Hey Powell, go back to dancing on stage with that African hip hop band.
Posted on 02/16/2011 8:11:04 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Former American secretary of state Colin Powell has reportedly called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain how he was given unreliable information which proved key to the US case for invading Iraq.
Powell's landmark speech to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, cited intelligence about Iraq leader Saddam Hussein's bioweapons programme gained from a defector, code-named Curveball.
But he has now admitted that he lied to topple the dictator, in an interview with the Guardian.
"It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable," Mr Powell said.
"The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency) as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into the (report) sent to Congress, the president's state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN."
The defector, real name Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, admitted for the first time this week that he lied to the BND, Germany's secret service, by claiming in 2000 that Iraq had mobile bioweapons trucks and had built clandestine factories.
During Mr Powell's speech, Mr Janabi was described as "an Iraqi chemical engineer" who "supervised one of these facilities."
"He actually was present during biological agent production runs and was also at the site when an accident occurred in 1998," Mr Powell told the UN.
Mr Janabi was exposed as an unreliable source when the BND visited Bassil Latif, his former boss at the Military Industries Commission in Iraq, who said there were no trucks or
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The ill-liberals are such hypocrites - this information should be front and center every night IMHO.
Hey Powell, go back to dancing on stage with that African hip hop band.
“but his shrinking from making an effort to obtain it was, probably, revealing of his character. An actor playing a hero, rather than a hero.”
Powell may not be a hero, but I don’t think his presidential demural demonstrates anything either way. Countless great men never ran for president. I realize we’re not in Washington’s time, and wild ambition is a prerequisite for potential presidents, but I don’t think that’s a good thing.
I remember it very well also. Saddam was thumbing his nose at us, was not about to negotiate and we gave him every chance to do so. He was saying "bring it on" and we finally did.
Powell is self-consumed. He well knows that *EVERYONE* had the same intelligence- the Clintons, the Europeans and the UN. The guy should grow up. I’ve long suspected that he was an opportunistic phony. Bob
I like your question better than Powell’s.
“The post-Gulf War I Powell is both sad and pathetic.”
Powell would have been a no-body without Norman Schwarzkopf. Stormin’ Norman was the brains of that whole operation, and would have done it all then, were it not for Powell/Bush stopping him from going on to Baghdad. Powell is a wimp, got where he was by affirmative action.
That’s exactly what he was, and that’s why he was paraded out in front of the TV cameras in GW I and gave the speech to the UN. Both parties know the reluctance nationally and internationally to criticize a black guy seen as intelligent and well spoken
We had our own weapons inspector in Iraq who was insisting that Saddam didn’t have squat after Gulf War I. Saddam was putting on a good show for his next door neighbors. He wanted to be the Big Arab on the Block and figured he could scare them by bragging about his big weapons. The getting invaded by the US part wasn’t part of his plan.
I agree, you’re dead on the money. All Saddam would have had to do was say “wait” let’s talk, but being the Arab he was didn’t allow him to do it. I really don’t think he believed we’d do it though.
Only thing is that if had been elected President in 1996, or even 2000 we would not now be saddled with Obama as the first black president. If Powell was less than he seemed, Obama was all that he seemed to anyone who bothered to look at his record. Tin soldier vs. a demagogue? I would still take Powell.
What Saddam did have was a country overflowing with small arms and ammunition dumps. Troops patrolling Sadr City would search an ordinary house and find six or seven weapons in it. Probably more weapons than in private hands in the United States.
Actually we paid a pretty darn big price too ( a trillion or so dollars and 3500++ combat related deaths and we’re not done paying yet. No one can ever prove a negative, meaning you can’t prove you don’t possess something.
That was especially a problem because we went in light and didn’t have any troops to leave back of the front line to keep order. In WWII we had an entire Civil Affairs Division that organized the locals so that anarchy wasn’t running amok. Rummy and his pals decided that that wasn’t necessary and didn’t plan anything to keep the locals and the demobbed Iraqi troops occupied. So they had plenty of time to go explore the ammo dumps and wander off with all the hardware that has been creating trouble ever since.
Excellent point and an important understanding of the events of the time.
IIRC, when he was interrogated, we learned he intentionally acted to make both his own people and other nations to believe he had much more than he did - bad judgement on his part - and that he intended to ramp back up once the coast was clear.
Colin Powell is human scum and should be arrested, convited and shot for treason KNOWING he and his puppet Armitrage LIED and KNEW they leaked Plame’s name and NOT Scooter Libby.
Scum, scum, scum.
My son was among the follow on troops. He was an Lt. in a scout unit that was supposed to come in from Turkey. Never could understand why they pulled out the invasion force when there was clearly not enough men to keep order. I asked my son at the times who was minding the ammunition dumps. Answer: no one, so far as he knew. There should have been lots of troops just going around and blowing the things up.
As soon as you tell us how long you knew it was Richard Armitage from your office that leaked Valerie Plame's name.
AND, why didn't you come forward.
The attack on Halabja was in 1988. After the first Gulf War a huge number of chemical weapons were destroyed, although the accounting was definitely not perfect:
"A significant number of chemical weapons, their components and related equipment were identified and destroyed under UNSCOM supervision in the period from 1991 to 1997. This included over 38,000 filled and unfilled chemical munitions, 690 tons of chemical warfare agents, more than 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals and over 400 pieces of production equipment. All chemical weapons destruction was carried out at the Muthanna State Establishment, Iraq's primary chemical weapons facility, with one exception. Some munitions found at the Khamissiyah arms depot in October 1991 were judged too dangerous to move. Therefore, they were destroyed in situ during February/March 1992. The destruction of all other agent and munitions took place at Muthanna from June 1992 to May 1994. UNSCOM supervised the destruction of over 480,000 litres of live chemical weapons agent and over 1 million kilograms of some 45 different precursor chemicals." - globalsecurity.org
Rummy, like Robert McNamara before him, wasn’t much interested in listening to the uniformed military. If he thought tidying up behind the front was unnecessary then it wouldn’t get done. I am quite certain that there are courses at Ft Leavenworth highlighting Rummy’s mistaken assumption that nothing bad would come out of failing to secure the rear area.
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