Powell Adviser says Iraq war of choice after all ...

[Samantha]

"Eight months after the Bush administration got us involved in a bloody war in Iraq, we are now told by one of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's closest advisers that Iraq was a war of choice after all. According to Richard Haass, director of policy planning at the State Department until June 2003 and still the Bush administration's special envoy to Northern Ireland, the administration "did not have to go to war against Iraq, certainly not when we did. There were other options" . Really?"

more at

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44381-2003Dec7.html

(an editorial, thus I am posting this in General Discussion).

Of course, we at DU have always known this, but it was rather startling to see it in print in today's Washington Post.

Comments?

[Robin Hood]

1. Is this Powells way of diverting his lies?

Too little to late mother fucker.

[roguevalley]

2. Sigh. You know, I had forgotten about Powell for a moment. This doesn't

surprise me a bit. I wonder if he's going to vote dem
in the next election since its all ready been said he
won't be sec. of state if chumpy is re-selected.

[killbotfactory]

3. I hate neocons

They are dangerous idiots who just don't give a fuck.

[Samantha]

4. Aren't any of you surprised to actually see this remark in print

in today's Washington Post? I was amazed. One of Powell's closest advisors actually made this remark. Directly contradicts recent statements made by Bush* and Cheney as to the necessity of the war...

[maggrwaggr]

5. Well .... (heavy sigh) .........

it's such old news to us, I suppose .....

then there's the cynicism realizing that this won't see the light of day except for a few people who read the op-ed pages of the Wash Post .......

then there's the knowledge that these guys could be publicly dismembering children on live television and nobody but us would raise a stink about it ........

[janx]

7. Amazed? No. Not at all. This stuff is leaked in dribs and drabs

to help us get comfortable.

He used those horrible things on his own people! Yes, when?

WMDs? No problem! We know he had them--what, prior to 1991? Prior to 1998?




Going into Iraq was just a drip from a rusty kitchen faucet, one used after the failed *legitimate* defense in Afghanistan, to get us into some kind of crazed, anti-American, imperialist view of the world in Iraq and elsewhere. The American people are now drinking red-orange water and cleaning their toilets often.

I was dismayed and disgusted when I saw Powell before the U.N., and it was obvious that he did not enjoy what he was doing.

[Guaranteed]

6. I use this point all the time in chatrooms.

Necessary war vs. elective war. It's an important distinction to make. This was clearly an elective war, and in the middle of this "war on terror" one would think that we'd avoid starting wars that, as far as our interests go, don't need to be fought.

[DUreader]

8. kick