Maybe it is because the splits between the state department and Pentagon are as well attested as those between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair, or that the remarks attributed to him (calling the Washington neocons "fucking crazies") appear to point in one direction; but with every Colin Powell statement it is hard not to recall Austrian statesman Metternich's words on hearing of the death of a rival: "I wonder what he meant by that."
The latest – telling George Stephanopoulos's ABC show yesterday that Iraq was "getting worse" – seemed to suggest he was either undermining the Bush administration's usual optimism or had been put out to deflect John Kerry's attack. It is hard to tell. His determination to hold a January election in the face of "an intense insurgency" has challenged Donald Rumsfeld's analysis that the vote would only be held where it was safe enough ("Life's not perfect," he said. "Is it better than not having an election?") but still puts him at the grimmer end of President Bush's relentless march of freedom.
Mr Powell is a military man so it is tempting to see a strategic vision at work, a credible government being the best beginning to an exit strategy ("We will have to increase our efforts […] not walk away and pray and hope for something else to happen," he said), but at least someone in the administration is acknowledging the increasing violence in Iraq. The same day the Washington Post published a report that put insurgent attacks at 70 a day, up from the 40 or 50 before the June handover, and spreading into previously peaceful parts of the country.
