Well, Powell's comments today about Iraq had one positive outcome. He threw Condi off her game:
Just back from Baghdad and eager to discuss promising developments, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice found herself knocked off message Sunday, forced to defend prewar planning and troop levels against an unlikely critic - Colin Powell, her predecessor at the State Department.Powell's gone. But the rest of the crowd who screwed up Iraq -- Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Condi -- are still around. Now, they're making plans for Iran. It will be very helpful for our country if people on the inside who know better speak out earlier this time instead of waiting three years.
For the Bush administration, it was a rare instance of in-house dissenter going public.
On Rice's mind was the political breakthrough that had brought her and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to Iraq last week and cleared the way for formation of a national unity government.
Yet Powell sideswiped her by revisiting the question of whether the U.S. had a large enough force to oust Saddam Hussein and then secure the peace.
