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Powell might not last through Bush`s term
New York, July 26: A string of internal policy differences and defeats have set off speculation that US Secretary of State Colin Powell might not last through President George W Bush`s term.
New York, July 26: A string of internal policy differences and defeats have set off speculation that US Secretary of State Colin Powell might not last through President George W Bush's term.
Tensions with the White House and Pentagon hawks that Powell has long sought to minimise are no longer possible to disguise, the New York Times reported.
In public, the paper says Powell, the four-star-general-turned-diplomat, has done what he always does: soldier on, shaping his commander's policies as best he can from within, with some success.
In private, Secretary Powell, an amateur automotive mechanic, complains that old friends spend too much time sympathetically taking his temperature - "dip-sticking me," as he puts it, the Times said.
With the possible exception of the moment in the mid-70's when Henry A Kissinger was both secretary of state and national security adviser, internal tensions and threatened resignations over foreign policy have been more the rule than the exception in the modern White House, the report said.
But veteran diplomats say the current disagreements are the worst since the days when Secretary Powell's mentor, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, feuded with Secretary of State George P Shultz in the Reagan administration.
Bureau Report
In public, the paper says Powell, the four-star-general-turned-diplomat, has done what he always does: soldier on, shaping his commander's policies as best he can from within, with some success.
In private, Secretary Powell, an amateur automotive mechanic, complains that old friends spend too much time sympathetically taking his temperature - "dip-sticking me," as he puts it, the Times said.
With the possible exception of the moment in the mid-70's when Henry A Kissinger was both secretary of state and national security adviser, internal tensions and threatened resignations over foreign policy have been more the rule than the exception in the modern White House, the report said.
But veteran diplomats say the current disagreements are the worst since the days when Secretary Powell's mentor, Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger, feuded with Secretary of State George P Shultz in the Reagan administration.
Bureau Report