” ‘You’re going to be the proud owner of 25 million people,’ [Secretary of State Colin] Powell told the president [Bush, in a dinner at the White House on August 5, 2002]. ‘You will own all their hopes, aspirations and problems. You’ll own it all.’ A war with Iraq would tie down most of the U.S. army, Powell said, and would suck the oxygen out of everything else the United States wanted to do. If Bush was determined to go ahead, Powell concluded, he would urge getting approval of the United Nations Security Council for support and diplomatic cover.”
– Elisabeth Bumiller, Condoleezza Rice: An American Life, Page 186