Posted on 12/17/2005 6:14:13 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night.
Mr Powell, who argued the case for military action against Saddam Hussein in the UN in 2003, told BBC News 24 television he was "deeply disappointed in what the intelligence community had presented to me and to the rest of us."
"What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced to us," he said.
Mr Powell's comments follow US President George W. Bush's acceptance earlier this week of responsibility for going to war on intelligence, much of which "turned out to be wrong".
US involvement in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion has led to the loss of 2,140 of its troops and badly hit the Republican president's popularity.
The opposition Democrats have increased calls for a timetable for a military withdrawal.
But ahead of this week's parliamentary elections in Iraq, President Bush insisted he was still right to order the invasion and argued a hurried withdrawal would be "a recipe for disaster".
The British government, Washington's key allies in the invasion, has similarly refused to give a withdrawal date for its 8,000 or so troops in Iraq's four southern states, although has said it could happen next year.
For his part, Mr Powell considered the US military could not be deployed in Iraq at its current strength for years to come, raising the possibility of withdrawal from next year.
But he told the BBC that "essentially just to walk away, to say that we're taking all of our troops out as fast as we can, would be a tragic mistake". A US presence would be required in Iraq for "years", he added.
"We've invested a great deal in this country, and the Iraqi people deserve democracy and the freedom that they were promised when we got rid of Saddam Hussein and we have to stay with them... until they decide that they can get it now on their own, they don't need us any longer," he added.
"And even then, I suspect, there will be a continuing relationship and presence of some significance for some years to come."
In the interview, Mr Powell confirmed that White House "hawks" US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had bypassed him and other colleagues on occasions.
Mr Powell's former chief-of-staff Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson made the damning allegations last month, accusing Cheney and Rumsfeld of running a "cabal" and hijacking US military and foreign policy.
Discussions with Rumsfeld about dealing with the aftermath of the Iraq invasion were "not pleasant", Mr Powell admitted in the interview.
“The Administration is not run by inexperienced children. Its leaders are well aware of the limitations and uncertainties which accompany all intelligence.”
This statement is reasonable in that it describes an awareness of limitations and uncertainties in general. But no generalization is 100%. Therefore no presidential administration will be aware of each and every instance of faulty intelligence, especially when the intelligence community has been infiltrated, as in this case, with cowardly traitors who are directed by their very ideology to work through deception and fraud.
That is, your statement contains no refutation of the assertion that the Bush administration was not aware of the doubts in the intelligence leading to the Iraq war.
"What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced to us," he said.
It is my understanding that she asked if the moon was really made of green cheese.
Good article!
I believe it to be true.
It just all adds up, ya know?
BUMP!
Right. I said long ago that when Saddam saw W was really coming, he hid, buried or exported a lot of stuff. He wasn't going to let WMD finds vindicate W. Of course the guys that hid it are insurgents or dead. But hopefully as the gov't takes hold some may squeal.
It's not possible that the Administration was not aware of such doubts given the position of Cheney and others on the worthiness of the intelligence community.
But it is true that Bush asked Tenet about the reliability of claims that Saddam possessed WMD and was assured that they were a "slam dunk".
The magnitude of error committed by the left regarding the Iraq war is so monstrous that the only hope for them lies in the extent to which their current falsification of news and general trickery is accepted as truth by the American people.
Things don’t look good for the liberals.
Thank God for President Bush.
A liberal? Moi?
Reread my response. I used pure and "INNOCENT". Pure and innocent as in a unborn human being. Innocent as in regards to your son serving a meal in a restraunt and God forbid being shot. I would not feel obligated to extend the same respect for the life of your son's assailant as I would for the life of your son. Would you?
I served twenty years in the USAF, during Korea, Vietnam and most of the cold war. I would be willing to reeinlist and serve again, but they are far from being so desperate as to take a worn out ol' seventy three old codger.
"There was a large amount of evidence that Saddam DID have WMD. Based on that evidence everyone was sure he had them.
The fact that we didn't find any proves that we couldn't find them, or that maybe they weren't there WHEN we went in, but it's not proof that they weren't there a month before. Yet people keep insisting, that if we couldn't find them, that's absolute proof that he never had any, despite of all previous evidence."
All one needs do is dial your mind back to the lead-up to the invasion and the rhetoric coming from the Dim potty about the gigantic numbers of casualties the U.S. was going to suffer.
"The article neglected Sheila Jackson Lee who suggested we hide the troops in the desert so nobody will know we are there."
"How about next to our flag on Mars instead" said Lee in a further statement.
Yikes! This is pretty bad. Good for Powell for *finally* bringing this out but what took him so long?
He needs to be saying it on this side of the pond.
Bump to read later....
'..turn the chanel when Reid speaks..'
I do the same when Weasle Clark comes on Fox news (drives me nuts that they hired him). I mute the TV when Rangel or Levin come on....yuck!
'..what took him so long.....'
that's what I'd like to know. Why'd he let them keep bashing the President.....??
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