i will not be a candidate for president or for any other elective office in 19 -9d 6. reporter: powell became a household name during the first gulf war when he pointed at a map showing the location of the iraqi army. our strategy to go after this army is very, very simple. first, we re going to cut it off, and then we re going to kill it. reporter: desert storm, as it was called, lasted just seven weeks, and in an interview on the 25th anniversary of the war, powell acknowledged it may have created a false impression that the next war would be just as quick. do you think desert storm created unrealistic expectations about what military force can it may have in the mind of some. it didn t in my mind. i understood the nature of that war, how limited it was, and it wasn t a model of what we could do in every other con flick that comes along. reporter: he developed the powell doctrine, a series of questions to be asked w. one of them, is there a