Although "New Jersey" performed her job expertly during the intervention in Lebanon some have criticized the decision to have "New Jersey" shell Druze and Syrian forces. Members of this camp allege that this action forced a shift in the previously neutral U.S. forces by convincing local Lebanese Muslims that the United States had taken the Christian side; "New Jersey"s shells had killed hundreds of people, mostly Shiites and Druze. In his memoir, General Colin Powell (at the time an assistant to Caspar Weinberger) noted that "When the shells started falling on the Shiites, they assumed the American ‘referee’ had taken sides."