Colin Powell comes Clean? Do we remember back then?

[tw]

I am hearing rumors that Powell will be blunt honest in an ABC News interview tonight (Friday). Looking most forward to what Powell says about his UN speech where he tried to justify the upcoming invasion of Iraq. And about where the well proven concept of containment and the Powell doctrine got replaced by pre-emption and other George Jr nonsense. Both were discussed previously in The Cellar.

So what was the mindset of so many Cellar Dwellers back then on 23 Feb? Makes interesting reading at how few actually foresaw the mess that would become Iraq. Also how many just blindly believed that Powell speech given that so much was contradicted by existing facts.

This was the discussion in The Cellar back then

Antiwar protests increase probability of war

Even though Hans Blix demonstrated Powell's half truths? If Colin Powell was so accurate, then all that soil removed from a chemical weapons site is located somewhere else. Just tell inspectors and they will confirm it. But Powell could not do full disclosure since the soil might prove him wrong. After all, the Powell presentation provided no facts - just implied that a coverup was in progress. Only fact presented - they moved soil to another location. What does that prove? That Iraq moved soil - nothing more. Powell says that proves WMD were made there. Nonsense.

Not one Powell example proved anything. Every example would not be sufficient evidence in a court of law. But some will agree with the mental midget Geroge Jr no matter what the reality.

Hans Blix blew out one of Powell's examples by demonstrating that the WMD site was instead an Iraqi declared site. That decontamination truck was more typically a maintenance truck. Once real world days were applied to Powell's presentation, then the 'day before' coverup disappears. Those pictures were fiction - were of events weeks apart. Powell lied.

Many western reporters went to another rumored site of biologoical warfare in N Iraq. Normally, western reporters were denied access by a vigilanty group that controls the area. Powell gave wrong location for those buildings. But then reporters found the buildings some 30 miles away - and no indication of any such WMD production. Did Powell lie? Western reporter could find nothing of what Powell had claimed.
...
But as more news reports are arriving, Powell's presentation is more like what was used to justify an attack on a factory in Sudan. Fiction.

This discussion then moved on to other concepts such as "War Behind Closed Doors" from PBS Frontline, and real justifications for the Iraqi war. Needless to say, the real reasons could never be comprehended from sound bytes. Preemption being the justification for war without any smoking gun.

from later posts on 26 Feb 2003 in that same discussion
http://www.pbs.org/frontline
The piece is so full of facts that I need a yellow highlighter. Entitled "The War Behind Closed Doors". It is 'must see TV'. Don't know when it will play again.

Notce when George Jr decided Saddam should be removed - and why. We have the right to assasinate another world leader? WMD are only an excuse. But this is fundamental. If you don't understand the debate about containment verses pre-emption, then you don't understand how the George Jr administration thinks.

I am contantly reminded of a comment by Colin Powell about Christine Whitman - the wind dummy.

Curious that those who blindly advocated war without remorse back then are no longer such strong advocates of what is now proving to be a mistake - as was predicted because of no smoking gun.

Interesting to learn what Powell will say AFTER reading what we were thinking back in February 2003 as the majority of us were all fired up to Pearl Harbor a nation that was a threat to no one.

[Undertoad]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...773671,00.html

Turning to his pre-war address to the UN Security Council, when he forcefully made the case for invasion and offered proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, General Powell said that he felt terrible about the claims he made. Asked whether the speech would tarnish his reputation, he replied: “Of course it will. It’s a blot. I’m the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and (it) will always be part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now.”

General Powell, 68, did not blame George Tenet, the CIA’s Director at the time, for the misleading information, which included satellite photographs of trucks that he asserted were mobile biological weapons laboratories. Instead, he blamed lower-level intelligence analysts for not speaking out during the five days he pored over reports at the CIA as he prepared the speech.

He said: “George Tenet . . . believed what he was giving to me was accurate.” He added: “There were some good people in the intelligence community who knew at the time that some of these sources were not good and shouldn’t be relied upon, and they didn’t speak up. That devastated me.”

Whoa doggies, the current administration is falling apart at the seams (big surprise!). Powell's remarks remind me of comments I've read on a military discussion board, where lower ranking officers and NCO's complain of being made the fall guys for their superiors. At least Powell is admitting that he was wrong. If he didn't want to bash the man who was director of the CIA at the time, he should have just left it at that, though. What GS 11 or even 13 was going to put his neck out against the party line? I bet some did and were fired for their attempts.

I took classes in aerial photography and satellite imagery back in the stone ages when I was in college, and it was amazing what you could discern back then. My prof was also the head of his department at the US Air Force Academy and sharp as a tack. Of course those mid-level employees at the CIA had their doubts, if not saw the truth up front. It wasn't convenient news, so they were ignored.

[richlevy]

My outsider understanding was that there was dissent in the CIA about the conclusions but that they where whitewashed from the report. There is now a new directive that presidential briefings contain dissenting views.