WASHINGTON, Feb 14, 2002 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- This week Secretary of State Colin Powell has done his best to stem the rising tide in the news media of predictions the United States will go to war with Iraq.
Speaking with his dovish Canadian counterpart on the Iraq question, he said: "President Bush has made no decision with respect to any kind of military action."
One would think a statement like this would put to rest all the stories that have surfaced in American and British papers that the president had decided to make war with Baghdad. But there is a reason why the Fourth Estate smells cordite in the air, and the U.S. position on Iraq is ambiguous.
Powell, speaking with Canadian Foreign Minister William Graham on Thursday, went on to remind reporters that the policy of the United States is still the revision of United Nations sanctions against Iraq while simultaneously supporting the ouster of the man the sanctions are meant to persuade to give up biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
Powell said, "the regime ought to change to benefit the people of Iraq." He said the same thing to an audience of teenagers this morning during taping for an MTV special. And earlier in the week he told this to two congressional panels that oversee his department's budget. And in case there was any question whether the United Nations has to approve a strike, Powell reminded lawmakers and reporters this week that Washington reserves the right to act unilaterally.
So which is it, international sanctions or bilateral regime change?
On the first score, Powell has said for the last 10 days that recent negotiations with Moscow over the list of items a new sanctions policy would restrict has moved forward. He called those consultations "constructive." In June, the Russians deeply embarrassed Powell by not agreeing to revised sanctions against Iraq.
But Powell's spokesman, Richard Boucher, speaking after the secretary's remarks, would not say whether Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation John Wolf was willing to narrow the list of 25 or so items on the "goods review list" to accommodate Russian concerns about the international restrictions. Iraq owes Moscow billions of dollars. Other State Department sources say Wolf is being flexible with the Russians on the list, just as the Russians are with the United States.
While the two former rivals negotiate the future of Iraq's economy, the State Department earlier this month sent out a cable instructing ambassadors to tell their host governments that the Bush administration would rather see Saddam Hussein out of power. Foggy Bottom is taking polls of Middle Easterners to detect their pulse on whether Washington or Saddam himself is to blame for the plight of the average Iraqi.
Many U.S. officials bemoan privately the lack of a clear direction on U.S. policy on Iraq, but this is particularly true for the administration's hawks. One senior administration official tells UPI that he carries a copy of the president's "Axis of Evil" speech to meetings to remind his more cautious colleagues in the administration what the president wants.
The Pentagon and the vice president's office specifically are angling for a presidential decision to choke off Saddam Hussein "militarily, economically and politically," according to one U.S. official. If those words ring a bell they should; the same language was used in National Security Decision Directive 75 in late 1982, when President Reagan took the offensive in the Cold War against the Soviet Union. In that moment, the policy of detente was officially over, and the not-so-secret wars against Soviet satellites moved forward with full steam in Nicaragua and Afghanistan.
But Iraq is not quite the evil empire even if it is a charter member of the axis of evil. And a powerful wartime State of the Union Address does not foreign policy make. As a result, the foreign policy of the world's most powerful democracy is being made in sound bites by the president and his top advisers. Not surprising, American allies are not happy.
Since the speech -- particularly in regard to Iraq -- French and British foreign ministers have criticized the new policy as simplistic. Even Graham on Thursday expressed concerns.
"There's all sorts of people around this world one might want gone. But there is also an international world out there in which one operates," he said. "You don't just point around and say, 'hey, I'd like all those folks gone. Now, I'm going to take them out.' I don't think that's the way the world operates, and I don't think it's the way the United States intends to operate, and it's certainly not the way Canada operates."
Don't be so sure, Mr. Graham.