School of Government. From 1985 to 1990, he was the military affairs correspondent of The New York Times. Before that he had a career of 34 years in the United States Marine Corps, including several combat tours in both the Korean and Vietnam Wars. He is the co-author, together with another of our panelists, Michael Gordon, of The Generals' War, which devotes a great deal of critical attention to General Powell's role in the Persian Gulf War.
He will be followed by Ambassador Richard Armitage. Ambassador Armitage graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1967, and served three combat tours in Vietnam. He has a long and distinguished career of government service including tenure as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, from 1983 to 1989. He is, as well, a close personal friend of General Powell.

Our third speaker will be Mr. Michael Gordon. For over a decade he has been the national security correspondent of The New York Times, where his award-winning reporting has caused at least one major Pentagon investigation and a great deal of embarrassment to senior government officials. He will soon be the Moscow correspondent for The New York Times.

He will be followed by Mr. Robert Woodward, Assistant Managing Editor of The Washington Post, author of seven books including All the President's Men, Veil, and of particular interest here, The Commanders, an account of Pentagon decision-making in the early Bush Administration.
I would like to start off by saying it is difficult for me to imagine a panel more qualified to conduct the kind of discussion that will now begin. With that I would like to turn to General Trainor.

BERNARD TRAINOR Thank you, Eliot. I will try and keep my remarks to five minutes because this is a very short session and there is much to cover. What I would like to do in my remarks is to give a bare bones analysis of General Powell's stewardship as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and then we can flesh it out in discussion.

The first thing I think we should look at is, "what were the major events that took place during that stewardship?" We had the Philippine coup in November of 1989 and the Panama intervention in December of 1989. As a matter of fact, just when he became the Chairman, we also had the aborted coup in Panama which the United States did not support. The events for which, of course, he is very well known are the Gulf War and the Somalian intervention and, in the dying days of his tenure, the Bosnian situation. He had success in some of these major events and less success in others. In addition to those major international events, he was the author of what became known as the Base Force, which more or less set the direction of the American military in the post-Cold War period. Of course, he is quite well known for opposing the President on gays in the military. He is also associated with what has become known as the Powell Doctrine and its legacy in the Pentagon today.

I would submit that there were three major influences on Colin Powell that were reflected in his performance as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. One was Vietnam. The second was the Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Third was his own political experience.

Beginning with Vietnam, that conflict scarred Colin Powell as it did most of the officers of his grade, that is, officers who were captains and majors during the Vietnam War. They felt the politicians did not have a clear objective concerning the use of force and they wasted not only force, they wasted a lot of effort, and most of all they wasted a lot of lives. He, and many of those of his generation, came out of that war swearing "never again." As a result of that experience in Vietnam, he was inspired to come up with what is now known as the so-called Powell Doctrine, which in its earlier iteration, when he was military assistant to then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, was known as the Weinberger Doctrine. This idea favors setting aside obscure missions and other morass-types of circumstances like we experienced in Vietnam, in favor of having a clear objective and public support for any military commitment. We should use overwhelming force in order to achieve a decisive outcome, always have an exit strategy, and emphasize low casualties. Each of these prescriptions is noble in its own right. However, if you apply them rigidly and literally, you will never use military force. There seems to be a tendency of Colin Powell to be ultra- conservative in this regard. He seems to favor setting military force aside and using it separately from diplomacy, whereas traditionally, military force has been the steel fist inside the velvet glove of diplomacy. The result is somewhat of a paralytic effect on the conduct of foreign policy and the use of military force by the President of the United States in that the Powell Doctrine, rigidly applied as it has been, more or less tells the president when, and when not to use military force. I would submit that this is not in the interest of the republic yet this legacy is very much alive in the Pentagon today.

Goldwater-Nichols also had a tremendous influence on Colin Powell in that it really gave all power to the Chairman and virtually turned the Joint Chiefs of Staff into a general staff. The other members of the corporate body, which provided checks and balances to military decision making, were downgraded to observers as opposed to participants in the business of policy recommendations to the National Command Authority. He also emasculated the service chiefs and manipulated them in what I would describe as a divide-and- conquer technique. He describes this in his own book, My American Journey. I think the end result, as well intentioned as it might be in putting power in the hands of one military advisor to the president, is that it violates the long, well established and effective tradition of checks and balances in the United States.

The third item is Powell's political experience. I think it is safe to say that Colin Powell was a political general. I do not say this in a pejorative sense; we have had many political generals. Those who are conversant with the Civil War know about General McClelland but in more recent times, certainly General Eisenhower would qualify as a political general. General Marshall was a political general, and we are all quite aware that Douglas MacArthur was probably as political a general as you can get. But there is an interesting distinction between the worthies that I just mentioned and Colin Powell. The others came up the military ranks through a military route whereas Colin Powell came up only to a certain point along the military route. Then he branched off when he became a White House Fellow. Thereafter, his rise to the top of the heap was pretty much along political lines and with the political assistance of those whom he served. In doing this, he became an insider who was able to maximize the powers entrusted to him under Goldwater-Nichols. In the process, as I have already mentioned, he turned the Joint Chiefs of Staff into a General Staff with him as the sole arbiter of military matters. His recommendations reflected his background in that they were, in most critical crises, of a political nature, or of a political- military nature. This is in contrast to what would be expected of a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under law, that he provide military recommendations. I am not naive enough to say that he was only expected to look at military considerations. But, if politics were involved in the recommendation, the recommendation should have been in the form of military-political recommendations rather than the converse which is what he practiced and which he admits in his book many times. He chides himself for this tendency to get out of the box and also notes that he was chided by others, particularly Dick Cheney.

From Powell's political experience he knew that information is power and that the way you position yourself determines how well you can exercise that power. He was able very effectively, particularly in the Gulf War, to insert himself in the command chain between the National Command Authority, that is the President and the Secretary of Defense, and the CINC. In this instance, it was a somewhat discredited Commander in Chief, Norman Schwarzkopf. He made both sides beholden to him. The National Command Authority was in large measure beholden to him because he was a military expert and because they had a certain amount of distrust in Schwarzkopf. They depended on him to make sure that Schwarzkopf did not make any terrible or catastrophic mistakes. On the other hand, Schwarzkopf, knowing that his standing in Washington was not particularly high, was also beholden to Colin Powell and therefore never challenged him. Powell mentions in his book that he saw himself as a conduit. The law requires a direct chain of command between the National Command Authority and the operational commanders. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military advisor but is not in the chain. But for all practical purposes, despite his disclaimer that he saw himself as a conduit, in fact he became a part of the chain and this he exercised very strongly. Tying that with the politically dominated advice that he gave the President, I believe, led to some poor decision-making in the Gulf war.

What is the legacy of Colin Powell? He has left to the current Chairman, and probably to subsequent ones, a role that is probably too powerful. It should be balanced either with an increase in the authorities and participation of his fellow members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or some sort of balance on the part of the civilian leadership. The civilian leadership, in large measure, is put in a position where they have to get the blessing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before they can do anything. That is turning civilian control of the military on its head.

The final legacy is the Powell Doctrine. As I have already alluded, it somewhat paralyzed the freedom of the Commander in Chief for actions that use military force either as a deterrent, as a support for friends, as a warning to enemies, or in its active mode. I would say while Powell's stewardship gets reasonably high marks, there were certain aspects of his stewardship which I think are dangerous to the best interests of the republic.

RICHARD ARMITAGE Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. I am delighted to join my colleagues on the panel. You will all join me please in prayer for the rapid recovery of Professor Ambrose's wife from her present travails.

I think that you might be familiar with this piece of legislation: the Goldwater-Nichols Act, or Public Law 99-433, of 1 October 1986. It comes to my attention, though I can't speak to the experiences of my colleagues on the panel, that perhaps Johns Hopkins could use a little Public Law 99-433. I am in receipt of three different letters, actually four different letters, asking me to speak for three different lengths of time and naming two different starting times for this very event. Perhaps we ought to apply a little 99-433 here, Eliot.

I am going to speak a bit about, what I believe is the Powell legacy as CJCS and then I am going, in a one minute burst, to try to respond to the four specific questions that were directed to the panel. It is quite obvious, I think, that Colin Powell was by no means an empty vessel in terms of philosophy when he became the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As General Trainor has noted, as senior military assistant to Secretary Weinberger, he played a role in helping the secretary sharpen and articulate what was then called the Weinberger Guidelines for the commitment of U.S. forces abroad. As summarized by Colin Powell, those guidelines are: Is the national interest at stake? If the answer is "yes," go in to win, otherwise, stay out. Those guidelines remain very controversial to this day.

It is by no means unusual to hear Administration officials and members of Congress, few of whom have ever donned a military uniform, complain bitterly about impediments to their use of an all-volunteer force. This sounds as if the method of recruitment currently employed by the U.S. armed forces somehow makes expendable mercenaries of our sons and daughters in uniform. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Powell kept faith with our sons and daughters. Those who today criticize him for having been a "reluctant warrior" are, in fact, quite right. His reluctance was, in my view, the personification of an American ideal. That ideal is: slow to anger, but decisively deadly when obliged to employ violence. Those who cite General Powell's reluctance as a weakness or a shortcoming might someday take a different view if and when 20,000 uniformed Americans are dispatched to the Balkans in order to help civilian politicians and policy makers break out of a corner into which they have painted themselves. There were, in fact, some 28 deployments of American forces during General Powell's tenure as Chairman. That reluctant warrior orchestrated decisive actions in Panama and in Iraq. His professional relationship with Secretary Cheney was effective and quite proper. He always worked within the bounds of the Secretary of Defense's authorization.

In my lifetime, I have witnessed a sea-change in American attitudes about the commitment of military force abroad. The U.S. military, our military, helped Presidents Kennedy and Johnson to enter the Vietnam quagmire. It paid a heavy price for its encouragement of the military option. The lessons learned by the U.S. military about the national interest, the national cohesion, and the nature of the military as a foreign policy tool seem to be lost on a generation of American diplomats. Many of these diplomats seem to view military intervention as a useful shortcut; that is, a substitute for diplomacy and non-violent means of coercion. I would like very much to see our diplomats practice their craft with more determination, more imagination, and frankly with more bloody-mindedness. I would like to see them take some pride in being able to achieve national objectives without resorting to military force. I confess that I am not comfortable with the situation in which the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff must be constantly on guard against armchair amateurism. Colin Powell's legacy to his successors in this regard remains relevant.

In a broader sense, however, he left a profound legacy on the profession of arms itself: the abiding respect of the American public. In a society in which professionalism is often seen as an exception rather than the rule, Colin Powell was instrumental in helping the American public view this all-volunteer force as representing the finest American ideals of competence, courage, and teamwork. This is a strikingly different image than the one prevailing when I left active service about twenty years ago. This is the legacy of which I believe General Powell, and his colleagues, the company and junior grade field officers of the Vietnam War, are the most proud.

The specific questions Eliot asked were: What was Colin Powell's understanding of the Goldwater-Nichols legislation? How did he act in accordance with it? What were the consequences? His understanding of the law is quite obvious: the purpose of Public Law 99- 433 was to strengthen civilian control through a reorganization of the Department of Defense. It was also to improve the quality and the timeliness of military advice given to the President, the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense. Hence the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was appointed, in law, as the principal military advisor to the President, the National Security Council and the Secretary of Defense. This resulted in crisp, clear and coherent military advice which led to informed decisions. As to questions or comments from an earlier panel member about the emasculation of the service chiefs, Public Law 99-433 states that the Chairman is the principal advisor. There are, however, avenues for other service chiefs, who have a difference of opinion with the Chairman, to make their views known. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is required, by law, to carry those views to the president. During the four years of Colin Powell's tenure, this happened twice.

Second, did Powell's exercise of the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff change the way that position is viewed and its power within DOD? Yes. Obviously it did. Although Admiral Bill Crowe was the first Chairman who could have benefitted from the defense reorganization act, it was Colin Powell who brought about, I think, the premier position of Chairman. He did it with the integrity, confidence and competence with which he worked. And he did it with the power of his ideas. That is what is going to last long after he has left the scene.

Third, Colin Powell is portrayed as someone who pushed the margins of military autonomy vis-a-vis civilian authority, or alternately, as a dutiful soldier in the Marshall mold. What is the right answer? There is a hidden question here, a hidden suggestion. That is a suggestion that Colin Powell somehow abused the trust of his civilian masters and was upset by constitutionally-established civilian control of the military. To competently answer that question, you should have President Bush, Secretary Cheney, Mr. Baker, Larry Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft or Dean Wolfowitz here. They know very well that none of this is true. He never abused the trust or upset this fine civilian authority. In fact, none of those worthy gentlemen whom I have just mentioned have spoken one word suggesting they felt that civilian authority was somehow gone around or abused. Quite the contrary. Now, is he in the Marshall mold? Well, I would say so. I think he is the most dutiful of soldiers. He felt that one of his duties was to bring all elements of a problem to policy makers' minds so that they could think through the consequences of their decision well in advance of that decision. You can make sure that policy makers understand it is bad business to start on level one if you are not already prepared to go to the maximum level of violence, if, after a careful analysis of some course of action, several levels of violence were called for. So I think you will see that General Powell is a fellow that is most Marshall-like. He did not want to squander the courage and lives of American service-people without clear purpose and without the country's backing and commitment.

Finally, the last question was "How did Powell's relationship with his civilian superiors shape the advice he gave and the responsibility he assumed vis-a-vis several different items?" I will just mention three. The Base Force was one. I think this is the absolute perfect case to see how he viewed civilian authority over the military. Dean Wolfowitz, seated in the audience, engaged in seven months of discussion, argument, and negotiation with Colin Powell over the development of the Base Force. All day long, from September through July, they argued the proper mix for our forces. It was the most, I think, efficient use of civil- military relations. It came up with a product bearing the name "Base Force." That product is in existence today. It has lasted for five years and more. That is the finest example of civilian control and military advice.

The questions of Iraq and Panama are quite different ones. In both cases, we obviously used a great deal of force. In Panama, Secretary Cheney arrived in office with a plan that had been prepared by Admiral Bill Crowe. It envisioned a massive military buildup, the evacuation of all sorts of our civilian dependents from Panama, a long buildup and massive use of force. The situation in Panama was developing quite rapidly and, in consultation with Dean Wolfowitz and others such as General Powell and Max Thurman (Commander of SOUTHCOM), the plan was reformulated, in the space of several days, into what eventually became known as JUST CAUSE. It was brought about, I think, in quite good fashion.

The question of Iraq is slightly different. You will remember that, in the initial phases of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, we could not fight. We were not there. We were not present for duty in Saudi Arabia at least. Though there was the time necessary for a buildup, we had a relatively gentle message from President Bush, initially. Thank God it was the Pentagon that blew the whistle on this soft approach to Saddam Hussein, began military planning early, and forced the Administration to answer very difficult questions before we committed our nation on a course to war. That war was ultimately extraordinarily successful. My answer is that I would give Colin Powell an "A," and "A+" for his stewardship. It was exactly as envisioned by the authors of Goldwater-Nichols.
Thank you Eliot.

MICHAEL GORDON I, too, received several letters. One said talk for five minutes and the other for fifteen minutes. I do not consider that a problem; I am going to talk for about ten minutes and satisfy both requests.

I am going to try and bring this discussion down to earth a bit and talk in about specifics. I approach the Powell phenomenon sort of as an empiricist. I do not have any personal views on a Powell candidacy and I am not going to talk about it. As a journalist and as somebody who has written about defense, I have had an opportunity to study him over the period of his various incarnations in Washington, as President Reagan's National Security Advisor, as Defense Secretary Weinberger's Military Assistant, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think the most enduring legacy that I saw was really something that General Trainor mentioned earlier -- the Powell Doctrine. This still has a powerful grip in the Pentagon, on civilians as well as the military. This is less so now that General Powell has departed. This has immense implications for American foreign policy, let alone a future Powell presidency. I want to talk a little bit about that in connection with three examples, the Persian Gulf War, the Bosnia conflict, and Somalia.

How do I understand the Powell Doctrine? I think it is, simply put, that the purpose of military force is to win a decisive victory and if you are not certain that you are going to win a decisive victory, you do not take the field. Above all, the image of the American military is to be protected. That is a short definition, but I think it encapsulates it. I think the danger in that sort of doctrine, and the way in which it does not work to the interest of the United States, is that it is a very risk averse approach. Applied rigidly, it can amount to an all or nothing doctrine that hobbles American military power. I think it worked best in the case of the Panama invasion where we could breeze in and breeze out of a small Central American country in a matter of days. Ironically, I think it worked less well in the Gulf War, for which Powell gets a lot of credit and sometimes is even described as a hero. I think it was irrelevant and deleterious in the case of Bosnia and it produced some odd results in Somalia. I think it is controversial even among the American military and that Powell's mentality on the use of force is very prevalent among Army infantry officers of the Vietnam generation, less so among armored commanders. It is not necessarily as prevalent among Marine officers, less so among the Navy and Air Force who are more inclined to think in terms of the limited application of force to serve diplomatic objectives. Again, it has enormous implications for foreign policy and one of the ironies I have observed as a journalist is that President Clinton has sometimes been criticized for being too cautious about the use of power; indecisive, for example, in the Balkan crisis. The reality is that, in that particular issue, Clinton has been a pillar of strength compared to Colin Powell.
I would like to talk about three areas, not exceed my time limit and leave it open to questions and to rebuttal, which I am expecting. First, I would like to discuss the Persian Gulf. Having heard the previous presentation I feel like I have an obligation to correct the record. Colin Powell was very much a reluctant warrior during the Gulf War. This is a story Bob Woodward first broke in his book The Commanders and which Mick Trainor and I had an opportunity to amplify in our book The Generals' War. What do I mean by this? By the way, Powell himself takes note of this in his own book where he describes his reluctance to go to war against Saddam Hussein as a matter of prudence in trying to force the civilians to better define their objectives. But it really went beyond that. I am going to quickly go over a few examples and then move on to the next crisis.
In the Gulf context, what do I mean when I say Powell was a reluctant warrior? Prior to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it was not unknown to the Pentagon that Iraqi had 70,000 to 100,000 troops on the border of Kuwait. The interesting question is why we did not do anything about it. That is a complicated question. For the record, there was an option of using military force, to send troops to the region to take some sort of deterrent action, to signal to the Iraqis that they should not invade Kuwait. As a matter of fact, Paul Wolfowitz was among those who suggested precisely such an action -- moving the MPS ships. There were others, including the CENTCOM staff, who sent up options. Powell was reluctant to do any of these things. It reflected his judgement that you do not use military force as a political signal. But that was a context in which it might very well have been useful to use military force as a political signal.

More importantly, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Powell was strongly opposed to using American military power to kick the Iraqis out of Kuwait. On the day of the invasion (the day in Gulf time, but a day after in Washington time) there was a meeting with Defense Secretary Cheney which became rather heated. Powell basically said that he did not think the American people would go to war for $1.50 a gallon oil -- these are quotes from a transcript of the meeting -- and that we should draw the line in Saudi Arabia. This was not the only time he expressed this view. He expressed it in the NSC. Interestingly enough, he held this view for a period of months. It was not accurate to say this was the mindset he had during the period of the buildup and that he merely was urging caution so that we could allow the buildup to take place. He held this view for some time. He expressed it outside the Administration, for example, to allies. He took his concerns outside the family, so to speak. I spoke with Sir Patrick Hine, a top British official, who was here in the October 1990 time frame. He met with Powell and said that in that meeting, Powell made a very strongly felt case for relying on sanctions for a period of up to two years. He basically had the same position as Senator Nunn at the time. He also felt that, for a number of reasons, he thought that war could go wrong. He was also concerned about the backlash in the Arab world against American interests, which was the dog that did not bark in the Gulf context.

Admiral Crowe testified against the war in the Congress, I believe in the November 1990 time frame. I remember covering that hearing. As an author, it was interesting for me to learn that, before Crowe did so, he consulted with Colin Powell. And Crowe informed Powell that he was going to testify against the war. It is Crowe's view that Powell encouraged him to go ahead with this testimony and signaled his agreement with the sanctions policy. I had an opportunity to talk directly on the record with General Powell about that for the book and he said, I think this is essentially a verbatim quote, "Well, I don't know that I encouraged him, but I didn't discourage him either." As a parenthetical aside, I found Bob Woodward's book The Commanders, a reliable book and very interesting. But Bob you might want to update the section in your book that deals with this because it has Powell being shocked by Admiral Crowe's testimony when reality is he acknowledges he knew about it beforehand.

BOB WOODWARD You did not read it then, very well.

MICHAEL GORDON There is a difference between a first cut at history and a book. It is a quibble, but it is an important one. This is a concern, not just for authors, but for people who were civilians in the Bush Administration. It is a fact that Cheney became concerned about the slow pace of the American military planning during this period. He actually took it upon himself to develop his own ground war plan in conjunction with Paul Wolfowitz and some others and briefed it to the White House when Powell was out of town. Cheney's perspective on this was that maybe it was a good plan maybe it was not such a good plan but at least it got the American military going. This reluctance is something that was felt and perceived by many of the civilians at the time.
I read with interest something Larry Eagleburger said in International Economics, a journal that I do not read regularly. I regard Larry Eagleburger as a pretty reliable and honest person and I think he is one of the few people who served with Powell who is not looking to get back into government or for a top position and therefore does not have to craft his remarks to be politically-correct. He said, "I love Colin Powell, I respect him," but, "I know personally that if Colin had his druthers, he would not have fought the Iraq war." He said "I know personally that President Bush and Brent Scowcroft pushed him into it. Brent Scowcroft, in my judgment, is a great hero because he sat there and shoved Powell's military plans back at him until we got the strategy of envelopment." In my reporting over a period of three years, that assertion by Larry Eagleburger, which he made very recently, is essentially accurate in terms of describing what went on behind the scenes in that Gulf period.

One last word on the Gulf war and then I will, very briefly address the two other areas. Powell certainly had strengths in the Gulf period. He was decisive. He held Schwarzkopf's hand. He was a steadying influence. He was a very effective spokesman for the policy. I think you cannot argue with his decision to have a big buildup. That was eminently sensible. However, one of our goals in the Gulf War was to destroy the Republican Guard. It was a very central objective and was committed in writing. It was not peripheral and it was important because we did not want to have to go back every time Saddam Hussein sent a Republican Guard division toward the Kuwait boarder. Powell expressed this for public consumption with his famous quote: "We are going to cut it off and kill it." He discusses this at great length in his book, how we first thought we were going to cut it off and neutralize it but then he thought it would be better to use the phrase "we were going to cut it off and kill it." It was a very good sound byte. That goal was not achieved to the extent that it should have been. It is a matter of public record. The CIA After Action Evaluation shows that half of the Republican Guard Armor escaped, including the Hammurabi Division, which came back to menace Kuwait in October 1994. This triggered another near-deployment of American forces and movement of materiel.

In my judgement, the most important figure in making the decision to end the war prematurely without completing that military objectives was General Powell. Certainly it was Bush's responsibility, but he deferred to the judgement of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on that military question. I know this because the note taker who was there at the meeting made note of this. Powell's advice was decisive and I think it turned out in the light of history not to be good advice. Again, I am not raising the issue of going to Baghdad, I am just judging the American military by its own criterion, its own standards, its own goals -- to destroy the Republican Guard. Nor is this something that only civilians complain about. When we were researching the book, it was striking to me the number of Army generals that expressed dissatisfaction with the way the war ended. I am talking about people like General McCaffrey; General Arnold, who is now a three star; Cal Waller, General Schwarzkopf's deputy; and others including the general who is now Defense Secretary Perry's military assistant, Paul Kern, who was then a brigade commander and whose criticism was more muted but he still expressed this concern.

Now to wind it up, because Eliot passed me a note saying "pick up the pace." I want to quickly address two last issues. One Bosnia, the other Somalia. I will do it very quickly.
With respect to Bosnia, General Powell advised two presidents against doing exactly what the Clinton Administration recently did effectively in the Balkan crisis: use limited airpower not to win a victory, but to try and encourage a diplomatic outcome and to not lose American lives needlessly. This is described in Secretary Baker's book. I think he is probably regarded as a reliable source about how both Cheney and Powell strenuously opposed the use of airpower in this context. We know he did it in the Clinton Administration. One reason Clinton has been criticized for not doing much was Powell was telling him not to do much for a period of time. There are people who can defend that policy of inaction, but I think it had enormous consequences. A lot of people died and I think it also had a deleterious effect for the NATO alliance. It is something to keep in mind when you think about what foreign policy might be like in a future Powell presidency.

Last off, Somalia. I will not discuss it in detail now because I want to close off my presentation. I am prepared to discuss it in detail in response to questions. This is a white-hot political issue. Defense Secretary Aspin lost his job over it. Clinton's popularity plummeted over this issue. This is much more complicated than a lot of people realize. I will state two facts which are indisputable. First, we took on the mission to hunt Mohammed Farah Aidid at the suggestion of the field commanders and General Powell called Les Aspin and so recommended and Aspin concurred. Whether that was the right decision or the wrong decision -- personally I did not object to it at the time -- Powell was instrumental in the American decision to assume the mission to hunt Aidid. He acknowledges this in his book very briefly. Subsequently, when the October 3, 1993, Ranger raid went awry, and 18 Americans died and a lot of people were wounded, post-mortums showed that there was not just one issue pertaining to the equipment that these soldiers might have had during the Somalia conflict, there were two issues. One issue, we all know, was the tanks that were not sent. This might have had a beneficial effect. The other issue was the AC-130 gunships that were not sent that the Rangers very much wanted. There was a recent report that came out by the Senate Armed Services Committee, a Republican-controlled Panel. In it General Downing, a four-star general, was quoted on the record as saying he asked for them and that General Powell opposed them and the Rangers regard this as having had a significant negative effect on their ability to deal with that conflict. I am not trying to point fingers. I think Somalia is a very complicated case. There is responsibility to go around to many, including the media. But I think that if you are trying to create an accurate, objective, and complete portrait of General Powell's record, it is necessary to take into account his decision not to furnish this equipment. I have read General Powell's book and there is not even a mention of this entire episode in there.

BOB WOODWARD My letter said that everyone else would be so long winded I would have 30 seconds. I will try to keep it to fifteen seconds.
It was interesting to hear Rich Armitage. If we did not know that Rich was privately advising his friend General Powell not to run for president we would think that Rich was test- marketing at least an op-ed piece in his talk today.
I will try to cover three things. I think it is important to look at Powell's time as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. With all the Powell-mania and the discussion of Powell and politics, when you really look at it, he is the stranger in American politics. We do not know much about him. He seems to have a political persona that people have pinned on him but, in fact, the best way to find out who he is, is to see how he performed in the military role he had as the number one military man in this country. He was, as has been pointed out, in the chain of command. As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you are the number one, the principal advisor to the president, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council, but you are only an advisor. General Trainor's suggestion here that Powell somehow inserted himself between President Bush or the National Command Authority or Secretary of Defense Cheney and Schwarzkopf in the field is not correct. In fact there is a memo specifically assigning the Chairman that communications role. There was no expropriation of authority in that role on Powell's part.

It seems to me, if you look at Powell's tenure, I would give him two "A's" or "A+'s" on some things and I would give him an "incomplete" in the third area. The first area where I think he really deserves an "A" and did a rather magnificent job as a military person and as a political general in the best sense, is figuring out the solution to the end of the Cold War for the American military. Though many other people were involved, it was Powell who essentially came up with the idea of the Base Force, the idea of cutting the American military 25%. He managed this in a very elongated way, by dealing with the White House, Congress, and the civilians in the defense department. I have written about this but it is something Powell did not write about in his book.

The second thing I would give him a strong "A" or "A+" on is his role as the representative of the soldier, of the person who had to go out and fight and perhaps die. On the eve of the Gulf War, Colin Powell, in his office alone, was asking the right question which was "How many will not come back?" "What effort have we made in the military, among the civilians, to make sure that we have such good equipment, so much force, that we can almost guarantee success?" This is called the Powell Doctrine. The Powell Doctrine not only made Presidents happy and allowed this country to win wars, what is just as important is that it saved lives.

The area of the "incomplete" has to do with the Gulf War. I want to turn to Powell's book for a moment. Page 478 is where he talks about what I think everyone would agree is the crucial meeting with President Bush -- he puts it in September 1990 -- on whether it is going to be sanctions or whether we are going to go to war. Powell writes, "Something was bothering me." It sounds like a novel. "On September 24 I went to Dick Cheney's office. "Dick," I said, "the President's really getting impatient. He keeps asking if we can't get the Iraqis out of Kuwait with air strikes." Powell then goes in some detail to say that he laid out two options, sanctions or building up the force to go to war. He said to Bush, "Sir, you still have two basic options available." Then Powell, the Chairman, the number one military advisor to the president says, in recounting this, that he did not advocate either. "I was not advocating either route, war or sanctions, on this day." Then Powell goes on to say, "My responsibility that day was to lay out all options for the civilian leadership. However, in our democracy, it is the president, not generals, who make decisions." But in this most crucial moment for the Bush Presidency, for the American military, for the United States, Colin Powell had no advice. He made no recommendation. It interests me that later on, when Powell testified before the Senate about six weeks later right before the war, it was Senator Bill Cohen who quoted Henry Kissinger and asked Powell in open public testimony, "Kissinger says that the military people rarely challenge the Commander in Chief. They seek excuses." Then, Cohen went on to ask Powell, "Do you stand in awe of the Commander in Chief?" Powell said, "I am not reluctant or afraid to give either the Secretary of Defense, the President, or any other member of the National Security Council, my best, most honest, most candid, advice. Whether they like it or not." It turns out, by Powell's own account, and I think it is bore out by all the reporting on this, he had no recommendation. Anybody who ever serves in an advisory role knows that the advisor, in the end, will be asked by the decision maker, "What is your recommendation? You have all the facts. Granted it's my decision, but what do you think I should do?" Interestingly enough, significantly, Bush did not ask, Scowcroft did not ask, and Powell did not volunteer. That is where I would give Powell an "incomplete." There is all of this discussion in the land, much promoted by my colleagues in the news business, on television, and in the newspapers, that Colin Powell, as this hypothetical candidate, should be elected president because he is a leader. When you go back, and I and others have, it strikes me as very interesting that in the moment when the rubber hit the road, Colin Powell, this leader, this person who an astronomically high number of people in the polls say they want to be President of the United States, in fact, had no advice on one of the most crucial issues for the country and for the military at that time. "Incomplete."
Thanks.

ELIOT COHEN Let me give the members of the panel an opportunity for very brief rebuttals. Then we will move to take questions from the floor. I would urge you to be brief.

BERNARD TRAINOR With regard to Mr. Armitage's remarks, I think he has given us a very accurate description of the Goldwater-Nichols Act. Beyond that, he describes the characteristics of Colin Powell as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Of course, he gives him accolades on all of these counts. But I listened to what he was saying and I thought to myself, the same characteristics he ascribes to Powell as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff could equally be applied to his predecessors, Bill Crowe, and Jack Vessey. Any number of former Chairmen did exactly the same thing that he credits Powell for, presumably exclusively. The exception is they also did it with the support of their fellow chiefs.

Just two points on Mr. Woodward. On the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff being in the line of command authority, he is an advisor. The Chairman is an advisor. You are correct in that he was, as Powell himself describes in his book, a conduit. The messages or decisions of the National Command Authority go through the Chairman out to the field. This is primarily so that the Joint Staff presumably can take the decisions of the civilian leadership and transcribe them militarily-understandable terms. The point is, however, that he was more than a conduit. He was a power-broker between the field and the White House. I would maintain that if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it's a duck. He put himself in the chain of command.

RICHARD ARMITAGE Thank you very much. It is such a target-rich environment that I hardly know where to begin.

ELIOT COHEN Use cluster munitions and get it over with.

RICHARD ARMITAGE I will make five specific comments. First, if we think through what happens, I believe General Powell would endorse the use of force to send a political signal. If the signal is sent, but not received or if we send the signal but it does not work, than what if we are not ready for the next step? The United States is not some third world nation. We, at least in my view, are the leader of the free world. It does matter that we get it right.
Number two, on Admiral Crowe's comments, I believe it happened just as you suggest, Mr. Gordon. They had lunch in the Chairman's office and my understanding is that General Powell did not respond one way or the other, at least he does not recall responding one way or the other.

MICHAEL GORDON He does not recall a lot of things.

RICHARD ARMITAGE That is an unfair thing to say. We are talking about the luncheon and I know that Admiral Crowe, curiously enough, both testified against the war and, then after the war, criticized the Administration for not going to Baghdad. That is quite a good trip, to be on both sides of that issue.

On the question of the Balkan air crisis, I take your point seriously about the use of airpower. But I wonder myself whether the use of airpower is what brought about the changed situation in the Balkans or whether the Bosnian Government-Croat offensive and their successes might have had more to do with it. That is something we can discuss.

Now, to the question of Somalia. You referred to the Senate Report. Senator Levin has a two page addition to the Senate Report where he says the problem in Somalia was the policy. Mr. Warner has a somewhat longer introduction to the Senate Report. He said the problem was the policy and some equipment issues, including the two you mentioned. It is interesting to me to note that tanks in a city, for those who have been on the ground, are not very useful generally, particularly in a city like Mogadishu. With the AC-130 gunships, I do not know how, in a city like Mogadishu, you limit your targets to just the bad guys. I think the real problem in Somalia frankly was that we had a U.N. resolution which declared former Mogadishu police chief Aidid a "war criminal." If you take the President at his own words in that same report, he speaks to one of the fathers of a casualty and says, "He didn't know anything about that resolution going through the U.N." And I do not believe the Pentagon did either. That is where things went the most wrong in Somalia. All of those things I mentioned are, I think, matters of opinion. You can debate and argue endlessly. Public Law 99-433 is not a matter of opinion. General Powell did not insert himself in the chain of command; he was put in to it. The Secretary and the President saw to it to put him in the chain of command, as a communicator and as a spokesperson for the combatant commands to the president. He was inserted into that situation by the President and the Secretary of Defense. He did not insert himself.

MICHAEL GORDON I am going to speak for thirty seconds and address only one point in the interest of economy of time. Just as a factual matter though, on the AC-130 gunship issue, in the Senate Report General Downing said, "I advised I would like to have the AC-130s. General Powell advised we needed to keep the numbers down. The AC-130s would not have prevented October 3-4, but they would have been useful once the battle started. I said I thought they should be included. I so recommended. My sense was that OSD and the NSC were fairly supportive. The problem was differences within the Joint Staff." Isn't that a different way of looking at the problem? One last quote, from Colonel Boykin, the Commander of the Special Operations Forces: "The single biggest void was the absence of AC-130s. It would have made a big difference. It would have provided fire support, eyes and psychological impact. It could have told us of the massing of forces, it could have leveled the Olympic Hotel and broken the back of the SNA." There are also several other quotes from the Rangers. I was not the field commander. I was not in that battle. The Somalia fray was an admittedly complicated issue, but one in which Powell played a role. The last quote is from General Powell: "I do not have any recollection of the AC-130s being a part of the Ranger Task Force package." He is the only participant interviewed for this report published by the Senate Armed Services Committee who did not recollect that decision.

BOB WOODWARD One thing I think we are overlooking is that it was very hard to serve as a senior official in the Bush Administration. If you look at the number of political casualties -- people who worked for President Bush who came out of their service in his Administration with diminished reputations -- it would be a rather long list. When you look at some of the decision-making, not only as it pertains to defense and foreign policy but domestic policy, it was one hard job. If you were to go through everything that Powell did, he is one of a handful of people who not only ended his time in service in the Bush Administration honorably, but with his reputation enhanced. That is very unusual. Dan Quayle, Jack Kemp, Dick Cheney, and all kinds of people decided not to run for president. Those, indeed, are personal decisions. But they have a lot to do with the legacy of the entire Bush Administration.

ELIOT COHEN Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please raise your hand. We don't have a walk around mike, so I would ask you, when I call upon you, to stand up. Speak your name loudly. Also, if you would give your institutional affiliation.

QUESTION Mike Desch, the Olin Institute, Harvard University. It seems to me that one of the most interesting aspects of Powell is the whole question of what the legitimate venue is for the Chairman, or any members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for expressing legitimate dissent with the policies of the National Command Authority. There are two extremes. I think none of us would agree with President Eisenhower's position that JCS candor in responding to congressional inquiries was "damn near treason." But I wonder if we have moved too far to another extreme where a serving Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff publishes op-ed pieces or, in the case of the gays in the military issue, plays a fairly public if behind the scenes role in undercutting an Administration policy. While all of us believe there should be some means of legitimate dissent, has that gone too far and does that exceed legitimate military dissent?

ELIOT COHEN Do you want to address that to anyone in particular or to the entire panel?

MIKE DESCH Mr. Armitage in particular, but also any of the other panelists. Just one other point. Mr. Armitage suggested it would have been nice to have Cheney or President Bush up here. It would be nice to have President Clinton or, if we could bring him back from the dead, Les Aspin, because Powell's Chairmanship spanned two administrations.

RICHARD ARMITAGE What is the proper role of dissent? My own view is it's internal to an administration. It is not external. In all circumstances that I can imagine, one has a responsibility to be truthful to Congress. If someone were going to take such a dramatic step away from an administration, they would first resign. Although this is not such a fixture in our administrations, it is in the British.

The question you specifically address had to do with an op-ed piece, and I've heard this comment from time to time. Why does the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff publish a view in a newspaper, or more, why did he have the temerity to write some views in Foreign Affairs? I think this is generally criticized by people who haven't served in administrations. As far as I know, all published materials by General Powell were cleared fully by the Department of Defense and the clearance process is not a joking matter. The fellow to your right can tell you a bit about it and probably had something to do with it. I don't think it is so unusual when you realize those are views that are fully in consonance with the Administration as cleared by the Department of Defense.

QUESTION Fritz Ermath. I work at CIA but and I worked for the Commission on Roles and Missions. First, General Trainor, what is your reaction to Michael Gordon's observation that the American officer corps is far from unanimous in its support of the so- called Powell Doctrine? Second, there was a sharpening of anxiety at what you might call a sociological level, during the very end of Colin Powell's CJCS tenure. This is seen in the gays issue, the perceived insult of General McCaffrey, and a sense of alienation on the part of the armed forces from a society which seems strange to them, even as they seem strange to society. General Powell, as the Chairman and as a military officer, was a moral figure, a commander, and a military decision-maker and he takes that very seriously. The Army is family. What is his legacy in that department? Could you comment on the sociology of civil- military relations?

BERNARD TRAINOR On the officer corps' view of the Powell Doctrine, as you might expect, it's mixed. You get a lot of different views. For example, in terms of putting ground forces into Bosnia, you could find within the Army and the Marine Corps a fair number officers who are opposed to that. That doesn't necessarily mean that they are signing on to the Powell Doctrine. The Powell Doctrine really goes back to the Weinberger era and there is a generation of officers that have come along that take it as gospel and embrace it. This gets to your third question, in that they see the doctrine as something that stands to benefit the troops and their families, i.e. they are not going to be put in some sort of a wasted war to be blown away. I would also say that there is a rising concern among quite a few of the senior officers on the rigid application of the Powell Doctrine -- a so-called Doctrine because it is never explicitly stated -- as opposed to it being only a guideline. In particular, this business of "whatever we do, we can't have any casualties." In the Pentagon today, at the beginning of any planning process the first question that is asked is about casualties.

In a certain sense this gets back to Bob's point on the eve of the Gulf war. This extreme aversion to casualties is not particularly useful. A number of senior officers have expressed that to me in a number of ways. Number one: war is a dirty, messy thing. When you do go to war, you have to expect casualties and I think the American people understand that far better than they do in the Pentagon. The second thing is that the senior officers believe that, if it becomes a writ -- that we cannot suffer casualties -- it makes it relatively easy for mischief makers around the world to raise the bloody shirt, or raise the body-bag issue, and scare off American intervention. If you subscribe to the virtues of studied ambiguity in response to a threat, this is not particularly useful. I think you get a mixed bag on the issue of the Powell Doctrine.

On civil-military relations and social alienation, that's the subject of the study that is being undertaken by SAIS and by the Olin Institute at Harvard. With the all-volunteer force, there is a certain alienation taking place. George Will wrote about the military seeing themselves as a selfless island in an ocean of selfishness, meaning the general public. I don't know the answer to that but hopefully at the end of the SAIS and Olin study, we should have some pretty good views on the changing nature of the military in society. The fundamental thing is that traditionally, from the founding of the republic, the U.S. military has been a people's army. I hate to use the ideological phrase from a defunct state, but it is a people's army, the whole militia concept, the minuteman concept, where the military is tied to the people. Whether the all-volunteer force is eroding that connection, I don't know but we hope to find out.

ELIOT COHEN I would ask our questioners to be brief and our panel members to be the same. We have a member of the Bush Administration who also decided not to run for president. He said he was drafted to become Dean of SAIS. Paul Wolfowitz.

QUESTION Paul Wolfowitz. I don't know whether I'm in the graveyard of dead careers or not but I must say I found that a striking description of the Bush Administration. I want to be careful that I don't seem like I'm fishing for a job in the Powell Administration. Not because Michael would take a shot at me but because my wife would be very upset.

I have a two part question that is mainly for Michael Gordon and Mick Trainor. The first part relates to Goldwater-Nichols and civil-military relations. General Trainor said, I think correctly, that the strengthening of Powell as Chairman was at the expense and power of the service chiefs. He then went on to say that this is a violation of the American principle of checks and balances. I don't think the American principle of checks and balances is one that applies indiscriminately across the board. It seems to me the heart of the question is what this does to the power of civilian authority. From my own perception, and at the risk of sounding like I'm applying for the Powell Administration, it seems to me that what I saw was a much more effective Secretary of Defense and control over the military, at least more effective than has been true given what was in the Pentagon ten years earlier when, in fact, whatever the Secretary of Defense wanted, it was guaranteed there would be at least one or two powerful service chiefs who would oppose him. I think we would have ended up with something like the Base Force even without Goldwater-Nichols but it sure would have been a lot more difficult without a strong chairman pushing through a group of chiefs that really were resistant in the most unthinking, conservative sort of way. My sense is that Goldwater-Nichols really has strengthened civilian control over the military, at least with respect to the issue you raised of weakening the service chiefs.

The second question has to do with the Powell Doctrine. What is it precisely that the two of you object to? I must say I find myself rather taken with it, at least with the caveat that Mr. Armitage added which is it doesn't mean you always use force overwhelmingly, but if you do use force or threaten to use force, you follow through to the end of the process of what you are going to do. I don't think it means that you don't use force unless you are guaranteed to win. General Powell's career involved deep commitments in Europe where we were almost guaranteed to loose. And deep commitments in Korea where there was certainly no guarantee of victory and much less a guarantee of low casualties. It seems to me you have to ask the question "In what circumstances would you want to commit American forces and not commit all forces available to you?" It is the heart, I think, of the problem in Somalia. We had said we were going to go for an objective, but because congress would be unhappy if we sent tanks, or if we did this or that, we didn't go at it wholeheartedly. It seems to me that is a real problem. I have to note historically, it is not the case that General Powell insisted only on the maximum force. When we were arguing with the State Department, in the early ten days when Saddam started threatening Kuwait, it was the Pentagon with General Powell very much on board that fought the State Department for the one puny little show of force we did make in sending tankers to Kuwait. The State Department didn't like it and our Arab allies liked it even less and we kind of quit. I think it was a mistake. When we had the Philippine crisis...

INTERRUPTION Tankers to UAE you mean, not to Kuwait, to the UAE.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ UAE, yes. Thank you for the correction. It was the Kuwait crisis, the tankers went to the UAE. The Kuwaitis were too afraid to ask for anything. When we had the Philippine crisis, and some people said let's bomb the airfields so the Philippine Air Force can't deliver coup plotters to Manila, General Powell said you don't have to do that. Put an F-4 up in the air and it won't fly. We put an F-4 up in the air and it didn't fly. And most dramatically, in PROVIDE COMFORT when we went into Northern Iraq with something far less than overwhelming force, it was with that reputation for overwhelming force that American battalion commanders could face down Iraqi divisions and tell them to back off. Some of the military, and myself as well, wanted to pull out because the ground component was a little worried we would be thin on the ground. General Powell said "I've just been in Northern Iraq and I was bugged by an F-16. Believe me, it scared me and it will scare the Iraqis."

BERNARD TRAINOR Let me, very quickly, first go to your second question on the Powell Doctrine. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the so-called Powell Doctrine and it's elements are virtuous, and everybody subscribes to them. My concern is the rigid application of the Powell Doctrine. There is no flexibility to it. It is a prescription. We don't do floors and windows and we don't go to war unless it is on Thursday and the weather is clear. The problem is this rigid application of what is, in itself, a useful guideline. What seems to be emerging is that this has become holy writ. And it is not just overwhelming force, it is all the other elements: clear objectives and exit strategy. We are dealing with a dynamic world. We sometimes don't know what the objectives are and they may change along the way. Are you not going to use military force in those instances? If you can't figure out an exit strategy are you setting aside military force as an option? This is the problem of the rigid application of the Powell Doctrine. This is probably not what he intended. I don't think it is what Weinberger intended when the prescriptions first emerged. But it seems to have taken on its own life along those lines.

In terms of the weakening of military authority under Goldwater-Nichols, I think the verdict, frankly, is still out. There is only so much power to go around. If somebody gets enhanced power, it is at the expense of somebody else. In this instance, it was clearly at the expense of the fellow chiefs. They are not villains though they certainly have been painted as villains. They clearly do some pretty constructive work and have done so in the past. But the loss of power is that you don't have competing views. Competing views do not necessarily mean insidious parochialism. Competing views are very, very useful. But that's gone. In a sense a secretary of defense who is a civilian is then hostage to a single individual or his views. I think this was reflected in the Gulf War, when Dick Cheney was somewhat disappointed with the advice that he was getting from the military and went outside the circles to put together a team of civilians, although there were retired military involved, to come up with a different strategy. And as he said subsequently, he did this to light a fire under the military to get them to react. The genius of the American system is that the secretary of defense can probably always find work-arounds to any sort of inhibition of his legitimate exercise of authority and Cheney did it in this instance. I'm simply saying that the checks and balances concept which has served the republic so well is somewhat neutralized by the Goldwater-Nichols Act and it is still too early to tell if it is really going to have a major negative effect. I think it is something that should be reviewed for unintended consequences.

RICHARD ARMITAGE I think General Trainor is right to look at the question of casualties. I don't think that anyone would not agree that casualties are going to come out of military conflict or the provision of military force no matter how seemingly gentle. It is the nature of the beast. The question is whether casualties will be endured for a lofty reason and explicable goals. We are a people's army, even though we are all-volunteer. When that army gets in a jam overseas, what is the people's response here? They are quite vocal. Those are their sons and daughters, no matter that they happened to volunteer. If you cannot explain why they are sacrificing and why they will be called upon to sacrifice, you will not carry the day with the people's representatives in the U.S. Congress. We have to always keep that in mind. That's not quite the same thing as keeping in mind that we can't have any casualties.

As to the second point, General Trainor I don't know, historically, where you and I sat in different tank sessions. The notion that someone like General Al Gray, former Commandant of the Marine Corps, or General Tony McPeak of the USAF, would sit on their hands in a tank session with Secretary Cheney and not speak up, is not descriptive of those two people or the people I know. That is not the way things happen in the tank sessions. People speak. People go back and forth. This is particularly true with Secretary Cheney who was wont to argue with his service chiefs, if not fire them, from time to time. So there was plenty of discussion in there. I just don't think it is fair to leave completely on the record the image that the other service chiefs were emasculated totally or simply sat on their hands. You are right that there is only a certain amount of power to go around. If you want to see who really lost in Goldwater-Nichols, it is the service secretaries. They lost.

MICHAEL GORDON Just very briefly, on the point of the Powell Doctrine. Paul, you know what the liabilities are of the Powell Doctrine because I think you found yourself on the other side of some of the issues from General Powell during the Bush Administration. For example, after the war when the Shiites in Southern Iraq were being pummeled because of the exemption General Powell charitably gave the Iraqis for helicopter gunships, I believe you were not in agreement with General Powell that we should walk away from that because it didn't fit his model of warfare. I think it is a matter of degree. I think, like General Trainor, that certainly prudence is important. I agree with what Rich Armitage said that if you can't explain the sacrifice that has to be made to the American public that you shouldn't take on a war. It has to be done in a very sober way and with a lot of thought. But when you apply the Powell Doctrine very rigidly, so rigidly that it leads you to oppose a war against an Iraq which has nuclear ambitions, so rigidly that you are against the most modest application of force in the Bosnia situation -- air drops to the Muslims, initially, for food and no-flight zones -- you have to ask yourself if this is not an extreme application of this Doctrine. If it leads to a world in which Saddam Hussein's forces are still in Kuwait and in which we are standing on the sidelines while war is raging in the Balkans, then you have to ask yourself, is this a sensible doctrine for a country that still has pretensions to be a superpower in the post-Cold War world.

QUESTION Richard Cohen of the University of North Carolina. My question is for Mr. Armitage and also for the rest of the panel. When General Powell left office, the relationship between the President and his Administration and the professional military was the worst and most broken on record. Probably in American history. One wonders if this is not one of the legacies of General Powell's leadership. Certainly he can't be blamed for that because it could be argued that the President's record and his raising of gays in the military was responsible for it. My question is why did General Powell not take steps to nip this as it repeatedly happened? Why did he not exercise his moral leadership as the senior military officer in the American armed forces? He could, for example, have asked General McCaffrey to keep absolutely quiet. Since General McCaffrey was his special assistant, he had occasion and he could have taken, perhaps, other steps to try to repair that relationship or at least to prevent it from deteriorating to the point where it did when he left office.

RICHARD ARMITAGE I can't be in the position of speaking for President Clinton but it seems to me the President, by his actions, has spoken for himself on this matter on several occasions: by his actions when Chairman Powell retired, by his attendance and comments at the ceremony, and by his actions of consistently, at least in my view, reaching out to General Powell. It is not a secret that they talked. He, General Powell, was asked by the President to go to Haiti and try to do what he could. I would say that, by the President's actions, he has shown that he doesn't hold quite the view you do. I would say that General Powell, taking the President and literally leading him to the Vietnam Wall and introducing him in a warm and dignified fashion in front of some veterans who had differing views, was moral leadership. I think those veterans expressed their views in a very bad, distasteful way. That seems to me to be exercising the moral leadership one would want. As to the question of gays in the military, it seems to me that the President himself might have been better served had he raised the question prior to the election when he and General Powell had, what I think is described by both gentlemen, as a very warm and in-depth conversation. Powell said he knew of the President's commitment on this issue during the campaign. He suggested that it might be best, because of the difficulties involved, if the President suggest to the new Secretary of Defense that perhaps he take a certain amount of time to study the issue and have the military come back to the President with the solution to the problem. But that didn't happen and things took off from there. It went to the Congress, etc. So I would say, look at the President's actions and he might not quite agree with the characterization you laid out.

ELIOT COHEN Would anybody else care to address that? Ok. The gentleman in the brown jacket back there.

QUESTION I worked in Somalia during the emergency phase and I would like to revisit that perhaps for comment. Two points on General Powell's role. First, a number of American troops were sent down. About 20,000 as a manifestation of the Powell Doctrine. A smaller force could have been more mobile, better adapted to the terrain. Second, when General Powell on May 1 pronounced that the U.N. was completely ready for the handoff, we were warned subsequently that top American diplomats there were reporting back that the U.N. was not ready to take over this responsibility for a number of logistical and practical reasons.

MICHAEL GORDON I don't think I know enough to answer those questions properly, to be honest with you. But I would say that my instinct is that if General Powell thought it took 28,000 troops to launch a Somalia intervention, why not err on the side of the larger force? I have absolutely no quarrel with him on terms of sending a larger force rather than a smaller force to do a military job, if it is the appropriate force. My quarrel is when there are cases when you ought to do something and you don't. I would like to make just one observation. As a matter of public record, when the critical U.N. resolutions were passed -- for example, the one that led to the extraction or withdrawal of the American force and the establishment of the UNSCOM II operation with the nation-building mission which later became a dirty word for some reason -- I don't believe it's accurate that the JCS didn't sign off on that. In fact, I've been told that is inaccurate and that the Clinton Administration did get the JCS to sign off on the U.N. resolution. I'm not in a position to decide myself which is accurate but I'm not sure that the JCS was so out of the loop on some of the key policy decision-making. Of course, at that point in time, the JCS was looking forward to getting its forces out and, I think, was willing to accept a resolution that implied some continuing obligations and nation building as the price for that.

RICHARD ARMITAGE I might have left a mis-impression with you. I didn't mean to speak to a nation-building resolution at the U.N. as being a resolution that the JCS didn't know about. I have every reason to think they must have. But I was speaking specifically to the "Aidid as a criminal" resolution, which the President addresses, found in the Senate Report. I have not been able to find a record of the resolution in the JCS, so it seems to me that if one exists, then somebody ought to be able to come up with it. I have yet to see it.

MICHAEL GORDON The only reason I mentioned that was because, in some of the Somalia Report before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Powell says the JCS didn't have an opportunity to sign off on that resolution on nation-building and somebody in the Clinton Administration said that that is a matter of procedure. Maybe it wasn't Powell. Maybe it was some subordinate. That indeed, did occur. They did need sign off on it.

QUESTION I'm Larry Korb from Brookings. I would like to follow up on Michael Desch's question to Rich Armitage. You were talking about sanctions, but what I picked up here today and from reading all of your books is that General Powell was in favor of sanctions. He didn't want to take the offensive in operations. Yet, when Senator Nunn held those hearings, he never let the American people know that, in fact, he had doubts. That was the whole debate, sanctions or war. Was he correct, or should he have had the obligation to at least let the rest of us know? I didn't know about it until I read your book.

BOB WOODWARD There's a way to answer that and that's in the chronology of events. When General Powell had expressed to people his view that maybe they should let sanctions go, and he met with Bush and Bush made it clear, we're going to build up for war, Powell realized he had received his orders. It was a legitimate order. It made sense. And I think history has demonstrated that it probably was the wise choice. By the time Senator Nunn held his hearings, Bush had already decided, and Powell was on board. So, the decision then would have been, should he have testified two months ago, or ten weeks ago, to say that he favored letting sanctions continue. It's not plausible that somebody in that position is going to go public with a position that they themselves have altered.

RICHARD ARMITAGE Several things happened during the Iraq buildup. I was on the Defense Policy Board at the time and Secretary Cheney said to us one day that he wanted to give sanctions time to work but he felt that war was inevitable. We saw, on the very eve of the war, Jim Baker flying off to meet with Tariq Aziz for one last chance at a peaceful solution. I don't think that everyone in the Administration knew that was going to happen. I think it was cooked up between Mr. Baker and the President to give it a last shot. Lots of things were going on in this time period. I think Mr. Woodward is correct. Chronology is important.

QUESTION Don Oberdorfer, former journalist now at SAIS. I don't find it particularly surprising, looking at two of my former colleagues -- two journalists and a sometime journalist, General Trainor -- no one here has mentioned what may have been almost as important as Goldwater-Nichols to Colin Powell and that is his mastery of the media. As a person who was very favorably treated during nearly all of his time as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, it gave him terrific power in the Pentagon. It has a certain relevance to his future possibilities, of course. How did he do it? Why was he so very successful, at least in my view as just the average reader, far more than most of his predecessors?

BOB WOODWARD You want to talk about how you manipulated Colin Powell?

RICHARD ARMITAGE It is interesting to me that, on the one hand, many in journalism have decried for years the lack of professionalism among senior U.S. military officers and their handling of the press and press relations. So much so that now our war colleges have been teaching press relations steadily, and inviting journalists to come down to show the way to the U.S. military. I think General Powell was ahead of the curve on this. I think it is because he has had high level positions and had observed Secretary Weinberger. Or perhaps earlier, when he was a White House Fellow, he saw the unique interaction between the press, the public and an administration. Far from being either intimidated or frightened of it, he held the view that the press has an absolutely vital role to play if they play it responsibly. I think he, by virtue of his own experience, came to this realization early on in his career.

BOB WOODWARD There are so many dimensions to this. One of them is the jobs Powell had. He was a senior officer before getting to the White House, he was Secretary Weinberger's military assistant for three years. He realized that a secretary of defense and certainly a president has to deal with the political implications of things. He has to deal with public relations implications. Powell was trained, I think by Tom Ross, who was the spokesman for the Pentagon in the Carter years, that you have to deal with the press. It is a reality. They are probably going to find out. You ought to be able to give them explanations that will wear well with time. And I think he internalized that lesson, but in no sense completely. I think it is hard work to report on General Powell or anything military. You have to go to lots of sources. Things are not handed out.

MICHAEL GORDON I agree with Bob's point on this. I think it is a relevant question, particularly in terms of what's happening today. I think Powell, as a human being, is a very likable person. He has a sort of an emotional warmth to him even when he gets angry. That's refreshing in a place like the Pentagon. He's got characteristics that people like.

BOB WOODWARD Not if you're a Lt. Colonel.

MICHAEL GORDON Right. But we're not Lt. Colonels. He's a likeable person. He made himself available to the media. He was a useful contact and source. Bob, you and everybody else know that it is difficult for people who are covering a beat, and I'm talking about the realities of journalism, to turn on somebody who is useful to them. In writing stories and writing accurate stories there is an inherent tension. Powell writes in his book how he learned how to deal with the media in the Nixon White House, which we might reflect on. But I also think that it is true that Powell has really effectively coopted a large part of the media. I think that whether you are for him or against him, his record with respect to Iraq and Somalia and Bosnia and all these issues, really ought to be front and center in any sort of discussion about who this man is. The Pentagon is sort of like Powell's Arkansas, the way it was for Clinton. It is a track record. It's where he made his decisions. It also gives us an idea of what his foreign policy would be, if he were president. I think the media coverage of this, sad to say, has really been woefully inadequate.

BOB WOODWARD What do you mean "coopted?" That is a strong word.

MICHAEL GORDON Is the subtext, "is that personal?"

BOB WOODWARD I didn't accuse you of that. I gave him the only incomplete grade this evening.

MICHAEL GORDON I think he's somebody who a lot of people in the Washington media establishment like and want to stay on good terms with, both because they think he is going places and because he'll be useful to them in the future. He makes himself available to do that. That is appreciated. I think he does have a basically enlightened attitude toward the media and the media respects that and repays him with a certain amount of kindness.

BOB WOODWARD That's a great distance from being coopted.

QUESTION Helm Sonnenfeld, Brookings and Johns Hopkins. I know media baffle is fun for everybody but let me just go back to one issue. You've all mentioned the Base Force concept which came out of the Bush Administration. None of you have mentioned the Bottom Up Review, which was also on Colin Powell's watch, in the Clinton Administration. Without going into detail, it is commonly agreed that the Bottom Up Review's basic propositions are severely under funded and therefore un-doable. Could you each say perhaps two sentence about where Colin Powell was on that particular exercise?

BOB WOODWARD Two sentences is it? I don't think there is anything in government that is not under funded right now.

BERNARD TRAINOR You have to have some sort of a yardstick to organize your forces. We are in the post-Cold War world and whether it was the technique of the Bottom Up Review or whether some other technique, you have to have something to start with and then evaluate. Whether it is over funded or under funded, that comes later. But I have no problem with the approach that was taken, nor would I have had any problem with another approach as long as there was an approach that has some coherence to it which then could be measured.

RICHARD ARMITAGE I could be seriously wrong on this but I don't think I'm too far off. I believe the Bottom Up Review looks an awful lot like the Base Force. I believe, Mr. Aspin, when he came in, wanted to put a mark on the Pentagon and he hit on Bottom Up Review. It's remarkably similar to the Base Force. As to the question of funding, my own view is that the priorities are kind of wrong, specifically the bottom line amount of money available. For instance, when you fund Seawolfs, B-2s and things of that nature, and you have E-5s on food stamps in Norfolk, I wonder about the priority of these things. Whether it's funded or under funded, we are always under funded, as Bob said.

MICHAEL GORDON I want to state for the record that I completely agree with Rich Armitage on the answer to this question.

RICHARD ARMITAGE Well, I disagree with myself, then.

MICHAEL GORDON I think that the Bottom Up Review was really "son of the Base Force." I think the Base Force, however, was an incredible but really unimaginative shrinkage of American force structure in which all the services pretty much kept what they wanted to keep. It did not look in any kind of radical way at roles and missions. It was something everybody could live with. It was kind of a conservative force structure. I would also note that General Powell, when I heard him speak at the Kennedy Center, said defense spending is projected by the Clinton Administration as slightly under funded. So, if he was elected he would have to change that and spend somewhat more on defense. He also thinks we have to cut taxes significantly. He said that the other day. He wants to maintain the basic guts of our social programs so how he squares all that might be an interesting question.

ELIOT COHEN I'll ask our participants to speak, actually in reverse order of the way we started. Before they do, I would like just to express a word of thanks to Dr. Andrew Bacevich, the Director of the Foreign Policy Institute and his assistant, Ms. Alicia Banks, who did all the very considerable leg work that was involved in getting this panel discussion organized. With that, let me turn to Bob Woodward and ask him to make any concluding remarks.

BOB WOODWARD I think Michael Gordon made a very important point about Powell, there is this fervor, the Powell-mania, this idea that he should be president. There is this idea that he should run, he should make this transition into politics. He himself, as recently as several days ago, said that he doesn't know whether he has the fire in the belly. He doesn't know whether he could get up every day, like he did in the Army for 35 years, and say "This is what I want to do. This is what I believe in." Michael's exactly right. The Pentagon or Powell's military career is Arkansas. And the measure of his strengths and weaknesses, and he has both, should be taken in those jobs that he had and not this kind of speculative forecasting of "well, we think he's a leader." Or, "he's offered some views on political issues, therefore we know where he stands." Or this idea that somehow you can adopt one political party or another like a new suit of clothes. You just can't do that effectively. People are going to have to go back if he runs and look very hard indeed at exactly what happened at these points. We did not get in an argument about the end of Desert Storm and the feeling that Michael and the General have that it was too early, that is was premature. I really radically disagree with that. But that is something that is going to be debated as well as all of these other little steps along the way of Powell's career.

MICHAEL GORDON Now I have to agree with Bob Woodward.

BOB WOODWARD You've had a painful afternoon, I guess.

MICHAEL GORDON I guess.

BOB WOODWARD Oh just say you agree and stop talking!

MICHAEL GORDON I agree. We in the media and others tend to make figures out to be all good or all bad. We tend to make caricatures out of individuals but life is much more complex than the way it is presented on television and in the news media and in forums. I would agree with Bob. I don't think the full measure of Powell's career has really been properly evaluated, pro and con, strengths and weaknesses. I would think that it is appropriate to do that, specifically in relation to the kind of foreign policy debate we are about to have in the country, whether Powell is a presidential candidate or not.

RICHARD ARMITAGE Eliot, thank you very much to the organizers, as you suggested. They did a great job.

Several things. First of all, I think we've heard today, at least I've heard, perhaps I wanted to hear, that the so-called Powell Doctrine is not just a rigid-in-cement set of guidelines but it is a useful set of guidelines which have to be tailored somewhat to a situation. At a minimum, they provide a means to ask very useful questions about the use of force and the ultimate outcomes.

Second, what General Powell learned or didn't learn at the Nixon White House, I think one thing is for sure: he learned a lesson -- at least for his professional life from that time on - - and that is bad news doesn't get better with time. Get it out early. That is a pretty good thing, whether you are in the press, the public or in an administration. If there is bad news, get it out early. A lot of bad happened in that Administration but that particular lesson learned is not a bad one.

Finally, why are we talking about this guy two years plus after he retired? Well, it is particularly this fervor, this desire for some candidate. But I think it is also something else. We live, unfortunately, inside this environment here in Washington. Let's not kid ourselves. People out there are a lot smarter than we give them credit. I think they realize that when they listen to General Powell when he articulates his views, whether in a congressional hearing, in a speech or wherever, he is man who has powerful ideas. He's able to put those ideas out in a way that is understandable to people and he has a life that reflects his values. He has integrity, competence and confidence. Those are pretty good things and I think that lesson is not lost on the American public. That's why, two years after his departure, we are debating his legacy.

BERNARD TRAINOR Given the charge to assess Powell's performance as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I tried to look at what he accomplished and whether he got an "A+" or an "incomplete." This fell into two categories. They are "transitory" and what I would call "permanent." A lot of the accomplishments that he had were transitory. They have really come and gone. The things that constitute his legacy get back to the Powell Doctrine and the almost accepted assumption in many circles that we should limit the use of military force or only use it under ideal circumstances. I think that is a dangerous legacy, a legacy that inhibits the presidential use of power and I also think it contributes to something which I think is not so latent in this country, and that is a sense of isolationism.

ELIOT COHEN Gentlemen, thank you very much. You were all instructive, to the point, and perhaps most importantly of all, civil, despite your disagreements. Thank you all for coming. The meeting is adjourned.

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