Can this be confirmed?

[The patriot]

I heard of a meeting with GW, Colin Powell, and several high ranking officials in France.

Chirac was expressing his "concern with America wanting to keep some or all of Iraq".

Powell's reply to this was "After a few wars on your soil, all we've ever asked for was some place to bury our dead soldiers. "

This brought about a minute of silence.

It was a short meeting.

Eric

 

[Boomer II]

I haven't heard that story yet.

 

[MGordon]

It's true, put not with Chirac.



A former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, basically asked Colin Powell if the war in Iraq was about "empire building. "



Part of Colin Powell's response:



"We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

 

[The patriot]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I just found this on another site:



QUESTION: I'm wondering, when I talk to my friends about the U. S. , we think about how do you feel about representing a country commonly perceived as the Satan of contemporary politics?

SECRETARY POWELL: Satan? Oh. Well, I reject the characterization. Quite the contrary. I think the American people, the United States of America, presents a value system to the rest of the world that is based on democracy, based on economic freedom, based on the individual rights of men and women. That is what has fueled this country of ours for the last 225 years.



I think that's what makes us such as draw for nations around the world. People come to the United States. They come to be educated. They come to become Americans. We are a country of countries, and we touch every country, and every country in the world touches us.



So, far from being the Great Satan, I would say that we are the Great Protector. We have sent men and women from the armed forces of the United States to other parts of the world throughout the past century to put down oppression. We defeated Fascism. We defeated Communism. We saved Europe in World War I and World War II. We were willing to do it, glad to do it. We went to Korea. We went to Vietnam. All in the interest of preserving the rights of people.



And when all those conflicts were over, what did we do? Did we stay and conquer? Did we say" "Okay, we defeated Germany. Now Germany belongs to us? We defeated Japan, so Japan belongs to us"? No. What did we do? We built them up. We gave them democratic systems which they have embraced totally to their soul. And did we ask for any land? No, the only land we ever asked for was enough land to bury our dead. - Secretary Powell

 

[WTBurke]

Outstanding!



William