Beyond Osama: The Pentagon’s Battle With Powell Heats Up

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The simmering conflict within the Bush administration over how to prosecute the next phase of the "war on terrorism" suddenly flared up last week as the Taliban fled Kabul. "Where to go next and how big it should be is what's being argued right now—and Baghdad is what's being debated at the moment," said a senior Pentagon official. "This is both an internal discussion at the Pentagon, and one between departments. Our policy guys are thinking Iraq. Our question is, do we make a move earlier than anyone expects?"

To some, this goes well beyond madness: With Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda still at large and no obvious ties between Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein or Palestinian groups like Hamas or Hezbollah, taking the fight to Baghdad, Syria, or Lebanon makes little military or diplomatic sense. In the wake of the policy and intelligence failures that contributed to September 11, many here take it for granted that the U.S. government needs all the help it can get from its allies, in addition to taking a long, nuanced view as it navigates the shoals of diplomacy in the Arab and Islamic worlds, lest perceived American arrogance-in-action exacerbate already tense ties. At this pole of grand strategy sits Colin Powell's State Department, considered by its detractors to be obsessed with maintaining a tenuous international coalition against Al Qaeda and the Taliban at the expense of swift, decisive, and much more expansive military action.

At the other pole is Donald Rumsfeld's Pentagon, increasingly seen by some as an asylum where a coterie of vengeful Cold War unilateralist relics plot a return to a forceful, Reaganesque Pax Americana, broadening the war to encompass military action against Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—essentially fusing Israel's national security agenda with that of the United States. No fans of multilateralism or diplomatic initiatives, this crew—despite its majority's lack of uniform service or time spent in combat zones—is particularly bellicose, and contemptuous of Powell and his belief in conflict limitation. "Powell's such a product of Vietnam—he tries to prevent conflict, rather than realizing it's inevitable," sneers a Pentagon official who, despite never having heard a shot fired in anger, is spoiling for a larger war. "When conflict is inevitable, we should be the ones who decide the outcome. It's not about schmoozing and sucking up."

Taking point for this policy option has been deputy secretary of defense Paul Wolfowitz, backed by a so-called "cabal" that includes undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith, assistant secretaries Peter Rodman and J.D. Crouch, longtime Wolfowitz comrade-in-arms Richard Perle, members of the advisory Defense Policy Board Perle chairs and, less visibly, some hawkish brethren at the State Department who were forced on Powell early in the administration, including undersecretary of state John Bolton.

For this group, the events of the past two months present an almost rapturous opportunity to realize an item on the far right's national security agenda. In their view, September 11 is nothing short of a mandate to do what they feel the U.S. should have done over a decade ago—take the fight to Baghdad and destroy Saddam, coalition partners and world opinion be damned. And updating to the Wolfowitz Cabal the Reagan-era view of then CIA director William Casey that all terrorist groups were interconnected via the Soviet, the links between Saddam, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and just about every other Middle East Islamist group are clear—thus necessitating the speedy deployment of bombs, and possibly even troops, to Iraq as well as Syria and Lebanon.

At a meeting in the White House Situation Room last month, Feith was so impassioned on this point that he took to banging his fist on the table, saying it was essential that the historically Hezbollah-controlled Sheikh Abdullah barracks north of Beirut be bombed. Others interviewed by the Voice report that there have been "epic shouting matches" in White House meetings over the issue of war expansion, and personnel at both Foggy Bottom and Langley have found their patience increasingly tried by the Wolfowitz Cabal. Indeed, despite the CIA's cowboy image, the Agency's old Afghan and Middle East hands marvel at what they consider lunacy. "The Agency as an institution would never offer up a view of these people, but if you ask individuals, they think these guys are more than a little nuts," says a veteran of the CIA's Directorate of Operations.