Colin Powell was on Face The Nation today. Bob Schieffer lead the interview by asking him first about a recent volley of remarks that one might say started with Powell critizing conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh during Q&A at a cybersecurity conference, as reported by Chris Strohm of Congress Daily. Then Cheney went on the record, also on Face The Nation, after being asked by Schieffer, saying he’d pick Limbaugh over Powell. Powell’s response this morning was, in part, to affirm he still saw himself as a Republican and to invoke Jack Kemp as an example he admired.

Washington’s stenographers must’ve started scribbling as soon as they heard this because that has become the headline of the day at both the Washington Post (“Still a Republican, Powell Urges Party to Become More Inclusive“) and the New York Times (“Powell Still a Republican, Despite Party Differences“).

But Schieffer also asked Powell if he agreed that EITs were effective and when he knew about them. Powell claimed to have been kept apart, without direct knowledge, and that the CIA “had to be given some room” (really, given their history of abuse?). Schieffer didn’t ask Powell why he didn’t insist on knowing the nature of the elicitations in which were given to him and his aid, Lawrence Wilkerson, as evidence for claims he had to make to the world.

While admitting being party to some discussions, Powell pleaded ignorance, saying “I don’t know know what I don’t know.” Logic hard to deny, but he’s really not saying anything there. Almost Rumsfeldian.

At the same time, in saying “we” used “EITs” — a pseudonym for torture — he admits to his complicity in human rights abuses. He seems to think it was OK to do that, but maybe just for a year or two. “It’s easy now to look back … to say … you shouldn’t have done anything. … Now we see that these [tactics] are not appropriate,” Powell said.

The Geneva Conventions didn’t make that clear before? Isn’t there some contradiction suggested in what Powell admits being a party to and what he says he didn’t know at the time? Such questions were not pressed in the studio.

If we take Powell at his word, he seems to have conveniently not known and not asked (and if he asked and got no answer, still proceeded in his role as an apparent cog rather than a principal), despite his responsibility.

The importance of this issue and the overall shallowness of Powell’s replies, as a one-time “principal,” seems more critical to me than his political affiliation and political name-calling. To me this subject of national security, the answers, the questions and the un-asked questions would make a more substantive lead.

Isn’t it relevant to ask why Powell was making claims apparently based on assertions with little context from an agency (CIA) with a known track record of lying? An agency whose other primary source for other claims (“Curveball”) was challenged by the Defense Intelligence Agency? This was when Powell was Secretary of State and reports say that the State Department’s own Bureau of Intelligence and Research was skeptical of these claims.

My friend Sam Husseini was outside Face The Nation, and followed-up to ask Powell about torture that produced lies used in support of the specious claims Powell made before the United Nations. Jonathan Schwarz sees a disparity between Powell’s comments now and what he said before the UN.

Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA analyst (who once had a sting briefing the first President Bush) and Catholic activist, has written a piece based in part on an email interview with Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell’s chief aide during his reign over the State Department, that should leave even more questions in your mind. One might even wonder if Powell is leaving Wilkerson out to dry.

Updated (26 May 2009): Robert Parry at Consortium News follows-up on Powell’s Face The Nation appearance and Sam’s question, bringing along analysis that goes deeper into Powell’s career.