Colin Powell: Opening Remarks on Intelligence Reform to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee

Colin Powell spent much of his adult life under fire. The firing began with his tours of duty in Vietnam and continued in the political arena when he arrived in Washington, D.C., to serve Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Particularly during the two Bush presidencies, Powell was at the center of geopolitical events that would, for better or worse, reshape the Middle East and redefine American foreign policy in these regions. The mission assigned to him was to lead wars—as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the elder Bush during the Gulf War and then as secretary of state under the younger Bush during the invasion of Iraq.

Powell, however, was by no means a military hawk. His experience in Vietnam made him something of a reluctant warrior, and consequently he found himself at odds with administration officials about the need for war and, after the conflicts were launched, how to prosecute them. Some of his most significant documents reflect this reluctance, or at least a moderate, cautious approach to the use of American military might. In his Opening Remarks on Intelligence Reform to the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, Powell shows himself to be a chastened public official seeking to correct the intelligence mistakes of the Bush administration. In this speech he argues on behalf of the administration’s efforts to reform the intelligence community.