Lecturing GOP front-runner 69-year-old real estate mogul Donald Trump on immigration, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell urged the Republican Party to reject Trump’s plan to deport millions of illegal immigrants. Trump’s immigration stand won over the GOP’s most conservative voters, vaulting him to the head of the 2016 GOP pack. Powell’s critical remarks come after Trump denounced former President George W. Bush’s Iraq War for destabilizing the Middle East, leading to the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Powell was instrumental in selling the Iraq War to the U.N. Security Council Feb. 5, 2003, presenting false U.S. intelligence of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Without Powell’s convincing presentation, the Security Council would have found no basis for the U.S. attack on Saddam’s Baathist regime.
Powell wants to throw in his two cents about Trump because the 2016 front-runner criticized the Iraq War, blaming it for today’s Mideast chaos. Powell never admitted that he overstated U.S. intel to convince members of Congress to vote Oct. 11, 2002 for the Iraq War resolution. Only a one-year-and-one-moth after Sept. 11, the Bush White House made a full-court press to convince Congress and the American public that Saddam presented a clear-and-present danger to U.S. national security. Former Vice President Dick Cheney insisted Saddam harbored terrorists, citing a dubious account of Saddam providing medical treatment to Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal some time in the murky 1980s. Cheney never mentioned that Nidal was assassinated by Saddam Aug. 18, 2002, while the Bush White House pushed hard for the Iraq War resolution.
Trump’s the first and only GOP candidate to admit that the Iraq War destabilized the Middle East, leading to the rise of ISIS. Trump told Fox News’ “No Spin Zone” host Bill O-Reilly Sept. 30 that he’d given Russian President Vladimir Putin an “A” for leadership, telling the U.N. General Assembly that the world must unite to defeat the Islamic State. Giving Obama a below-par grade, Trump rejected the current White House approach to Syria, pitting the U.S. against Moscow. Obama backs the Saudi position to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, despite recent announcements by Russian President Vladimir Putin to back al-Assad’s Damascus government. Powell doesn’t like the fact that Trump fingers the Bush administration for causing much of today’s chaos in Iraq and Syria. Powell focuses on immigration reform to divert attention away from his failed foreign policy.
Telling a New Hampshire rally Oct. 1 that he’d send back some 200,000 Syria refugees seeking asylum in the U.S., Trump questioned whether immigrants were a threat to U.S. national security. “I putting people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, they are going back. I am telling you, they are going back,” said Trump. Powell reacted harshly to Trump’s promise. “I don’t agree that it’s the Republican position on immigration,” said Powell. “I think most Republicans understand that we need immigration, that we are an immigrant national [and that] it is in our best interest to do it. But . . . there are pockets of intolerance within the Republican party, [and] the Republican Part had better figure out how to defeat that,” referring to candidates like Trump. Powell won’t admit the threat to U.S. national security of 200,000 Syrian immigrants.
Trump put the immigration issue into more glaring terms. “We’re not going to accept 200,000 people that may be ISIS [ISIL]. We have no idea who they are. And I’m telling you, they may come in through the weakness of [President Barack] Obama,” promising to return them to Syria. For Powell to ignore the potential risk to the homeland of Syrian refugees, primarily young men, shows the hypocrisy of his message, and that of other key Bush White House officials, that the U.S. had to respond to “gathering” threats to the U.S. homeland. With 24-year-old Kuwait-born terrorist, naturalized U.S. citizen Muhammed Youssef Abdulazeez killing four marines, one sailor and himself in Chattanooga, Tenn. July 16, there’s more concern about foreign extremists infiltrating the U.S. homeland. Powell’s focus on the GOP’s immigration problems shows how he’s lost his national security savvy.
Criticizing Trump’s stand on immigration, Powell refuses to acknowledge the foreign policy mess he created by toppling Saddam April 10, 2003. When asked about the ironclad case he presented to the U.N. Security Council before invading Iraq March 20, 2003, Powell only points to faulty U.S. intelligence. Despite warning Bush-43 about the dreaded power vacuum of taking out Saddam, Powell refuses to admit his role in destabilizing the Middle East, giving rise to ISIS. Shifting attention to Trump’s stand on illegal immigrants, Powell hurts Jeb Bush’s chances for president. Raising Bush and Powell’s foreign policy blunders in Iraq, Trump prompted Powell to lash out at Trump’s immigration policy. Powell’s remarks on immigration reminds voters why they can’t put another Bush in the Oval Office anytime soon. Criticizing Trump opens Powell up to defend his own foreign policy failures.
