Belafonte vs Powell revisited

The Trotter Group, an organisation of black columnists, recently received a note from a former journalist who said he was wondering whether the events of the past six months may have caused any one of the "shocked" journalists of last year to re-think their commentaries concerning Harry Belafonte's critical remarks about Colin Powell. He asked: "Shouldn't there be an accounting somewhere given the revelation of so much new information?"

It was a fair question. I was one of those who weighed in on Belafonte's criticism of the secretary of state, coming down firmly on Powell's side. I owe an accounting.

For those who may have missed it, five months earlier, in October, during an appearance on a radio talk show in California, Belafonte was critical of Powell's role in the Bush administration, likening the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to a house slave who lives to do his master's bidding.

"Colin Powell," Belafonte said, "is permitted to come into the house of the master as long as he would serve the master, according to the master's dictates. And when Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."

I used the occasion of Powell's February 5, 2003, presentation on Iraq to a packed United Nations Security Council chamber to respond. Powell, I thought, had delivered a devastating indictment of the Iraqi regime.

The secretary had sold me on the idea that Saddam Hussain was a lying despot who had, in violation of UN resolutions, continued to harbour, manufacture and hide weapons of mass destruction. In light of Powell's claims about Saddam's weapons stockpile, I agreed Iraq should be disarmed.

Now, 13 months later, all the evidence assembled thus far has failed to back up Powell's assertions. No weapons stocks or active production lines have been found. Those who said at the time that Powell's evidence was inconclusive, that waging war in Iraq would take attention away from the war on terrorism, and that the presence of UN weapons inspectors would prevent Saddam from going forward with his illegal weapons programme had, it now seems, the better arguments.

But in February 2003 I believed Powell because it was inconceivable to me that one of the country's most respected public officials, a former top military leader tempered by the Vietnam experience and sensitive to the importance of maintaining public credibility, would go before a world body and present a case that could later get blown out of the water.

No way, I thought.

I was wrong.

But was Belafonte right about Powell? In a word, no.

Belafonte's harsh criticism of the Bush administration's foreign and domestic policies was and is certainly fair enough. And his opposition to Bush's treatment of the international community in the run-up to the Iraq war was warranted.

But Belafonte was wrong to suggest that because he disagrees with Powell on Iraq or with Bush on a host of other issues, that Powell is somehow a 'racist' tool. It was Belafonte's use of slurs and his demeaning personal characterisation of Powell that struck me as uncalled for and out of bounds.

I have no reason to think that Powell deliberately lied at the UN or that he distorted and exaggerated the intelligence on which his testimony was based. But was I wrong to have deferred to the secretary of state because he happened to be Powell?

Should I have been more sceptical, less accepting and more willing to listen to Powell's critics? To each question, the answer is yes.

The only justification for going to war, in my view, was the belief that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and that he was going to use them against this country and our allies. Any other administration casus belli paled in significance. It's sickening to realise that so many lives have been lost and so many billions have been spent on the basis of evidence that turns out to have been so questionable.

Yes, it's time for an accounting. That said, it doesn't follow that Powell deserves branding as an Uncle Tom or traitor to his race because of what he did or failed to do on Iraq, either within the high councils of the administration or at the UN.

There is no "black" and "white" way of looking at Iraq. And if white people can disagree on the best way to handle Iraq – and they do – why can't black people as well, without public officials such as Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice having their racial cards pulled?

Yes, I think administration officials are in over their heads in a country and culture they didn't take the time to get to know or understand, and it's clear that Bush and his advisers are making it up as they go along. Pride and politics stand in the way of their admitting their mistakes, while the nation pays in blood and treasure.

That's reason enough to vigorously oppose the direction of the administration's foreign policy. And the rape of Haitian democracy makes a mockery of the Bush administration's professed love of freedom from tyranny. There is a need for an accounting on Haiti, too.

But does that mean the administration's foreign policy officials who are African American and who don't see things my way on Iraq or Haiti are house slaves and thus open to offensive questioning of their colour? That's where we part company.

I felt that way about Belafonte's characterisation of Powell one year and five months ago. I feel the same way now.

King is a Washington Post op-ed columnist.

© Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service