Powell disputes account of decision-making on Iraq war
Secretary of state: 'I was included' in briefings
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 Bob Woodward's new book offers a revealing, behind-the-scenes look at the run-up to war.
 Secretary of State Colin Powell disputed suggestions that he was kept out of the loop.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday disputed suggestions in a new book that he was kept out of the loop in decision-making before the Iraq war -- and was dragooned into going along with a policy he did not support.
"When the president decided that we had to go down the road of military action, it was a road I knew was there all along, and I was as committed as anyone else to see the end of this regime," Powell told reporters. "My support was willing, and it was complete."
However, Powell said he "will always plead guilty to being cautious about matters having to do with war and peace," and he confirmed journalist Bob Woodward's account that he warned President Bush before the war that the situation in post-war Iraq could prove difficult.
"My obligation to the president, to the American people and to my colleagues on the National Security Council is to make sure that we all consider all of the options," he said. "I made sure the president understood -- and he did understand -- that it was going to be a difficult mission in the aftermath of the war."
Powell also said he cooperated with Woodward -- at the behest of the White House.
"We all talked to Woodward. It was part of our instructions from the White House," Powell said. "It was an opportunity to help him write a contemporary history of this period. It was no secret that all of us were encouraged to talk to Mr. Woodward. In my case, it was just a couple phone calls."
In his book, "Plan of Attack," Woodward reports that Vice President Dick Cheney, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld briefed the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, on battle plans for the invasion of Iraq on January 11, 2003 -- shortly after Bush informed Rumsfeld that he had concluded military action against Iraq would be necessary.
Two days later, Powell came to the White House for a meeting at which, according to Woodward, the president told his chief diplomat, "I really think I'm going to have to do this."
But Powell said Monday that the impression left by those two events -- that Bandar was given information that was not being shared with the secretary of state -- is incorrect.
"I was included in all of the military planning preparations. I was briefed on a regular basis," said Powell, a retired Army general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "I was intimately familiar with the plan. I was aware that Prince Bandar was being briefed on the plan."
'Diplomatic work'
Powell also said that at that meeting, Bush "did not convey to me" that he had made a final decision to invade Iraq.
"He sent me back to do my diplomatic work," Powell said.
Less than a month later, Powell appeared before the U.N. Security Council to make the Bush administration's case that Saddam's refusal to account for his weapons of mass destruction justified military action to remove him. No weapons have been found, and Powell later conceded that some of the information he used in his presentation was not "solid."
Powell also disputed Woodward's contention that he and Cheney were so estranged by their differences over the war that they barely speak, insisting that his relationship with the vice president is "excellent."
"When the vice president and I are alone, it's Colin and Dick," he said.
In his book, Woodward describes Cheney as being one of the driving forces in favor of invading Iraq, to the point that Powell complained that the vice president, who was secretary of defense during the first Gulf War, seemed to have "fever" about deposing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
Asked about that characterization, Powell said, "Was the vice president determined that we had to do something about Saddam Hussein and that evil regime? You bet he was."
Woodward's book is based on interviews with 75 people involved in planning for the war, including Bush, who was the only source who spoke for attribution.
