US Secretary of State Colin Powell warned President George Bush 
two months before the invasion of Iraq about the potential negative 
consequences of a war, citing what Mr Powell privately called the 
"you break it, you own it" rule of military action, a new 
book reveals. 
"You're sure?" Mr Powell is quoted as asking Mr Bush in the Oval Office 
on January 13, 2003, as the President told him he had made the decision 
to go forward. 
"You understand the consequences," he is said to have stated in a 
half-question. "You know you're going to be owning this place?" 
The book, Plan Of Attack by The Washington Post's Bob Woodward, 
reconstructs that and other private conversations between senior 
Bush Administration officials during the 16-month period of planning 
and preparation that ended with the attack on Iraq in March, 2003.
It has been well known that Mr Powell was the most sceptical among 
Mr Bush's senior advisers about the wisdom of invading Iraq. 
But the new details described in the book, at a time when the 
US occupation has met with new perils, add considerably to a 
portrait of a Secretary of State who expressed private reservations 
about the Administration's policy but never issued a public protest 
about the Administration's course. 
"Force should always be a last resort," Mr Powell told the 
UN Security Council on February 14, 2003.
Mr Powell is described as having clashed in particular with 
Vice-President Dick Cheney, who was preoccupied with alleged 
links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda.