THE POWELL DOCTRINE
QUOTES

Then Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, when asked about his military strategy against the Iraqi army in the Persian Gulf War of 1991:
"First we're going to cut it off, then we're going to kill it."

Powell, from his speech "U.S. Forces: The Challenges Ahead" 1992 :
"We owe it to the men and women who go in harm's way to make sure that this is always the case and that their lives are not squandered for unclear purposes."

"We must not, for example, send military forces into a crisis with an unclear mission then cannot accomplish -such as we did when we sent the U.S. Marines into Lebanon in 1983. We inserted those proud warriors into the middle of a five-faction civil war complete with terrorists, hostage-takers, and a dozen spies in every camp, and said, 'Gentlemen, be a buffer.' The results were 241 Marines and Navy personnel killed and a U.S. withdrawal from the troubled area."

Powell, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on January 17, 2001 (prior to 9/11), when asked about the Bush administration's plans for U.S international military involvement:
"Our armed forces are stretched rather thin and there is a limit to how many of these deployments we can sustain. So we are going to take a look at that, talk to our allies, consult and make on-the-ground assessments of what we are doing now, what is needed now, but also what is going to be needed in the future."

Charles Krauthammer, Washington Post columnist, April 2002:
"The Powell Doctrine found its ultimate expression in the Gulf War. The idea was not to match Iraqi power but to entirely overwhelm it in planes, tanks, technology, manpower and will. That would make the war short and make the victory certain. It did. Today, the Powell Doctrine seems obvious, but it was not at the time. For decades, the United States had followed a policy of proportionality: restraint because of the fear of escalation. It was under this theory that Maj. Powell watched his men bleed and die purposely in Vietnam."

Ruth Rosen, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, March 2003:
"The impending war in Iraq, however, arguably meets only one criterion of the Powell Doctrine. Weapons inspectors have just begun their work, which is why France, Russia, and China argue that war is not yet a last resort. Public support for a war in Iraq is hardly strong. In the most recent New York Times/CBS News poll, while a majority of Americans support the use of force as an option, 59 percent want to give the United Nations and weapons inspectors more time. The divided opinion reflects the lack of a well-defined national interest in going to war now. The Bush administration has tried to portray a pre-emptive war against as essential to the war on terrorism, but the evidence of the 'links' between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda is highly questionable."