How Dick Cheney and Colin Powell went from
bosom buddies to bitter foes
by
Mary Kay Linge
Original Article
Posted By: tisHimself,
1/12/2020 3:11:18 AM
In 1991, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell were riding high on their Persian Gulf War
triumph. More than four million New Yorkers poured into the streets to cheer the ticker-tape parade they led up Broadway.
“The most effective combination we’ve seen in this country since Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig,” gushed one Republican lawmaker.
President George H.W. Bush basked in a 74 percent approval rating, and his two top military advisers, Cheney as secretary of defense and Powell as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were a perfectly unified team.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
doctorfixit 1/12/2020 4:11:29 AM (No. 285963)
I suggest RPGs at five paces to resolve this dispute. One hit will be enough.
3 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
judy 1/12/2020 4:26:42 AM (No. 285966)
I’ll take Cheney any day over Powell.
42 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
DCGIRL 1/12/2020 5:46:30 AM (No. 285979)
Powell really turned out to be a back stabber and a loyal democrat.
41 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
Safari Man 1/12/2020 6:27:10 AM (No. 285997)
Affirmative Action rarely produces good results. QED Powell.
26 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 1/12/2020 6:46:47 AM (No. 286021)
Powell is a Potomac Peacock - and a genuine wussy to boot.
19 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
WhamDBambam 1/12/2020 7:11:19 AM (No. 286042)
I suspect that Cheney came to view Powell as an empty suit.
18 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
GO3 1/12/2020 7:34:09 AM (No. 286069)
Powell astute?? Come on. This is the guy who wrote the initial memo covering up the My Lai massacre. He served only eight months as a corps commander and three years at the WH as a national security advisor (sounds a little like Vindman) thereby punching his ticket. Powell was a big talker during the Persian Gulf War and and had no intention of "killing it" i.e., Saddam's forces. I think the falling out began here, not during OIF. I'll take Cheney any day.
16 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
coldoc 1/12/2020 8:01:11 AM (No. 286105)
Powell let the Republican guard escape because of "optics" as I recall. Some general. He also turned out to be quite the racist. A typical democrat.
14 people like this.
I will never forgive Powell for his refusal to out Armitage. He violated every concept of Duty, Honor, Country.
25 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 1/12/2020 10:40:33 AM (No. 286287)
Colin Powell was hyped by the media during the Iraqi war. Many people fell for him. Powell showed his true leanings afterwards. Cheney, OTOH, is largely what you see is what you get.
5 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 1/12/2020 10:44:35 AM (No. 286288)
I don't blame Cheney for despising Powell. Colon Powell stood by and let Scooter Libbey get ruined and never said a word even though he knew he was innocent. I've never forgiven Powell either.
7 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 1/12/2020 11:02:31 AM (No. 286310)
I always figured it was because Powell was envious of the adulation Cheney got as VP, and because he sat by on his hands and let Scooter Libby be ruined. Powell knew exactly it was one of his own staffers who was responsible, but he wasn't man enough to own up to it. Colin Powell was the biggest embarrassment as SecState after Maddie Albright. Those two were terrible as SecState.
4 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
fayebeck 1/12/2020 11:12:10 AM (No. 286325)
#10 my anger is directed at the pious swaggering POS W. Bush for not pardoning Libby. How I despise the Bush family.
7 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Lonestar Jack 1/12/2020 1:03:31 PM (No. 286450)
Cheney vs Powell = Man vs Punk
2 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
Terry_tr6 1/12/2020 1:11:38 PM (No. 286458)
always have always will despise Powell for what he is and always has been. We dodged a bullet when he didn't run for president.
0 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
DVC 1/12/2020 2:29:02 PM (No. 286524)
Mixed feelings on this one. I was NEVER a fan of Powell, too much of a perfumed prince military type. Not someone you could trust, IMO. Turned out to be a leftist in the end.
And I have always distrusted Cheney after his destruction of the USN's A-6 long range, extremely effective bomber fleet. The A-6 was an aging airframe, but the USN had spent some $800 million on an advanced new carbon fiber wing which had been installed on most of the USN A-6 aircraft. This wing was stronger and lighter than the original aluminum wings which had aged to unsafeness due to fatigue cracking and corrosion. With the new wings and available electronics upgrades, these rewinged Intruders could have flown for another 20 years. A few squadrons aircraft were actually upgraded with new laser targeting modules, more advanced attack radar systems and upgraded inertial navigation systems. These upgraded A-6s could carry up to 18 500 lb bombs, over a very long range and could provide their own precision laser guidance, without need for a ground laser operator, a very precise long range bomber. Yet, these upgrades were cancelled, and within a few years, Cheney had retired the A-6s. This removed the USN's biggest, longest range bombing punch. The "replacement" F/A-18s have a much lower bomb load, a far shorter range and are generally a dramatic loss in capability for power projection for the USN. The much later Super Hornet F/A-18 E/F is a almost complete redesign, a 25% scale up on the same basic configuration, bigger engines, new inlets, a much more capable aircraft. I still have no satisfactory explanation of why this ostensible conservative, patriotic Cheney would be the one to dramatically reduce the striking power of our USN carriers, but he DID do it by getting rid of the A-6 Intruders and killing the replacement stealthy Avenger. This also effectively killed Grumman, too. No fan of Dick Cheney for what he did to the Navy.
One can argue that the "Avenger" stealthy carrier bomber program was being developed by Grumman about that time to replace it. But why no overlap? The Navy didn't fight too hard for the A-6 upgrades because this new, stealthy Avenger was coming to replace it. But, then Cheney claims to have gotten angry at the cost overruns and delays of a shipboard stealth aircraft (when it was a VERY new, very 'bleeding edge' technology, and these things were unavoidable) and he cancelled the Avenger USN stealth bomber program. This left the USN scrambling to make their F/A-18 do it all since they suddenly had NO long range bombers, thanks to one man, Dick Cheney.
I never trusted Cheney. after that. Was he working for the globalists and they needed the USN's long range bomber "teeth pulled"? That is what fits the best, but it is so deeply distressing that I tend to doubt where the facts lead. But maybe this is the truth. Maybe this was another 'coincidence', low military budgets, and anti-military Congress in the "we won the Cold War" stand down.
0 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
GO3 1/12/2020 3:17:51 PM (No. 286577)
I was in a Navy and Marine Corps command post Gulf War. The Marine A-6s were retired in 1993 and the Navy's in 1997. The decision for the Marines made the older pilots scramble for precious transition slots or retire ( which I think was a technique for the drawdown). Anyway, the phasing out was driven by OSD under Clinton. I fail to see how Cheney should be blamed for this.
4 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
BigGeorgeTX 1/12/2020 4:37:55 PM (No. 286621)
Colin Powell was the highest rising token ever in the military. A desk general, he received undeserved credit for the quick victory in the Gulf War, when the strategy of General Norman Schwarzkopf was the key to the victory. Much like Obama, he's an outstanding example of the Peter principle.
3 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
DVC 1/12/2020 5:29:49 PM (No. 286651)
#18, no upgrades since the 70 in most cases meant that the A-6s were outdated by the early 90s. The middle 80s proposed A-6F upgraded version was cancelled. And then the cancellation of their replacement, the stealthy A-12 Avenger II in 1991 by Cheney, meant that these remaining aging airframes, with old engines and old electronics couldn't do the job, never upgraded, no not to be replaced either. I maintain that Cheney effectively killed the long range strike capability of the USN. The Navy, in desperation, used the F-14s as Bomb-cats, adding bomb racks, and for a while in the early 2000s they were the longest ranged USN bombers available, a sad comedown for the Tomcat air superiority fighter.
0 people like this.
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