Posted on 08/19/2005 10:39:26 AM PDT by LouAvul
A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.
"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."
Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program, which airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET, pieces together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."
Powell's speech, delivered on February 14, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
All networks have bad shows but CNN is right up there with MSNBC producing almost all crap. Thank God for inept competition.
Are you sure they're going to re-run "Tailwind"? They had to retract most of it later.
http://www.cnn.com/US/9807/02/tailwind.johnson/
some great contextual creativity in the editing room, I trust.
A bluff can still get you shot in some saloons. Problem for Saddam, his was in Texas.
The idiot would still be holding court in IRAQ's rape rooms, 10 year old children would still be in jail and his sons would still be killing the Iraqi soccer team members for losing a game.
Definitely the MOTHER OF ALL BLUNDERS!!!
You know that, right?
So if he planned on using it later after sanctions were lifted and the monitoring forgotten, well See North Korea and Iran for examples...
(future without OIF)
(AP) Today Iraqi Nuclear Scientists broke seals at the Tuwaitha storage facility as EU and UN negociators pleaded with the Saddam Hussein regime to reconsider it's plans to restart nuclear enrichment following Israel's problematic West Bank withdrawl ... Baradei urged restraint on all parties and appealed to Iraq's claim of peaceful nuclear development for the nations energy needs...
So, the audio tapes of guys saying "The inspectors are coming tommorrow, you must remove them tonight!" or something to that effect... were those fabricated?
One question will not be asked: Despite the "trucks" did he think Saddam had WMDs? State Dept. Intel thought so.
These guys are let to rant on the worst intelligence and allowed the impression that they thought there were no WMDs.
That yellowcake was used as an example of the MSM deliberately omitting an example of 'WMD' when they talk about 'mistaken intelligence.' There was absolutely no mistaken intel about this yellowcake - everyone knew it was there, there was no attempt to hide that it was there, it was listed in Iraq's disclosures, and - most importantly - Iraq was not prohibited by sanctions, the cease-fire agreement, or anything else from having it.
So it is a 'yellow herring' to throw that issue into the middle of a discussion about mistaken intel. It has nothing to do with mistaken intel.
I agree with your comment about the "true believers" who still thought Saddam had WMDs. But the "Col." is deceptive, just like all these government insiders like Joe Wilson. They all thought Saddam had WMDs. They cherry pick the worst intelligence and allow the media to communicate the impression they had thought Saddam had no WMDs. The Col. does not state what he agreed with in Powell's speech. How about the anthrax?
Wasn't Powell opposed to Desert Storm? If I recall, he urged Bush 41 to let sanctions do the fighting.
I guess he wasn't offended enough to resign his commission though, was he?
I'd have said that losing Turkey as a lauching point for the Iraqi norther front in the final weeks of buildup was a lower point.
-PJ
Unfortunately there are too many like this chicken coronel whose mission in life is to throw roadblocks up to every thing not approved by the left wing segment of the baby boomers.
Especially when you have a history as a murderer, liar and all around tyrannical maniac.
There was no intelligence failure. Don't believe the MSM.
Condi Rice made an interesting statement several months ago that of course went unnoticed by the press. She was on Hannity's show and was discussing WMD when she said "Of course Saddam's regime had weapons of mass destruction." This happened earlier this year, after the Kaye report had been released. So my feeling is that a few very high level people in the Bush Administration know that Iraq had WMD, probably chemical weapons, and they know what happened to the these weapons. But the proof can't be released to the public because this evidence also is from senstive sources, possibly inside Syria. I am continuously surprised at how the pompous MSM assumes that they have all the intelligence about Iraq and that everything has been made public. Media people act like they know nothing about how the intelligence agencies operate.
And that's saying something for someone who apparently is now making a bid to be a hero among those who pride themselves in being low lifes.
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