Diplomats on the Defensive

Gingrich portrayed the foreign policy disputes within the administration as a clash of worldviews between a president focused on "facts, values and outcomes" and a State Department focused on "process, politeness and accommodation." Instead of taking advantage of the diplomatic momentum created by the Iraq war, "now the State Department is back at work pursuing policies that will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory," Gingrich charged.

Rumsfeld has said Gingrich was speaking only for himself. But the address and other attacks from neoconservatives are being viewed within the State Department as an effort to politically "decapitate" Powell.

Gingrich's speech triggered a bitter public response from the State Department. Powell noted during Senate testimony that diplomats are supposed to craft alliances and find diplomatic solutions. "That's what we do," he said. "We do it damn well, and I am not going to apologize to anyone."

In an interview with USA Today, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said sarcastically, "Mr. Gingrich is off his meds and out of therapy."

Gingrich "said there's been this 'massive failure of diplomacy,' " noted a mid-level State Department official. "There has been a massive failure of diplomacy, but it's because of the president and Don Rumsfeld. This is blame-shifting at its best."

Rumsfeld's dismissal of opposition among some allies to the Iraq war as the political weakness of "Old Europe" and other comments are cited by moderates in and out of government as having sabotaged Powell's efforts before the war to get a second United Nations resolution authorizing force against Iraq. A New York Times columnist recently dubbed Rumsfeld "the anti-diplomat," a moniker that has caught on in Washington.

"The votes [against the U.S.] in the U.N. had nothing to do with Iraq. It was personal" toward America, a senior diplomat said. "I don't think this group realizes how arrogant they come off. It's a PR nightmare."

The official said he agreed with the president's decision to go to war in Iraq, and so did most officials at State, contrary to the department's reputation among neoconservatives as a bastion of wimpy multilateralism. "The issue for a lot of us is the way it's been done," he said.

Many within the department dismissed Gingrich as a political has-been whose speech had overreached and backfired, causing the president to defend and side with Powell. But among some conservatives, Gingrich gave voice to complaints about the State Department that they feel have been ignored for years.