| Powell's Break Confirms GOP Rift
U.S. News & World Report - Tue Dec 19, 12:44 PM ET
Colin Powell's break with the administration's Iraq policy is more evidence of the rift between the Bush team and members of the Republican establishment in Washington. Powell, who was Bush's first-term secretary of state and served in senior positions under Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, said yesterday that the United States is losing the Iraq conflict, which he described as a civil war (a term the White House declines to use).
This is the latest manifestation of the deep disenchantment with the current president among foreign-policy advisers to past GOP commanders in chief, including Bush's father. Resentment is simmering over what these advisers say has been a dismissive attitude by Bush and his senior strategists toward the Iraq Study Group, cochaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, who served Bush the elder.
"The administration encouraged Baker to do the Iraq Study Group and then they sawed off his legs," says a Baker associate, who adds that Bush didn't like being criticized by the group.
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