(Colin) Powell tells Mainichi Iraq invasion was avoidable, regrets false WMD intelligence

[sabra]

Source: mainichi

Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told the Mainichi he believes the Iraq War -- which began while he was in office in 2003 -- could have been averted.

Powell also stated during an Aug. 24 telephone interview that he regretted the false intelligence that led the United States to claim the Saddam Hussein regime possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), which Powell presented to the United Nations and which underpinned the U.S. case to invade Iraq.

"I will always be seen as the one who made the major public presentation of that intelligence. I regret that it was wrong but, at the same time, we had every reason to believe it was correct," Powell said of the false WMD evidence.

...

Had it been proven that Iraq had no WMD before the outbreak of hostilities, "My own judgment is that the United States would not have gone to war because it was WMD that was the basis of the resolution we got from the United Nations; it was the basis that President Bush took to the American people," said Powell. The former secretary also stated that as he, President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress all acted in the belief the intelligence was valid, the invasion of Iraq was legal.

Read more: http://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/international/news/20100902p2a00m0na005000c.html

[Zoeisright]

1. You're still lying scum, Powell.

First of all, you can't prove a negative. There was no way for Iraq to prove it did not have WMD. That 'intelligence' was cherry-picked and given by bad sources, like Chalabi. That asshole Bush and his vampire master Cheney wanted that war and you twisted every 'fact' you could find to give it to them. Shame on you.

[lovuian]

31. I still believe in atonement and Colin Powell this is a

another step

[DURHAM D]

2. total bs

[Orrex]

3. "Had it been proven that Iraq had no WMD before the outbreak of hostilities..."

That's the same lie that they told back in the day: "Saddam hasn't proven that he has no WMDs! What is he trying to hide?!? We have to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here!!!"


Etc.

[Roland99]

4. thanks, Colon

would have been nice if your ass had spoken up back then!!

[DURHAM D]

5. Its still about his ass. He is covering it. nt

[yankeepants]

6. I watched his phony presentation and

there was nothing there that convinced ME that there was a threat.

A bunch of grainy photos of trailer trucks and some unintelligible recordings that the bushies put their choice words to.

Shame on you Colin Powell. You knew what you were being asked to do and you did it in spite of what was right.

[Javaman]

39. I remember at the time...

a co-worker and I chatted about it. He said something a long the lines of, "I don't know, that was pretty convincing". I looked at him like he sprouted another head. I said, "he showed us fucking cartoons! there wasn't a real shred of evidence in that whole stinking pile of a presentation". He paused, looked dumbfounded and agreed.

george w. moron* and his room of dopes tried like hell to use their best slight of hand, the mouth breathing jerks in the front row fell for it hook line and sinker.

powell can go fuck himself sideways.

[jpak]

46. I remember that a now-banned DUer defended Powell and scolded anti-war DUers

I knew Powell was a lying sack - and I was right

[LanternWaste]

7. "If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading..."

"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." - Ari Fleischer, press briefing, Dec. 2, 2002


Riiiight. :eyes:

[Solly Mack]

8. All these please still love me though I'm a piece of shit war criminal comments

over the last few days....

Fuck'em all.

[KansDem]

9. You, and Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice are still mass murderers...

But rest easy: chances are next to nothing you and your ilk will be held accountable.

Meanwhile, enjoy your pension...

[superconnected]

10. I thought Powell advised Bush against this - all the generals did - I thought, and the CIA even

kept saying they didn't have proof of WMD's. Bush and Cheney invaded for the fake reason of WMD's anyway and to free women from the Taliban - so they said. Bushco had "Free" Iraq propaganda going.

What I remember was Bush arguing with the CIA everyday about Iraq's WMD's and yellow cake in I think Nigeria - the CIA saying it wasn't good enough evidence. He also argued with his Generals on this - they met several times and didn't agree they should invade Iraq saying that it would topple the country and cause chaos with the Sunnis and Shites for decades. Didn't Tenet end up resigning over the problems with Bush - even though he did keep acting like a company-man in the press releases his agency was going against Bush.

At least, that's what I remember coming through the news.

[superconnected]

25. Originally he was againt. Here is where he turns and is for the war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/02/international/middleeast/02POWE.html?th

-----------------
Interestingly, I never saw this movie - below link - it just came up with the google of points I remembered and this filmmaker remembered the same thing and put it in his movie:

http://www.cinemademerde.com/W.shtml

"Colin Powell advises against starting a war, saying that it will spread and have no definable end, causing the rest of the administration to regard him as a huge stick in the mud. Cheney gets up and delivers a speech that makes clear that the war is ultimately for oil: in a few years, American oil reserves will be running out. In the future, America will have fewer and fewer allies, and it is vitally important that they lay a claim to the oil of Iraq or risk becoming a side player."

[superconnected]

26. Here we go - Bushco strong armed their own advisors to being for this

http://the-case-against-iran.blogspot.com/2007/01/justifications-for-invading-iraq.html

It is now well-established that President Bush's justifications for invading Iraq were thin and unsupported by real evidence at the time. CIA Director George Tenet, and Vice-President Dick Cheney, were responsible for failing to unearth sufficient evidence to justify the invasion; and Secretary of State Colin Powell was complicit with them in presenting to the U.N. evidence that in reality proved nothing. In addition, it is now clear that Vice-President Cheney rammed his opinion — that Saddam was a credible threat to America — down the throats of the CIA and all other opponents within the Administration. The Vice-President went so far as to dispatch his own staff members to CIA headquarters in Langley to bully analysts there into coughing up the evidence he needed.

[Amonester]

11. Their BLOOD is ON YOUR HANDS, Powell.

Their BLOOD http://antiwar.com/casualties/list.php is GULSHING OUT LIKE A BROKEN OIL RIG up FROM YOUR HANDS, Colin Powell.

May you never find any peace in your sleep. May their un-necessary sufferings HAUNT you FOREVER.

[northernlights]

12. "could have been averted?"

Uh,yeah. All we had to do is NOT LAUNCH AN UNPROVOKED ATTACK! :dunce: d'oh

[driver8]

13. Fuck you, asshole...a little later for this, don't you think?

You sold your soul -- deal with it.

[mike_c]

14. Powell is a lying sack of shit who STILL carries water for Cheney and Bush....

The "intelligence" was not "mistaken" and Powell knows it. The U.S. and it's allies have known since the mid-1990s that Iraq was disarmed. Former UNSCOM members have testified to that effect. The "intelligence" to the contrary was entirely made up to justify the actions of Poppy Bush, Clinton, and Dumbya.

[obxhead]

15. Hmm, I remember the IAEA clearly stating you were wrong.

You're still an asshole Powell. Go back to your cave.

[AlinPA]

16. Karl Rove was in charge. They needed a war and all the flag waving to make Bush the "War President"

and Powell did his job and lied. How in the hell do those people sleep at night with 4415 dead American soldiers, 31,000+ American soldiers wounded and maimed, hundreds of soldiers of other countries, and 150,000 Iraqis dead?

[yurbud]

17. He was a general. It was his job to think through consequences and scenarios

and as soon as the WMD was suggested as an excuse, he should have said anyone who lived through the Cold War and/or had the ability to think through the consequences for Iraq if they launched a nuke at us or gave them to terrorist to sneak in and detonate knew that it would have been suicidal for him to do so since we have thousands of nukes to retaliate with and no one would have criticized us for doing so.

Ron Paul actually questioned this on the floor of the House, and when pressed, even George Tenet was forced to admit that if Saddam had nukes, he would only use them in extremis like if we were about to kill him or remove him from power.

This is the same reason why any arguments about us or Israel being fearful of Iranian nukes are equally transparent lies. Israel has hundreds and we have thousands of nukes to respond with. Iranians are capable of doing math.

[jtrockville]

18. Sorry, Powell, regrets aren't good enough.

Ray McGovern suggested, back in August 2008, that Colin Powell rehab his reputation. From a letter written by McGovern to Powell, OUT DAMN BLOT:

...

You have said you regret the "blot" on your record caused by your parroting spurious intelligence at the U.N. to justify war on Iraq. On the chance you may not have noticed, I write to point out that you now have a unique opportunity to do some rehab on your reputation.

... http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Out-Damn-Blot-A-Letter-to-by-Ray-McGovern-080815-878.html

Sorry, Powell, regrets aren't good enough.

[harun]

19. BS'ing for the right people gets one a pretty good career doesn't it Powell?

[Gin]

21. sorry...too little too late

[Amonester]

22. Tell me he doesn't have free health-care on taxpayers' dough.

I so hope that despicable sellout a-hole doesn't.

[sarge43]

28. He does - retired military. Sorry. n/t

[24601]

32. Free???? The military have earned it. You go serve for 20+

years and then come back and tell me it's free.

[sarge43]

33. If you're jumping my stuff, you're wasting your time

21 years, 5 months, 10 days of AD. I don't call myself sarge because I think it's cute; I earned it.

If you're upset about the "sorry", sorry. I don't have much use for Powell. He's for the most part a careerist and a CYA artist. When he back stabbed Clinton about gays in the military, I lost what little respect I had for him.

[24601]

43. I don't care if you respect him or not - he still earned his retirement

as much as you did. Why don't you just tick off all the things he did in the Army that doesn't count.

I don't give a rat's ass what he did in a non-military position - that's not what hir retirement is based upon.

As for me - 25 years, 3 months, 29 days. And I earned it no more, no less thay you or Powell.

[sarge43]

44. So, you respect an officer who publicly undercuts his superiors?

Would you have tolerated that from a subordinate?

And where did I say he didn't earn his retirement?

[24601]

48. When you said his health care was free - as opposed to earned

and paid for through service. (#28)

[tinymontgomery]

35. Actually we pay for it

but it is an affordable cost. You can take tricare prime, tricare standard and, I believe there is another one in there.

[sarge43]

36. Yes you're right and we pay income tax on our retirement, too.

Everyone should have something similar to Tricare; it's a good deal.

[tinymontgomery]

41. Your right

everyone should have something like tricare.

[sarge43]

20. Tell that to the families of all the dead Americans and Iraqis

Maybe they'll feel better.

:puke:

[htuttle]

23. " it was WMD that was the basis of the resolution we got from the United Nations"

Am I remembering things entirely wrong? Didn't the UN resolutions that the Bush admin tried to get passed to endorse an invasion ahead of time FAIL?

I know they eventually went back to the Security Council after they'd already invaded and bought themselves a resolution that endorsed what already happened, but I'm pretty certain that they DID NOT have UN approval when they originally invaded.

[gratuitous]

24. Resigning was out of the question

So Colin Powell lined up behind jiggered "evidence," marched to the drum beat of war, and consigned hundreds of thousands of people to death so he could secure his place in history: A lying, manipulative sack of shit who, every time he got his greedy, blood-stained hands on the levers of power, people died. Thanks Mr. Powell. Burn in hell.

[Peace Patriot]

27. A hundred thousand innocent dead people later, he apologizes? Jeez.

He must be having trouble getting lucrative gigs on the lecture circuit.

They knew damn well there no WMDs in Iraq. And I'm sure their only regret is that the plot to PLANT them in Iraq failed. Is that why David Kelly is dead? Is that why the entire worldwide CIA WMD counter-proliferation project was outed? That's my guess. Someone stopped the illicit shipment of WMDs to Iraq--the one that Judith Miller was designated by Rumsfeld to get the "big scoop" on--and Kelly's murder and the CIA outings, which occurred within one week of each other, were the Bushwhacks' retribution. Colin Powell knew. He knew. He was on AF-1 (on Junior's trip to Africa) when all this happened--and what he was doing there was trying to cover his ass, by passing around a 'top secret" memo on Valerie Plame's identity, to all and sundry, in case it all some day came out. I fancied for a while that he was trying to get these bastards. But I don't think that any more. He was one of them--or rather one of their lying scumbag minions.

Anyway, that's my theory on the WMDs--they were trying to PLANT them in Iraq. David Kelly, an experienced weapons inspector with contacts in Iraq, found out. THAT is why he was killed--not for what he had said, but for what he knew and might say. Somebody in the Brewster-Jennings network--perhaps even inadvertently--foiled the WMD shipment. The paranoid, frustrated, foiled Bushwhacks outed the whole network, in revenge, probably getting some of its agents/contacts killed. And somebody killed Kelly because he knew. Rumsfeld was then ousted by Daddy Bush's "Iraq Study Group," cuz Junior was in deep doo-doo with the CIA, and a member of that group--Leon Panetta--was made CIA Director, under Obama, to sweep all this and more under the Oval Office rug.

Daddy Bush's "ISG" may have been working in cooperation with military brass who didn't want to nuke Iran, at least at that time. (Too much danger of nuclear powers China and/or Russia coming into it, on Iran's side?) They got rid of Rumsfeld, curtailed Cheney, "impeachment" was taken "off the table," Nancy Pelosi want off on a Mideast tour to inform Israel and other allies, the "Gulf of Tonkin"-type incident, the backup plan designed to justify nuking Iran--Iran's capture of British sailers off its coast--ended with smiles on all sides (while Pelosi was in the Middle East), and all talk of attacking Iran went away. The threat to Junior was always the CIA, not our political establishment, which does as it is told. When Rumsfeld/Cheney declared war on the CIA, they lost the "Project for a New American Century" chess game--or at least that round of the tourney.

One thing further: I think that the phony "find" of WMDs in Iraq that was being arranged would have contained some pointers to Iran, to justify extending the Iraq War into iran, then and there. So, not only was Cheney/Rumsfeld's political manipulation plot foiled (--a phony "find" of WMDs in Iraq to justify the war and cement them in power) but their entire scheme to make it a two-country war and take over the entire Middle East was foiled. This makes more sense to me, because they really had no big problem with the warmongering corpo-fascist press. Wilson, Kelly, other dissent--it would all have been drowned in the corpo-fascist media "river of forgetfulness." Their real target all along had been Iran. To have THAT foiled--which I think is what happened--would really piss them off, and from their insane point of view, would justify the risks of all-out war on the CIA. They took the risk, and paid the price--the activation of the "old CIA" (Daddy Bush & pals) to protect Junior and their business interests.

Just a theory--but a pretty good one, I think. And Colin Powell, who has been an ass-kisser and cover-upper all his life, going back to Vietnam, was just a grubby, conniving spear-carrier for these monsters, who were about to plunge the world into Armageddon. 'Bad for business, Colin, don't ya know?' (The "old CIA" has its monstrous side, to be sure, but they are slicker at it.)

[Nihil]

37. Excellent post. (n/t)

:applause:

[arikara]

47. Actually the innocent count is way more than 100,000

its more than 1,300,000 just since Iraq was invaded by the coalition of the willing. Previously, under Clinton's sanctions, at least 500,000 Iraqi children died, that does not include adults which nobody seemed bothered to do a count on. It wouldn't be unrealistic to estimate that more than 2,000,000 Iraqi's have died in the past 20 years from war and sanctions by the good old US of A. The numbers are climbing right up to match that of the holocaust.

Sorry, I'm not trying to hijack your excellent post, its just that your numbers are way too low.

http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq

[UpInArms]

29. do the honorable japanese thing, Colin

POS Powell.

You make me sick.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

30. Powell is a war criminal n/t

[sabrina 1]

34. He's still lying. Every expert on Iraq at the time knew it was a lie.

And he himself according to his aide, was outraged when he was presented with the information he was supposed to present to the U.N. knowing full well that it was being exaggerated. He compromised, rather than quit which is what he should have done and then let them explain his resignation. True they would have slimed him, as they did everyone else who stood up to them. But history would have absolved him.

It was a time in our history that required men of courage and all we had were appeasers and cowards.

The few who had the courage, were marginalized. Had people like Powell joined them, had NO Democrat voted for their wars, which gave them credibility, then maybe it could have been stopped.

To insult the people by saying that the liars, Bush and Cheney honestly believed there were WMDs there is disgraceful.

[Javaman]

38. poor little jackass.

fuck off colin, ass for name, powell.

showing off fucking cartoons to the UN and telling us they were real.

That man, should be hung up by his thumbs along with the rest of the war crimes crew.

[newspeak]

40. Did Saddam attempt to avert the attack by offering to step down?

This was a discussion on DU some time ago. Just saying, if he did, then it becomes more than the fabrication to go to war-in my mind, it becomes more of a heinous, dishonorable crime considering all of those who have been killed on both sides. Oh wait, honor and truth is only for the "little people."

I hope one day, if it is true, that it sees the light of day!

[unkachuck]

42. "I regret that it was wrong..."

....hey colin-gas, are you lying?

[jpak]

45. IMPEACH BUSH!!1111

oops

too late

*sigh*

[daleo]

49. He's lying about lying

Pathetic.