Rift may affect U.S. foreign policy

? A foreign policy rift simmering in the Bush administration shows no signs of mending and could affect Iraq policy as well as U.S. dealings in the Middle East and with North Korea and China.

For the moment, Secretary of State Colin Powell, a centrist, appears to have the upper hand, prevailing over hard-liners like Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in persuading President Bush to seek U.N. Security Council approval on disarming Iraq.

The victory could be short-lived.

Cheney and Rumsfeld remain a potent force, and Bush’s natural tendencies appear to favor bold action over Powell-style cautious diplomacy. Meanwhile, Republican midterm gains in the House and Senate have diminished Democratic influence as a force in foreign policy, further emboldening conservatives.

Tensions within the president’s foreign policy inner circle are nothing new.

Earlier, the key players at least made a show of denial, aware of Bush’s dislike of open discord. “There is no real space between us,” Powell insisted early in Bush’s term when he was asked about reported rifts with Rumsfeld. The Pentagon chief echoed that there was no “daylight between Colin and me.”

But with Powell’s transparent victory on the U.N.-Iraq issue, and with freshly published details of fierce behind-the-scenes wrangling, pretenses of harmony are largely gone.

“It’s good we can have healthy, open debates among people who have respect for each other, people who have known each other for years,” Powell said when asked about disclosures in a new book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward on the weeks and months after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The book, “Bush at War,” details fierce infighting among Bush’s war Cabinet, often inconclusive meetings on military strategy and lingering divisions over Iraq.

After Cheney suggested in August that arms inspections in Iraq would be basically futile, “Cheney and Powell went at each other in a blistering argument,” Woodward wrote of one White House meeting.

Bush, Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice come off fairly well. Rumsfeld and Cheney are depicted as the heavies :quot; always pressing for quicker military action and suspicious of both the CIA and the State Department.

The book shows Rumsfeld and deputy Paul Wolfowitz beating the drum for war with Iraq only days after the Sept. 11 attacks. It shows Tenet as seizing the early lead in military strategy on the ground in Afghanistan.

Bush’s chief political strategist, Karl Rove, was distrustful of Powell, feeling he was “beyond political control,” and along with senior Bush aide Karen Hughes, kept Powell off the Sunday talk shows, Woodward wrote.

The book portrays Rice as the troubleshooter and a calming influence on Bush.

Early on, Rice privately counsels the sports-minded president to decide which of his bickering war Cabinet commanders should take the lead on Afghanistan: “Mr. President, you have to have a quarterback for this.”

“Am I not the quarterback?” he asked her.

“No, I think you’re the coach.”

In the end, Bush gains confidence in his judgment, weighs the rival advice of his advisers and charts his course.

“A president is constantly analyzing, making decisions based upon risk, particularly in war :quot; risk taken relative to what can be achieved,” Bush tells Woodward. Bush has said he values different views.

The foreign policy rift continues. It could be seen recently when some hard-liners urged a get-tough ultimatum on Saudi Arabia after reports of Saudi financial support for terrorists, including allegations that some came from members of the royal family. Powell cautioned against a “rush and jump to conclusions” without further investigation of the claims.

Bush also must choose among conflicting advice as he makes important decisions on Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, North Korea’s nuclear threat and growing Chinese military and economic influence.

Even though Bush has tried to keep internal dissent within his official family, the Woodward book and recent developments show that his advisers are as quarrelsome as those of other, less button-down administrations.

“These people are useful to him importantly because they don’t agree. They take their case to him and he sorts out what parts of each plan he wants,” said Stephen Hess, who served in the administrations of former presidents Eisenhower and Nixon and advised former President Carter during his transition to the presidency. “I’m just interested that he’s still juggling all these balls and catching them.”


– Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.