Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
Do we have a clear and attainable objective?
The questions Powell posed before the first Iraq war, more relevant than ever, were glossed over or not pursued. Powell himself contributed to the drumbeat to war in a dramatic 2003 appearance before the United Nations.
“Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option,” Powell declared. “Not in a post–September 11 world.”
As experience would later show, however, Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence was wrong. The administration hadn’t asked the right questions of the right people. I asked Powell about the price he and America paid for that failure. For the first time in our otherwise friendly conversation, he bristled. The information he got was bad, he said. It had gone to Congress four months before he went to the UN. Congress had seen the formal National Intelligence Estimate, the comprehensive report prepared by the CIA, and reached the same conclusions. Influential senators on both sides of the aisle including John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, and Jay Rockefeller, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, all lined up behind the report. The president cited it in his State of the Union speech. Vice President Dick Cheney went on national television with it. Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, referred to it when she told CNN that Saddam was closer to a nuclear device than anybody thought. “We know that he has the infrastructure, nuclear scientists to make a nuclear weapon,” Rice had said, adding ominously, “but we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”
“They all said this is solid stuff and believed it,” Powell told me.
They were all wrong.
Particularly egregious was the assertion that the Iraqis had biological weapons laboratories that they could move around and hide from weapons inspectors and spy satellites. It was Exhibit A for the CIA. But it was based on a single source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball. He’d told his story to German intelligence. American agents never interrogated him. Only after the invasion did we learn that Curveball had lied.
Why didn’t anyone realize Curveball’s story was full of holes? What questions should have been asked, and by whom? Why didn’t alarm bells ring when officials realized Curveball had not been interrogated by American agents? More than ten years after the fact, Powell was still steaming mad.
“The friggin’ director of the CIA should have asked! He should have asked his people, ‘What do we really know about this? … Where did this come from? Is it multiple-sourced?’”
As secretary of state, Powell didn’t push back hard enough. The power players—the vice president, the secretary of defense, and others—drove the decisions. They didn’t ask the right questions either. The U.S. mission in Iraq turned into a costly open-ended commitment riddled with unintended consequences and terrible casualties, resulting in an ugly and inconclusive outcome.
“Yes, a blot, a failure will always be attached to me and my UN presentation,” Powell wrote in his book, It Worked for Me. “I am mad mostly at myself for not having smelled the problem. My instincts failed me.”
In his office, far from the cameras and the lights, the retired general and former secretary of state seemed subdued and regretful that his long and distinguished life of service to the United States, his record of breaking barriers and standing for integrity and honor, had been sullied by a mission that he and others did not submit to the kind of scrutiny and strategic questioning it deserved. His UN appearance and his insistence that Saddam Hussein represented a clear and present danger still pained him.
“I’m the one left holding the bag with respect to all this crap and it’s in my obituary,” he said to me. “And so be it.”
Washington is a town of towering purpose but also towering egos. It is a place where people assess you by your connections and your access to power, where you are only as useful as your last job title and the network you bring with you. Taking responsibility for failure and screw-ups is not a common trait. It’s too easy to accuse someone else, duck the tough questions, or change the subject. Powell didn’t do that. He acknowledged when an operation had gone wrong and he took responsibility where it mattered. He should have been a louder voice and insisted that difficult but strategic questions got asked along the way. Whether anyone would have listened to him is another matter. But he knows he should have tried. That’s a lesson from him and for the rest of us.
Getting Personal
In the mid-1990’s, when his star dominated the political horizon, Powell considered a run for the White House. The pressure from supporters was intense. The calling seemed clear. Powell’s first book, My American Journey, was a bestseller. America’s victory against Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, and the four stars on Powell’s shoulders, made him a hero. His story was inspiring and he enjoyed unparalleled stature and authority. He looked like a modern-day Eisenhower, a leader who could bring precision and discipline to Washington, along with star quality and diversity to the Republican Party. The very hint of a Powell presidential bid drove cable news shows and op-ed columns into a frenzy. I was the anchor of a daily show on CNN at the time, and we could barely keep the pundits and politicians away from the microphone. Everybody wanted to weigh in. It was TV heaven, but the spectacle was short-lived.
Powell asked his strategic questions, this time on a much more personal level.
One, do I have an obligation?
Two, do I really want to do it?
Three, do I have the passion to do it?
Four, do I have the organizational ability to do it?
Five, am I going to enjoy campaigning or will I be good at it?
Six, what is my family’s view of this?
Could he answer each question in the affirmative? No, he didn’t have the passion. And no, his family was not on board—especially his wife, Alma, who had suffered bouts of depression over the years. To submit her to the unending ordeal of a campaign and the intense and public pressures of the White House should he win were beyond what he could reasonably ask. The world would never see a Powell candidacy.
Instead, Powell would serve as secretary of state in one of the most wrenching periods in American history. There would be speeches and books and boards. And when it was all over, he would have his regrets but he’d still have his integrity, service to country, and his general’s bearing. And he would proudly display that little red wagon in his office, dedicated to America’s Promise.
Challenge Yourself
Strategic questions are vital company at any major crossroads, professional or personal. They are deceptively simple questions that illuminate complex decisions characterized by great risk or uncertainty. They are healthy questions that call for answers about purpose and the big picture.
You may decide, like Colin Powell, that the answers need to be unanimous and affirmative. Or you may be comfortable with a more ambiguous response. After all, some of the best ideas and strategies have been built on hunches or whims. But strategic questions prompt you to examine the terrain broadly, to estimate the situation from which you can proceed with a better sense of capability and destination. Whether you are considering a major business move or a big investment of your own time and resources, thinking about the long-term consequences and goals—asking why, where, and how—will help you to better clarify the stakes and the prospects. At a major crossroad, pose a variation of these questions to yourself or the group: