It’s becoming clearer by the day that the State Department, under Colin Powell, is actively working to undermine President Bush’s policies on Iraq. Yesterday, the State Department released a transcript of an interview that Mr. Powell gave to Al Quds al Arabi. In the interview, Mr. Powell said, “The person who will decide whether or not there will be war or peace is Saddam Hussein, and all he has to do is give up these terrible weapons that he has used to kill fellow Arabs, fellow Muslims in that part of the world, and to step away from his past behavior which invaded neighboring countries.” That’s just two conditions: disarm and stop invading neighbors.

Contrast that with Mr. Bush’s own September 12, 2002, speech at the United Nations. In that speech, Mr. Bush laid out not just two, but five conditions for Iraq. First he spoke of disarmament. Then he went on: “If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all support for terrorism and act to suppress it, as all states are required to do by U.N. Security Council resolutions,” Mr. Bush said.

“If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will cease persecution of its civilian population, including Shi’a, Sunnis, Kurds, Turkomans, and others, again as required by Security Council resolutions,” Mr. Bush said.

“If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will release or account for all Gulf War personnel whose fate is still unknown. It will return the remains of any who are deceased, return stolen property, accept liability for losses resulting from the invasion of Kuwait, and fully cooperate with international efforts to resolve these issues, as required by Security Council resolutions,” Mr. Bush said.

“If the Iraqi regime wishes peace, it will immediately end all illicit trade outside the oil-for-food program. It will accept U.N. administration of funds from that program, to ensure that the money is used fairly and promptly for the benefit of the Iraqi people,” Mr. Bush said.

In other words, Mr. Powell just jettisoned some of Mr. Bush’s conditions — and some important ones, too.

A similar dissonance could be seen over the weekend at the Iraqi opposition conference in London. As our Adam Daifallah reported in yesterday’s New York Sun, one delegate, Entifadh Qanbar of the Iraqi National Congress, said the special adviser in the State Department office of Northern Gulf Affairs, Thomas Warrick, stopped him from entering a meeting with Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr. Bush’s special envoy and ambassador at large for free Iraqis. Mr. Qanbar said he phoned a friend inside the meeting, who asked Mr. Khalilzad if he could enter. Mr. Khlalilzad said he could, but Mr. Warrick continued to block him and called security guards.

Mr. Bush’s political advisers are said to worry that firing Mr. Powell would cost Mr. Bush two or three percentage points nationwide in the 2004 presidential election. The real question is how many polling points — and how many lives — would be lost in a strike against America by terrorists emboldened by Mr. Powell’s policies. The message being sent to the world is that Mr. Bush’s own foreign policy team isn’t behind Mr. Bush’s foreign policy. The failure may be Mr. Powell’s, but it is the president who is being undercut.