Powell and White House Get Together on Iraq War
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, Feb. 3 — The White House and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell scrambled on Tuesday to present a united front about the war in Iraq, a day after Mr. Powell said he was not sure if he would have recommended an invasion had he known Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of banned weapons.

After telling The Washington Post in an interview on Monday that the absence of weapons stockpiles "changes the political calculus" about whether to go to war, Mr. Powell told reporters on Tuesday, in comments coordinated with the White House, that "the bottom line is this: the president made the right decision."

Mr. Powell's comments to The Post clearly irritated some White House officials, who have complained before that Mr. Powell sometimes strays from the official line on national security issues. Repeating a line that Mr. Powell had used to describe himself during a dispute with the White House on another topic three years ago, one administration official said on Tuesday that the secretary was "a little forward on his skis again."

Mr. Powell's comments focused attention again on the longstanding foreign policy conflicts within the administration that have often pitted Mr. Powell against Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Mr. Powell's statements highlighted the contrast between his sometimes measured support for the war and the more full-throated justifications offered by Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld.

"There definitely appears to be some jockeying going on around here," said one administration official. "There's a high degree of frustration and it does creep out."