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Two weeks ago Powell sent Rumsfeld a list of prominent Americans who could help the hand-off from the military to the interim authority, but most were rejected as woolly-headed by the Defense Department. Instead, Rumsfeld nominated a notably more hard-line group, including a former CIA director, James Woolsey, to be Minister of Information. Powell's folks view that maneuver as dangerously unwise. How better to deepen Arab resentment about the war, they ask, than to put a well-known ex-spook in charge of public information? Woolsey didn't help when he responded to Arab concerns last week by saying, "We want you nervous. We want you to realize this country and its allies are on the march and that we are on the side of those whom you--the Mubaraks, the Saudi royal family--most fear: we're on the side of your own people." Even a Rumsfeld ally said later of tapping Woolsey, "Whose bright idea was that?"
But rather than back down, Rumsfeld's forces fired off a letter to the White House, asking the President to take advantage of a swiftly changing situation in Iraq to install Chalabi's interim government. "All our military guys on the ground are desperate to figure out whom they can send to talk to these friendly Iraqis," said a Rumsfeld ally. "We have to grab this opportunity."
Pentagon officials said repeatedly last week that the military wants to turn the country over to the Iraqis in stages, as soon as possible. Some of them say they need only six months to build a democracy. But officials at the CIA and State believe there is no way the U.S. can even begin to create a stable democracy in six months in a country that has never had one. CIA officials believe a rush to elections might result in the kind of winner--let's say a radical Islamist party--that the U.S. might be forced to reject outright, a distinctly undemocratic precedent. The Pentagon hard-liners think this attitude underestimates the Iraqi people and note that some former Soviet-bloc countries made the transition in a matter of months.
Looking for reinforcements, Powell was in Europe last week, feeling out allies to see if they might lend a hand with the postwar mess. British Prime Minister Tony Blair favors using the U.N. to help with humanitarian and reconstruction projects, partly as a way to bring the U.S. and Europe together again after the damaging breach at the Security Council last month. When Blair and Bush meet early this week in Belfast, Blair will echo Powell's line and push the President to seek international help. But the hard-liners are adamantly opposed, saying the U.N. will only make things more expensive and complicated. Besides, they say, if you weren't with us on the takeoff, you don't deserve to be there for the landing.