My 2003 Letter to Secretary Colin Powell

Now that the last US troops have left Iraq, maybe we can begin to assess the damage this adventure has done to the country.  I recently pulled out my letter to Colin Powell, written before the first troops were committed.  The following letter, sent February 26, 2003,  received no response.  I wish I hadn't been so right..

Honorable Colin L. Powell

Secretary of State

2201 C. Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Secretary Powell:

On my office desk, in my home, and on the wall of my mother’s home, there is a picture of which I have been very proud.  It shows you, my son Scott, who was then 8 years old, and then Governor (now Senator) Thomas Carper on a stage together at the University of Delaware.  The occasion was a celebration of the Delaware Mentoring Council.  You were the celebrity guest speaker and you were inspiring, as you spoke about the role that elders had played in your life and how we can do the same for a new generation of children.

Now I worry about the legacy we are creating for those children.  While the administration of which you are a part has shown admirable support for mentoring programs, the general effect of its domestic economic policies has been helpful to those who need it least and not to the most disadvantaged.  And not to the great, working middle class upon whose backs these economic policies place the greatest burden.  This, however, is not the cause of my greatest concern.  We have survived similar, shortsighted policies in prior administrations.

The thing which makes me awaken at night in great fear and dread is international in scope and it involves your Department.  Are we putting our precious children in harm’s way by making them reap a harvest of international distrust and hatred, the seeds of which we are now planting?  It seems to me that by proceeding alone (or virtually so) against Iraq, we are playing into the hands of Bin Laden and any other terrorist leader who gains strength from portraying the United States as a great, evil bully.  We run the real risk of becoming the great Satan to the world of Islam.

Yet, I am inclined to trust you.  The only member of the foreign policy contingent of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell in which I feel some confidence is you.  I talk to many who feel the same way, too:  “If Colin Powell believes what he is saying, I have to give him the benefit of the doubt.”  Are we right?  Because there is also the troubling doubt that nibbles away at our confidence:  As a lifetime military man, would you tell the Commander-in-Chief that he is wrong, if you believed it?  And if you told him and he overrode your objections, with the concurrence of Messrs. Rumsfeld  and Cheney, would you go ahead with carrying out orders like a good soldier?  Or would you go public and resign?  This is what we ask ourselves.

I appeal to you on behalf of all of us who believe in your integrity, and of those children whom we love and for whom we bear the responsibility of passing on a safe and sensible world, that you exercise your independent judgment as to the necessity of this armed confrontation with Iraq.  You, of the bellicose four, have the most experience in war as a participant.  Only you of those four, appreciate the horrors.  And only you, have the wisdom and perspective to choose the right path for us.  Please do not let us down.  Please proceed as if you hold the hopes and dreams of the next generation of Americans within your hands.  Because you do.

                                                                                    Very truly yours,

                                                                                    Dennis S. Clower

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