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.
Interesting...
Powell waited until now to disclose this info?
that's what I'd like to know. Why'd he let them keep bashing the President.....??
Because not very deep down, Powell is just another RAT B@st@rd RINO whose only real interest is to bash Bush or the conservatives, and to pander/capitulate/appease to the hate-America crowd. Of course Bush lets them get away with it again and again, with not even a peep of protest, let alone a real smackdown! Geez, you would think Bush would get tired of getting stabbed in the back over & over again by supposed members of his party!
I think he has a concience... the lionozing of Bush by MSM is beyond belief, this the same crowd that lowered the bar on Clinton to criminal in chief.. it was fine by them cus it was Clinton
bttt
Wow! What a brilliant idea! Why didn't Rumsfield or Bush think of that? That Yale Law School grad is a genius.
The Left does not speak with one voice but I agree that they have grossly underestimated the threat posed by Islamic extemists.
I could support Powell/Rice as a ticket just fine. My evaluation was not derived from any anti abortion intensity on my own part. It was a dispassionate evaluation of the probabilities that our hardliners could support candidates who are abortion moderates.
Abortion seems to arrive on the scene with three criteria.
1) Human life starts at conception and even the morning after pill is murder.
2) Human life starts at some very hard to define point on the calendar when . . . perhaps the earliest date ever noted of an EEG scan showing brain wave activity has arrived on the calendar. Somewhat who is moderately pro Life would evaluate that point on the calendar as very close to conception -- perhaps a few weeks. A pro choice person would push that way out with moderately pro choice be defined as perhaps a few months, but utterly opposed to partial birth abortion.
3) Pro Choice extremists would say PBA is just fine, that fetuses are not children at all and deserve no more concern than a tumor and only women (who vote Democrat) are of any concern in the matter.
So I evaluate Rice and Powell as pro Life moderates by that criteria . . . and I suspect our hardliners won't accept it.
bttt...
I believe the US behaviour in Iraq will encourage every country on planet earth to develop a nuclear weapon.
Saddam violated UN resolutions so the US decided to attack despite disapproval by the UN. In doing so, we are guilty of the same thing we are accusing Iraq of. During the first Gulf war the UN was very useful to us, they listened to our case for war and agreed to it. In that war like the present one, many of those claims are in dispute. Since they refused to go along with the war this time the UN has been accused of sex crimes, all sorts of corruption, and we have an ambassador who appears to have nothing but contempt for the institution. The crimes the UN is accused of are no different from the ones I read about taking place in this country every day. Why should we expect the UN to be any different? Could it be they were always a corrupt institution, but they were our institution?
I fail to understand the reasoning in any of this.
We don't need to worry about weapons in the hands of enemies, the Rats are going to beat our enemies down with word games, and cliches. And if that doesn't work, they are going to use rhetoric on them.
Our enemies are shaking in their boots.
Everyone knows Iraq had the weapons. We even found some. But, the rats care more about power than America.
Just like they secretly cheer when another soldier is killed or maimed.
Damn the rats to hell.
What in tarnation are you talking about? You fail to understand all of it because you're wrong in your analysis! The US doesn't need the approval of the UN to do diddly-squat. Saddam broke the GW ceasefire agreement, that in itself justifies this war. After violating 14 un res., colluding with terrorist, continually violating pacts. and the mere fact he gased his own people give us not only the RIGHT to go take his ass out, but an obligation.
We are NOT anything like the UN and for you to suggest such a thing is not only ludicrous, but stupidly asserted! Get back to your anti-American left/libertarian, and listen to err-america...it's where you'll find a home, not here!
Thank you sir/madam, not looking for a home. Just speaking truth to power.
You're speaking pure B.S. and you know it!
Be nice.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.