Maybe someone in the Bush administration should get Colin Powell a cell phone. That way, when there’s something important the Secretary of State ought to know, someone at the White House can call him and let him know. Right now, they seem to be having a little trouble communicating with him.
We learned last month, for example, that Bush told nearly everyone he knew about the decision to invade Iraq last year, including Saudi Prince Bandar and his ol’ buddy Karen Hughes (who didn’t even work at the White House at the time), before Colin Powell.
As an interesting report in the current issue of GQ notes, Powell’s closest friends and advisors describe him as “frustrated, exhausted, and bitter.”
And in case it wasn’t already clear why these feelings are perfectly justified, consider that the White House made Powell look like a fool (again) by not telling him about the $25 billion request for Iraq this week.
Shortly before Bush administration officials presented Republican congressional leaders with a request for $25 billion in Iraq funding this week, Secretary of State Colin Powell was telling members of the Congressional Black Caucus that no such request would be forthcoming.
“I’m stunned he didn’t know,” Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, one of the Black Caucus members who met with Powell, said Thursday.
Naturally, members of the CBC wondered what the deal was. Either Powell knew the $25-billion request was coming and boldly lied to lawmakers about it, or the Secretary of State was clueless about the administration’s own nation-building plans.
Powell quickly called CBC leaders to let them know that it was the latter.
After word of the $25 billion Iraq funding request broke Wednesday, Powell called Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., to assure him he hadn’t deliberately misled the caucus. Powell explained he hadn’t been informed of the funding request because it was for the military, Cummings said: “Apparently the decision was held closely between the Pentagon and the budget offices.”
How the man manages to even show up for work every day is a mystery to me.