The Minds of Americans Weren’t Changed Much

Jon Markell of Hancock Park said he knew Saddam Hussein was up to no good long before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell attempted to lay out evidence against Iraq to the United Nations on Wednesday morning. But Powell’s speech did little to convince the 57-year-old art and antiques dealer that the U.S. should rush into what he said would be a perilous war.

“It’s serious and it’s worrisome, but it ain’t worth going to war tomorrow,” Markell said as he shopped for groceries in West Hollywood. “If we go to war against Iraq, it’s going to produce more Muslim fanatics, and we’ve got enough already.”

Across the country, a number of Americans who heard or listened to Powell seemed, like Markell, to be holding fast to previously formed opinions. Those who trusted President Bush’s intentions still did. Those who didn’t remained skeptical.

Some people said they were so sure of their thoughts already that they didn’t need to tune in.

“I saw some of it on TV before work this morning. It all seems really nebulous to me,” said Scott Hardy, 24, a student and bike messenger in Seattle. “I know they can’t tell the public everything, and there probably is stuff Iraq is hiding, but why now?”

Santa Clarita resident Will Fowler said he wasn’t surprised by Powell’s speech, which he listened to on his car radio. The 24-year-old sales representative said he had heard news reports about Iraq’s alleged mobile chemical weapons labs. War with Iraq, he said, is “a necessary evil.”

“The government has spent a lot of time already trying to prove Iraq is a threat. I tend to trust our leaders,” he said.

Cal State Northridge journalism student Natalie Warman said she doesn’t trust the administration and didn’t trust Powell’s evidence, particularly the taped phone conversations in Arabic.

“It sounded like [U.S. intelligence] chose one thing and made it sound catastrophic,” she said.

In downtown Los Angeles, Bryan Bagwell, a 27-year-old banker from La Mirada, said Powell only reinforced a case that he thought had been made long ago.

“As far as I’m concerned, as an American, we should have taken care of Saddam back in 1991,” he said. “I was convinced from Day 1.”

His friend Chad Landry, 26, also a banker, said he didn’t think much of Powell’s evidence.

“I was already convinced by [chief U.N. weapons inspector] Hans Blix and Bush’s State of the Union speech,” he said. “Colin Powell didn’t persuade me either way, but I don’t think he made a good case.”

In New York, John McGrath, 31, a charity fundraiser, said he didn’t see much point to Wednesday’s speech, even though he thought Powell’s evidence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons cache was convincing.

“I think it’s a problem in that people know what’s going on over there, including the Europeans,” he said. “They are not saying, ‘I don’t believe he has it.’ They are saying, ‘We don’t believe war is the proper action at this point.’ So it’s nice that he [Powell] could go out there and detail all of it. But it ultimately doesn’t really serve any purpose. People have different ideas of what we should do in the end.”

At a Costa Mesa coffee shop, Bob Goodman, a Newport Beach real estate salesman, said he already had been convinced that the United States should go to war, adding that Powell’s speech was excellent and should help the administration’s cause.

“I believed the administration before, so my belief about Iraq was reinforced, but I think it’s going to convince a lot of the nonbelievers,” he said.

Hugh Diamond, 38, a colleague of Goodman’s, said he didn’t need to hear the speech.

“Saddam has been hiding things, so I believe it’s just a matter of getting it done,” he said.

At the American Legion in Newport Beach, Mike Dolder, 58, a retired firefighter, said he thought Powell’s address was the “most convincing speech” yet on why the United States should go to war.

But Mike Johnston, 59, a developer who served in Special Forces during the Vietnam War, said he had yet to hear enough reasons to do so. “It’s like he used smoke and mirrors to prove a point by telling people there’s something there in Iraq that shouldn’t be,” he said of Powell.

Still, some who watched the speech said it changed their minds. Rosayle Kelley, 85, of Dayton, Ohio, who was visiting Los Angeles, said she was struck by the evidence that suggested Iraq was hiding anthrax and other biological weapons.

“I lived through too many wars, and I certainly don’t want to see another,” said Kelley as she walked through Grand Central Market. “But he made it seem like we really need to go to Iraq.”

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Times staff writers Sue Fox, David Pierson, David Reyes and Hanah Cho in Los Angeles, John J. Goldman in New York and Lynn Marshall in Seattle contributed to this report.