Powell on Democracy: More Fundamentalist Than We’re Comfortable With

Colin Powell: …[The Iraqi election] was a significant achievement for the Iraqi people and for our policy.

… there appears to be, anyway, from early results, great support for a Shiite majority that is somewhat more fundamentalist than, I think, we all would be entirely comfortable with.

…it will take more time yet for a president and two deputies to be selected, and more time yet for a prime minister to be selected.

…Stephanopoulos: What are we going to do about that if they have been outvoted? Or is there anything we should do about it? Or do we have to have our hands off?

Powell: …Increasingly, the future of Iraq is truly in the hands of the Iraqis and not in the hands of American ambassadors and the American government.

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…Were we deceived in believing [WMD were] there by Saddam Hussein or those who had other motives for wanting us to believe that? I don't know. … The intelligence community made that case to me,….

Stephanopoulos: Granting that it was an honest mistake, had you known that no weapons would be found, would you have advocated invasion?

Powell: I don't know how to answer that question. I think it would have changed the basic calculus, because when the president went to the United Nations in September of 2002, that was the principal case he made.

But he also indicated, as I did, in my Feb. 5th presentation of 2003, that there were human rights violations, there were other violations of U.N. resolutions, there was terrorist activity.

…But let there be no doubt where we are now is I'm very pleased that Saddam Hussein is gone and that regime is gone and these kinds of questions will never be discussed again. Because no matter how this political process unfolds over the next six to eight months, I don't see any outcome that will produce a regime that is going to be interested in weapons of mass destruction or threatening its neighbors or doing the kinds of things that Saddam Hussein had been doing for the last 20 or 30 years.

…somehow the Iraqis are going to have to put in place a political system that says the only ones who hold the power of the state, the military and police power of the state,…. What you really need is institutions, what you need is the rule of law.

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…I see absolutely nothing wrong with the president authorizing these kinds of actions. …the president made a determination that he had sufficient authority from the Congress to do this in the way that he did it, without getting warrants from the courts or reporting to the courts after doing it. And the Congress will have to make a judgment as to whether or not they think the president was using the law correctly or not. …it didn't seem to me, anyway, that it would have been that hard to go get the warrants. …The question is, was it done in the way that is consistent with the law....

…What the president is determined to do and what the Congress and the American people want him to do is protect us from terrorism. And if eavesdropping does that, then more power to it. And nobody is suggesting that the president shouldn't do this.

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…I'm on a club that is trying to purchase the Washington Nationals from Major League Baseball,…. And I hope the city council will find a way to support the stadium deal. …And I think we can do, perhaps, a better job than any other group to represent the interests of the community and to make sure that the Washington Nationals reach out to the community, bring baseball back into the inner city, get more young African-American kids and other minority kids interested in baseball.

…I'm always optimistic about the future. …There are fewer wars this year than there were the year before.

Colin Powell, interview with George Stephanopoulos, “Powell on Iraq, Domestic Spying and Baseball,” This Week, ABC, 12/25/05. [emphasis added]