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 ...
That's true. And that's why he should have made videos or movies of what he had being destroyed (or trucked to Syria, as his generals have said was done). Beyond that, we still wouldn't know if he destroyed or shipped them all. Just another reason why we should have assumed he still had them and/or the ability and the will to re-constitute them if he didn't. Another reason Saddam had to be taken out was because he tried to assassinate one of our ex-presidents. NO dictator should be allowed to assume he could get away with anything like that. Unfortunately, with Obambi in the White House now, I believe dictators around the globe have started assuming much worse.
That is what Affirmative Action hires do. It is their essence.
Someone is trying to rewrite history.
During the invasion they found a nerve agent chemical plant and nerve agent stockpiles in Iraqi army ammo dumps. They renamed them “agricultural pesticide” and presto-chango, WMD disappeared as if it never was.
They found it, and they redefined it out of existence.
FO you senile old man.
You voted your conscience and we know you are nothing more than a politician who ascended to the highest level he could.
Exactly how does one prove a negative?
The Iraq War will probably be the last of the “realpolitik” wars because the sort of conventions used in initiating those conflicts can’t be sustained in the modern age. Most people who understood realpolitik understood the WMD angle as an excuse to exercise the national interest in removing Saddam Hussein from power. But others are borderline autistic and can only understand the world in simplistic hyperliteral terms, so they can only understand the concept of “dying for a lie”.
Because....? /s
I meant after we caught him in the spider hole, sorry for the confusion.
Although I did enjoy seeing him swing :P
Powell: A racist dimwit who’s only where he is because of the color of his skin. A sad case.
By allowing inspectors in weapons sites and not turning them away at gunpoint.
Was this before or after GHW Bush lied to Hussein about not taking any position wrt his border dispute with Kuwait?
Bush spoke to Hussein?
Good to hear. I did too! :-)
He always reminds me of the black general from Mars Attacks!
Through his emissary, yes.
So, the artillary shells which were found buried and loaded with chemical weapons after the fall of the Saddam regime were what?
One can't. That included Saddam. And THAT'S exactly why we didn't have to wait for him to do so. It was tough being a bragging, threatening, a$$hole dictator when there were MORAL countries around, wasn't it? Because rightful countries can do any damn thing they want to inhuman, rightless countries and dictators. Doesn't necessarily make it cost-effective to do so, however.
Fixed
. . . But none of them lived to tell their tale.
Don’t go away mad Colin, just GO AWAY! Putz.
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