"Piece of Trash"

That's how Secretary of State Colin Powell called former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, or more fully "a piece of trash waiting to be collected."

It may be coincidence, or it may not, that Adam Garfinkle, who just joined the secretary's staff as a speechwriter, coined the term "taking out the trash" to mean figuring out "where the dictator goes once he decides to give up power" in a book he co-wrote with me and others, The Devil and Uncle Sam: A User's Handbook to the Friendly Tyrants Dilemma (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1992), p. 83.

In any case, it's an irresistible term. (July 30, 2003)

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