Colin Powell: Oil Spill Is 'Beyond The Capacity' Of BP To Solve, Military Might Have Role

[laughingliberal]

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell suggested on Sunday that the United States military has a role to play in helping contain the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, saying that the problem now was "beyond the capacity" of BP to stop.

"The president has to get involved as quickly as possible," Powell told ABC's This Week. "If you don't, then public opinion starts to drag you in the media, and pushes you. And so when something like this clearly is going to get beyond the capacity of whoever caused it, get beyond the capacity of local authorities, I think the federal government has to move in quickly and move in with, to use my favorite expression, decisive force and demonstrate that it's doing everything that it can do."

Powell continued: " is a major problem that can only be dealt with by the federal government and all the resources of the federal government and that's what the president is now doing." <snip>

<snip> "I think the president directly said the other day that he'd been monitoring it, following it, and ... been on top of it from the beginning," he said. "But that impression was not conveyed to the American people. And the comprehensive speech he gave the other day, I think he would have been better served -- and the nation would have been better served -- if he had given it a few weeks earlier. But I think the federal government is now fully engaged."

More at link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/30/colin-powell-oil-spill-is_n_594779.html