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Thursday, February 06, 2003

By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Secretary of State Colin Powell's indictment of Iraq before the United Nations rated a high grade, an A-minus, from an expert in political rhetoric, who says Powell portrayed himself as credible, impassioned and in command of the facts.

Historians, analysts, pollsters and members of Congress contacted by the Los Angeles Times also gave Powell rave reviews.

"A tour de force," pronounced Yale University presidential historian Fred Greenstein.

"His performance was of presidential magnitude," said Alton Frye, director of the Council on Foreign Relations' Congress and Foreign Policy program.

"There was no one smoking gun, but by the end of the speech, there were shell casings everywhere," said Matthew Spalding, a political historian at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Ted Windt, a University of Pittsburgh professor emeritus and a pioneer in the study of political rhetoric, said the Bush administration not only assembled a persuasive message, but also sent precisely the right messenger: a former skeptic about war with Iraq whose appeal for a diplomatic solution gave him credibility with a body of diplomats.

"Powell probably has more authority with the international community than any member of the administration, President Bush included," Windt said after watching Powell's address.

Windt said Powell's speech was constructed along the classic lines -- opening, middle and conclusion -- with the strongest evidence, including a wiretap of Iraqi military officials discussing hiding a vehicle as well as satellite photographs, put up front.

The effect, he said, was to create an aura of the proven to serve as a backdrop for the less provable allegations based on unnamed informants.

One of the sharpest rhetorical moves, Windt said, was Powell's concession that there could be differing interpretations about the significance of a collection of empty warheads found by one group of inspectors.

The United States has suggested that they are capable of delivering biological agents, while Iraq insists that is not the case.

By conceding conflicting interpretations, Windt said, Powell did not give the Iraqis a chance to disprove a point of the U.S. argument while allowing those inclined to believe the U.S. version to draw their own conclusions.

But while such a speech is likely to give the administration's war plans a spike in polling numbers, Windt said, the more significant answers, both from U.N. members and in longer term domestic support, will take time to sort out.

A Gallup poll conducted and released before the speech yesterday found that Americans trust Powell more than President Bush to make the right decision on Iraq.

While Bush's State of the Union address boosted overall support for an invasion from 52 percent to 58 percent, and 53 percent of those surveyed said the president had made a convincing case for war, 60 percent said Powell's case to the Security Council would be "very important" to their opinion about a war.

And by a margin of 63 percent to 24 percent, they said they trusted Powell more than Bush on policy toward Iraq.

Liberals and moderate Republicans have respected Powell from the start of the Bush administration, viewing the former general as the leading advocate of multi-lateralism and a counterweight to other officials who are criticized as too quick to resort to military force.

The secretary of state's cool, collegial style plays better in the diplomatic world than Bush's Texas bluster -- and the Bush camp knows it, analysts said. Bush made a canny political decision, they said, by deploying Powell -- a man with enough personal gravitas to appeal to the allies and a track record of reluctance to use force -- to make a forceful case to the Security Council that Iraq was perpetrating a grand deception.

"It didn't come across as a heavy-handed speech, which was a good move on Powell's part," said Spalding. "These are not the cowboy Americans who have set the Security Council up for a 'gotcha' moment. This was very reasonable, and his argument built up over time. He didn't throw it on the table."

Powell acknowledged that the evidence is not always conclusive, yet built up the circumstantial evidence and intelligence intercepts that are more than circumstantial into "a powerful, systematic case," Frye said.

Ohio State University political scientist John Mueller said Powell's presentation would be especially effective in persuading those who feel the United States must prove that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is manipulating the world, but less so for those who wonder why he poses an immediate threat.

Sonni Efron of the Los Angeles Times contributed to this report.

Dennis Roddy can be reached at droddy@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1965.