Si nous ne sommes pas en train de gagner, c’est que nous sommes en train de perdre …

Toujours dans sa manière prudentissime, avec la volonté de dire certaines choses définitives sans définitivement perdre la possibilité de ne pas les dire complètement, Colin Powell vient de nous dire tout de même que les USA sont en train de perdre la guerre en Irak. L’ancien général, l’ancien secrétaire d’Etat de GW Bush, l’ancien procureur et accusateur de l’Irak et de ses armes de destruction massive devant l’ONU rassemblée le 5 février 2003, — Colin Powell, donc, vient de confier ses doutes fondamentaux à CBS.News lors de l’émission “Face the Nation” du 17 décembre.

L’audace de Powell se mesure bien à la façon dont il a départi la prudence de Robert Gates, le nouveau secrétaire à la défense parlant devant le Congrès et disant que les USA “ne sont pas en train de gagner la guerre”, pour aller au-delà : «So if it's grave and deteriorating and we're not winning, we are losing…». Puisque nous ne gagnons pas, alors c’est que nous perdons…

«The United States is losing the war in Iraq but sending more troops to Baghdad is not the best way to change course, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Face The Nation.

»Powell said he agreed with the assessment of the Iraq Study Group co-chairmen, Lee Hamilton and James Baker, that the situation in Iraq is “grave and deteriorating,” and he also agreed with recently-confirmed Secretary of Defense Robert Gates that the U.S. is not winning the war.

»“So if it's grave and deteriorating and we're not winning, we are losing,” Powell told Bob Schieffer in an exclusive interview. “We haven't lost. And this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around.”

(…)

»Powell, also a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he did not see the military benefit of flooding Baghdad with American troops.

»“I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purposes of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work,” he said, adding that the Iraqi government and security forces must take over.

»“It is the D.C. police force that guards Washington, D.C., not the troops that are stationed at Fort Myer,” Powell said. “And in Baghdad, you need a police force to do that, and in the other cities, you need a police force to do that, and not the American troops.”

»Powell also doubted that the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are large enough to support such an operation.

»“The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they're being asked to perform,” Powell said. “We need to let both the Army and the Marine Corps grow in size, in my military judgment.“»

Mis en ligne le 18 décembre 2006 à 07H58