-Caveat Lector- ""The story behind the speeches of Mr Armitage and Mr Wolfowitz this week has been the gradual conversion of Mr Bush, a foreign policy neophyte when he ran for president, to the idealistic school of thought.""
Hawks and doves unite over Iraq By Toby Harnden in Washington (Filed: 25/01/2003) http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml? xml=/news/2003/01/25/wirq25.xml/ The State Department and Pentagon, representing the rival poles in the Bush administration, came together this week to herald the end of the so-called "hawks-dove" split over war in Iraq. Their uncompromising speeches appeared to be a prelude to President George W Bush's State of the Union address on Tuesday. For months, Richard Armitage, a barrel-chested weightlifter who served four tours in Vietnam, has used his role as Colin Powell's deputy to urge a more cautious, diplomatic strategy designed to avoid conflict. In contrast, the bookish, bespectacled Paul Wolfowitz, who is regarded as one of the deepest US defence thinkers of the past two decades and a vastly experienced government adviser, has been a powerful and unrelenting voice proposing the forcible ousting of Saddam. The two men are understood to have had a difficult relationship and their respective bosses, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, have clashed frequently - if politely - over how to deal with Iraq. Barbed comments about the lack of military experience of the "civilian hawks" at the Pentagon emanated from anonymous senior State Department officials. Defence officials would respond by complaining that Mr Powell and Mr Armitage were seeking to undermine Mr Bush's foreign policy by deferring to the Democratic-leaning US diplomatic corps and listening unduly to the "conventional wisdom" of European and Arab allies. Mr Armitage was chosen to speak on the theme of "Saddam's lies and deception". Addressing the Institute of Peace in Washington, he said there was "not one sign" of Iraqi compliance. "If you are hanging your hopes on Saddam Hussein's voluntary willingness to comply and the veracity of his regime, you are engaging in some very dangerous wishful thinking." Two days later, on Thursday, Mr Wolfowitz took to the podium at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York to explain how a United Nations inspection regime should work. "Despite 11 years of inspections and sanctions, containment and military response, Baghdad retains chemical and biological weapons and is producing more," he concluded. "And Saddam's nuclear scientists are still hard at work." By using Mr Armitage to deliver the indictment of Saddam and Mr Wolfowitz to explain how weapons inspections - of which he is almost instinctively sceptical - could work, the White House was making a clever public statement that the administration was united. The Washington Post argued yesterday in a page one story headlined "Moderate Powell turns hawkish on war with Iraq" that the secretary of state and his deputy had undergone a miraculous conversion to the Rumsfeld/ Wolfowitz view. A more likely explanation is that Mr Powell and Mr Armitage are simply following the policy Mr Bush has settled on and concluded a debate that has raged in Washington for more than a year by coming down on the Pentagon's side. David Frum, the former White House speech writer, argued in his recent book that the divide within the administration is best described not as "hawk versus dove" but "realist-idealist". Thus, what Washington has seen is a philosophical debate between those who wanted to maintain a "balance of power" and those who argued for seizing the opportunity to reorder the Middle East. One of the hallmarks of Mr Bush's presidency has been his unwillingness to make a fundamental choice between opposing views until he has to. Rather, he prefers to see how different policies can develop in parallel. The story behind the speeches of Mr Armitage and Mr Wolfowitz this week has been the gradual conversion of Mr Bush, a foreign policy neophyte when he ran for president, to the idealistic school of thought. 12 November 2002: Hawk-dove split reopens 15 October 2002: Pentagon hawks put pressure on Powell Related reports Iraq factfile Iraqis 'have chemical warfare suits' Europe angry at US US demands scientists Iraqis 'have chemical warfare suits' 'Draft rich sons for war' Europe angry at US Peace convoy heads for Baghdad Money: Shares sink into sea of uncertainty External links A special address by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Iraq [21 Jan '03] - United States Institute of Peace Time running out for Iraq, Wolfowitz says [23 Jan '03] - Council of Foreign Relations Moderate Powell turns hawkish on war with Iraq [24 Jan '03] - Washington Post © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Forwarded for your information. 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