That was the doings of Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the military. Later, with George W. Bush, it was again Colin Powell, this time as Secretary of State, who lost Turkey as a key staging base to the north of Iraq just weeks before the beginning of military operations. This caused a last-minute redeployment of assets to the south to Basra, opening up the north for Saddam to flee and transport his WMD to Syria.
If Colin Powell hadn't blown it in Turkey, Iraq's forces would have been trapped between a northern and southern front, and hostilities would not have dragged on as they did.
-PJ
“The buck stops here” said Truman. Obama said “I first learned it on TV like you did.”
Powell was a poor Secretary of anything but as I recall, after Desert storm Powell resigned saying he was encouraged to testify at the UN on “fauly information” . He was lied to in order to get him to testify that Sadaam had “mobile labs” They gave him a picture to display at the UN which depicted what turned out to be a weather balloon truck. He lost all credibilty forever and was humiliated so he resigned. No one has heard of him since that trick was played on him. It was bad and it was not fair to the man.