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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI question the rush to condemn Gen Powell here.
I was mobilized from the Army Reserve in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. I was skeptical about the justification to invade Iraq - at first.
I sat through a daily intelligence briefing on Iraq that the Regular Army commanding general for whom I worked received. There was never any doubt expressed by the intelligence folks that there were WMD in Iraq. It wasn't a matter of the intelligence community having a high degree of confidence in their analysis, there was simply no question. By the time the invasion occurred, the briefings had overcome my skepticism and I was convinced the WMD were going to be found.
We now know that Cheney and Rumsfeld had their thumbs on the scale and got the intelligence analysis that they wanted despite the evidence. That capitulation to Cheney and Rumsfeld is on the intelligence community and not the consumers of the intelligence. Gen Powell did not create the bogus intelligence, he was the victim of a lie.
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LizBeth
(11,222 posts)
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)Cheney and Rumsfeld corrupted the intelligence system.
The result was not only a stupid war. From that point forward, no consumer of intelligence can really trust by the intel guys are saying. That is uniquely dangerous to both the military and diplomats.
LizBeth
(11,222 posts)berni_mccoy
(23,018 posts)You’re forgetting Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame
Escurumbele
(4,094 posts)Lets not forget that he spend a few days at, not sure if it was the CIA or FBI, going through his presentation he was going to give at the UN, and what I read is that he decided to take things off from what Chaney/Bush wanted him to say.
He knew, he let go of his principles, knowing the consequences because he was a very intelligent man, but still went through with it.
Imagine the opportunity that life brought him to save countless lives, to save the dignity of the USA, to tell the truth and stopping the invasion, plus it may have helped throw in jail many of the participants.
Find the book "The Prosecution of George W. Bush for murder" by Vincent Bugliosi, Powell is included in the list of people who Bugliosi believed should have been tried, and convicted.
Eliot Rosewater
(34,285 posts)How can you make the argument that he was kept out of the loop?
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)From Gen Powell's statements after the fact, he had his doubts but had no reason to question the core facts being presented.
I have no reason to believe that Gen Powell knew it was a lie and will not assume guilt.
tblue37
(68,436 posts)Escurumbele
(4,094 posts)Your decision making as Secretary of State is based on the information that is given to you, you need to make sure that information is factual for you to make the right decision, otherwise you are just a puppet who can handle a pen...
That is a Powell defense argument, but I hate to say that it doesn't hold any water.
I mean, the lives of thousands of people depend on your decision making so all you are going to say is "really? is that so? Ok, if you say so."...nope, that is not a good defense. You are going to tell me that he didn't know the tubes he showed during his presentation, of which he must have heard over and over from experts, were not designed to build WMDs? So, was he kept in seclusion, not being able to watch TV, read the papers, etc.??
He knew, and he decided to go along with it.
Celerity
(54,407 posts)I have heard all day long on the US MSM the same line over and over from empire apologists: 'resigning was not an option' (as rationale why he went to the UN and lied to the world for Bush, Cheney and the PNAC crew). The hell it wasn't.
Powell was a war criminal, he lied to give cover to a war of aggression.
The Nuremberg Principles
In 1950, the Nuremberg Tribunal defined Crimes against Peace, in Principle VI, specifically Principle VI(a), submitted to the United Nations General Assembly, as:
Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances;
Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the acts mentioned under
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)Do you have a citation to the INR having intelligence contrary of the rest of the intelligence community before the invasion of Iraq? If so, can you share?
Celerity
(54,407 posts)
Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)I was here at DU when all the bogus claims were being debunked, so I appreciate this refresher.
Celerity
(54,407 posts)plethora of evidence to debunk much of the revisionist hagiographic claptrap I see being posted on here to try and defend a war criminal.
Of course, as an adult, I have also studied and debated all of this before, often at an academic level (especially in political science and international relations uni classes), so I am not wandering in blind, nor a tabula rasa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo
The Downing Street memo (or the Downing Street Minutes), sometimes described by critics of the Iraq War as the smoking gun memo, is the note of a 23 July 2002 secret meeting of senior British government, defence and intelligence figures discussing the build-up to the war, which included direct reference to classified United States policy of the time. The name refers to 10 Downing Street, the residence of the British prime minister.
The memo, written by Downing Street foreign policy aide Matthew Rycroft, recorded the head of the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) as expressing the view following his recent visit to Washington that "[George W.] Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It quoted Foreign Secretary Jack Straw as saying it was clear that Bush had "made up his mind" to take military action but that "the case was thin." Straw also noted that Iraq retained "WMD capability" and that "Saddam would continue to play hard-ball with the UN." The military asked about the consequences "if Saddam used WMD on day one," posing Kuwait or Israel as potential targets. Attorney-General Lord Goldsmith warned that justifying the invasion on legal grounds would be difficult. However, the meeting took place several months before the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, the resolution eventually used as the legal basis for the invasion of Iraq. UNR687 also provided a pre-existing basis, as it required Iraq to divest itself of "100%" of all WMD capacity, which the Memo agreed it had not.
babylonsister
(172,759 posts)Very big deal at the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downing_Street_memo
joetheman
(1,450 posts)he may have had doubts about the intel but how was the only black in the room going to fight off the intel community , the President, and Dart Vader, and known unknowing Rummy? People seem to forget the racism in the upper ranks. Even in public, Rummy would slyly undermine Powell. Same shit they all did with HRC and they aren't finished with Austin yet either.
I maintain the real tragedy is that Powell did not resign.
Doc Sportello
(7,964 posts)TomSlick
(13,013 posts)Combat veteran with two purple hearts. First AA - and youngest - CJCS. Broke with his party to endorse then Sen. Obama for President.
What a shameful life. I am surprised that world leaders were so quick to praise him at his passing. President Biden's praises are truly mystifying.
Escurumbele
(4,094 posts)They want to portray him as something he stopped being after 9/11, or maybe they want to stop his biography at that point in time.
The fact that he endorsed Obama doesn't make him a hero, he had two reasons for doing it, one that Obama would be the first black man to be POTUS, and two because he understood the level of corruption the republican party had, one which he had been part of and enabled through his lying of the UN.
We cannot whitewash his legacy, which unfortunately is, like other people have defined, as a war criminal. As I said before, he could have changed that ugly history, but decided against it. What an opportunity lost, he could have become the next president, if he had kept his principles intact.
elleng
(141,926 posts)
NoRethugFriends
(3,752 posts)Sitting here in my apartment, I knew it was a lie. And he didn't know?
And did you hear him describing the operation while it was occurring. It still sticks in my mind.
There was zero empathy shown or indicated in his voice for the Iraqis being killed. He was cold as ice.
This was not like WWII, where this was a battle for the world's future. There was no question Iraq could be crushed,
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)Sitting in daily intelligence briefings was a different matter.
Skittles
(171,709 posts)they cherry-picked data to arrive at the conclusion they had formed ahead of time
they were going to have their war, the facts be damned
berni_mccoy
(23,018 posts)
The Revolution
(895 posts)I was in college and I knew they were lying about WMDs. First they tried to tell to tie Iraq to 9/11, and when that didn't work, they came up with the WMD thing.
El Supremo
(20,436 posts)Did you ever read anything from Hans Blix?
https://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtml
Escurumbele
(4,094 posts)
Ponietz
(4,330 posts)
stillcool
(34,407 posts)it was his job to oversee such actions all over the world, for decades.
from the book
Killing Hope
by William Blum
2004 edition
https://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/American_Empire_KH2004.html
Following its bombing of Iraq in 1991, the United States wound up with military bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Following its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the United States wound up with military bases in Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary, Bosnia and Croatia.
Following its bombing of Afghanistan in 2001-2, the United States wound up with military bases in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Yemen and Djibouti.
Following its bombing and invasion of Iraq in 2003, the United States wound up with Iraq.
This is not very subtle foreign policy. Certainly not covert. The men who run the American Empire are not easily embarrassed.
And that is the way the empire grows-a base in every neighborhood, ready to be mobilized to put down any threat to imperial rule, real or imagined. Fifty-eight years after world War II ended, the United States still has major bases in Germany and Japan; fifty ears after the end of the Korean War, tens of thousands of American armed forces continue to be stationed in South Korea.
"America will have a continuing interest and presence in Central Asia of a kind that we could not have dreamed of before," US Secretary of State Colin Powell declared in February 2002. Later that year, the US Defense Department announced: "The United States Military is currently deployed to more locations then it has been throughout history."
Equally unsubtle are the announcements beginning in the early 1990s-coinciding with he pivotal demise of the Soviet Union-and continuing to the present, trumpeting Washington's desire, means, and intention for world domination, while assuring the world of the noble purposes behind this crusade. These declarations have been regularly put forth in policy papers emanating from the White House and the Pentagon, as well as from government-appointed commissions and think tanks closely associated with the national security establishment.
Here is the voice of the empire in 1992
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.... we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order.... we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role."
1996: "We will engage terrestrial targets someday-ships, airplanes, land targets-from space.... We're going to fight in space. We're going to fight from space and we're going to fight into space.
1997: "With regard to space dominance, we have it, we like it, and we're going to keep it."
2000: "The new [military preparedness] standard is to maintain military superiority over all potential rivals and to prepare now for future military rivalries even if they can not yet be identified and their eventual arrival is only speculative.... Military requirements have become detached from net assessments of actual security threats. Generic wars and generic capabilities are proffered as the basis for planning.... Particularities of real threat scenarios have become secondary to the generalized need to show raw U.S. power across the globe.
2001: "The presence of American forces in critical regions around the world is the visible expression of the extent of America's status as a superpower and as the guarantor of liberty, peace and stability."
2001: "If we just let our own vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to be clever and piece together clever diplomatic solutions to this thing, but just wage a total war against these tyrants, I think we will do very well, and our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
2001: The Bush administration's "Nuclear Posture Review", directing the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries- China, Russia, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya and Syria-and to build smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations.
2002: In September, the White House issued its "National Security Strategy", which declared:
Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.... America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.... We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed.... We cannot let our enemies strike first.... To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively.
Preemptiveness is essentially the rationale imperial Japan, without being overly paranoid, used to justify its attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and which Nazi Germany, as a sham pretext, used to justify its invasion of Poland in 1939.
To one observer, the meaning of the "National Security Strategy" was this:
It dashes the aspirations of those who had hoped that the world was moving toward a system of international law that would allow for the peaceful resolution of conflicts, through covenants and courts. In place of this, a single power that shuns covenants and courts has proclaimed that it intends to dominate the world militarily, intervening preemptively where necessary to exorcise threats.... Those who want a world in which no power is supreme and in which laws and covenants are used to settle conflicts will begin a new debate-about how to contend with imperial America.
So intoxicated with the idea of dominance is the US national security state that when it announced, in November 2002, the formation of a public affairs group that would travel to battlefields "to interact with journalists, assist U.S. commanders and send news and pictures back to headquarters for dissemination," it described the operation as an attempt at "information dominance".
mia
(8,480 posts)Fresh evidence emerged last night that Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, was so disturbed about questionable American intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction that he assembled a secret team to review the information he was given before he made a crucial speech to the UN security council on February 5.
Mr Powell conducted a full-dress rehearsal of the speech on the eve of the session at his suite in the Waldorf Astoria, his New York base when he is on UN business, according to the authoritative US News and World Report.
Much of the initial information for Mr Powell's speech to the UN was provided by the Pentagon, where Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary, set up a special unit, the Office of Special Plans, to counter the uncertainty of the CIA's intelligence on Iraq.
Mr Powell's team removed dozens of pages of alleged evidence about Iraq's banned weapons and ties to terrorists from a draft of his speech, US News and World Report says today. At one point, he became so angry at the lack of adequate sourcing to intelligence claims that he declared: "I'm not reading this. This is bullshit," according to the magazine....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jun/02/usa.iraq
Skittles
(171,709 posts)he didn't learn a thing from Vietnam, helped them lie their way into a war - unforgivable
Maru Kitteh
(31,759 posts)like most historical characters was full of contradictions and complications. I have never believed that he was at his core an essentially malevolent person, at all.
msongs
(73,753 posts)unc70
(6,501 posts)He was sent out to make atrocities seem normal
Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)What they knew or didn't know wasn't necessarily what they expressed, having been directed to express no doubts to the generals regarding the justification for the war. Also, the "intel" they disseminated may have already been processed (cooked) upstream from those presenting it.
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)I have no reason to believe the intel briefers I heard knew the intelligence was cooked. They were repeating the intelligence coming down the chain.
Gen Powell was in a much superior position than the major general I was working for to see weaknesses in the intel. However, after "scrubbing" the reports as best he could, he was left with analysis that it would have been folly to ignore.
Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)Can you clarify what you mean by "he was left with analysis that it would have been folly to ignore"?
In my view, what could not be ignored was the systematic effort by the White House Iraq Group to deliberately misrepresent the available intel. Unless Powell was much less intelligent than he seemed, he knew that he and his reputation were being used to promulgate what was at its core a LIE.
msongs
(73,753 posts)Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)Then professionally delivered to convince those who had to carry out the policy that it was indeed necessary to defend against the regime in Iraq somehow attacking the United States with the alleged weapons.
I have no doubt the delivery of the cooked intel was very convincing. It is necessary for citizen soldiers to believe in the mission for which they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.
All the more reason to hold accountable those who knew these sacrifices were being made based on lies, pursuant to the pre-existing (prior to 9/11) neocon agenda for invading Iraq.
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)Military officers and diplomats have no choice but to heed what they are being told by the intelligence experts. No commander or diplomat wants to be responsible for the next Pearl Harbor or 9/11.
When that intelligence is intentionally false, it is the military officers and diplomats that suffer the consequences. As is clear above, those consequences include the opprobrium of the people they spent their lives trying to serve.
Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)Last edited Mon Oct 18, 2021, 11:08 PM - Edit history (1)
On March 15 2003 (4 days before Shock and Awe was launched) I joined the march in Washing DC to protest the imminent war. A small group of counter-protesters started chanting SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, SUPPORT OUR TROOPS!
I started chanting with them but changed it to SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME!
Soon others joined me, and we drowned them out.
The greatest anger I felt back then was the betrayal of our men and women in uniform by liars at the highest reaches of our government, sending them to kill and die in a war based on lies. The neocons were blinded by their deluded ambition to remake the Middle East by force in their Project for the New American Century. Before 9/11 the PNAC group spelled out their agenda for invading Iraq, stating that a "new pearl harbor" might be necessary to convince the American public to go along with their plan. 9/11 gave them what they needed, and they exploited it for all it was worth.
American patriots enlisted to defend America, and were betrayed. Colin Powell engaged in that betrayal.
marble falls
(71,920 posts)
Crunchy Frog
(28,280 posts)where statements made in support of WMDs were immediately contradicted by accurate information. And the manipulative ways in which they worked on American public opinion was also very obvious.
I remember watching him go before the UN and lie and manipulate through his teeth to push the Big Lie narrative of that era.
He was an eager participant in it, not a victim.
Before that happened, I had a great deal of respect for him.
mia
(8,480 posts)In 1998, Kristol and Kagan advocated regime change in Iraq throughout the Iraq disarmament process through articles that were published in the New York Times. Following perceived Iraqi unwillingness to co-operate with UN weapons inspections, core members of the PNAC including Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, R. James Woolsey, Elliot Abrams, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Zoellick, and John Bolton were among the signatories of an open letter initiated by the PNAC to President Bill Clinton calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Portraying Saddam Hussein as a threat to the United States, its Middle East allies, and oil resources in the region, and emphasizing the potential danger of any weapons of mass destruction under Iraq's control, the letter asserted that the United States could "no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections." Stating that American policy "cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council," the letter's signatories asserted that "the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf."
Believing that UN sanctions against Iraq would be an ineffective means of disarming Iraq, PNAC members also wrote a letter to Republican members of the U.S. Congress Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott,[29] urging Congress to act, and supported the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 (H.R.4655)[30][31] which President Clinton signed into law in October 1998.
In February 1998, some of the same individuals who had signed the PNAC letter in January also signed a similar letter to Clinton, from the bipartisan Committee for Peace and Security in the Gulf.
In January 1999, the PNAC circulated a memo that criticized the December 1998 bombing of Iraq in Operation Desert Fox as ineffective. The memo questioned the viability of Iraqi democratic opposition, which the U.S. was supporting through the Iraq Liberation Act, and referred to any "containment" policy as an illusion.
Shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the PNAC sent a letter to President George W. Bush, specifically advocating regime change through "a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." The letter suggested that "any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq," even if no evidence surfaced linking Iraq to the September 11 attacks.
The letter warned that allowing Hussein to remain in power would be "an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism." From 2001 through the invasion of Iraq, the PNAC and many of its members voiced active support for military action against Iraq, and asserted leaving Saddam Hussein in power would be "surrender to terrorism."
Some have regarded the PNAC's January 16, 1998 letter to President Clinton urging "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power," and the involvement of multiple PNAC members in the Bush Administration as evidence that the PNAC had a significant influence on the Bush Administration's decision to invade Iraq, or even argued that the invasion was a foregone conclusion.
Writing in Der Spiegel in 2003, for example, Jochen Bölsche specifically referred to PNAC when he claimed that "ultra-rightwing US think-tanks" had been "drawing up plans for an era of American global domination, for the emasculation of the UN, and an aggressive war against Iraq" in "broad daylight" since 1998. Similarly, BBC journalist Paul Reynolds portrayed PNAC's activities and goals as key to understanding the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration after September 11, 2001, suggesting that Bush's "dominant" foreign policy was at least partly inspired by the PNAC's ideas.
Some[who?] political scientists, historians, and other academics have been critical of many of these claims. Donald E. Abelson has written that scholars studying "PNAC's ascendancy" in the political arena "cannot possibly overlook the fact" that several of the signatories to PNAC's Statement of Purposes "received high level positions in the Bush administration," but that acknowledging these facts "is a far cry from making the claim that the institute was the architect of Bush's foreign policy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
EarnestPutz
(2,843 posts)....PNAC, but you done a thorough job of reminding us about their treason.
moondust
(21,286 posts)At a meeting on December 12, 2002, (CIA Director George Tenet) assured Bush that the evidence that Iraq had WMDs amounted to a "slam dunk case".
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Tenet#Iraq_WMD_controversy
I've always believed that some analysts in the halls of the IC probably knew the truth but everyone including Powell may have assumed that if the CIA Director says something like that then he has some other credible sources. I believe the Duelfer Report on Iraq's WMD revealed after interviewing Iraqis involved that Saddam abandoned his WMD programs by the mid 1990s. Some analysts whose job it was to follow the intel may have known that.
WMD programs don't pop up suddenly out of nowhere yet that's what Cheney and others wanted us to believe without solid evidence. They made up all kinds of Big Lies, perhaps the boys from Texas lusting for all those Iraqi oil fields.
Still, Powell and others should have demanded to see the intel before making the case for starting a war.
Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)I believe so, for life is long and people change.
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)The failure is when a mistake in believing the wrong people is all that is remembered. A man who lived the life of a public servant is a traitor, murderer, and war criminal because he was once conned by unscrupulous men.
Read the discussion above. There is no praise for years of service, for opening doors to people of color in the military, for bucking his party for the good of the country, etc. There is only condemnation.
DU can be a very harsh community. There are very few in the public arena whose history is pure enough to avoid having the good of them interred with their bones.
Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)He knew what was going on and made the wrong decision, allowing himself to be a tool in the commission of a war crime.
He was a good enough man to express regret and make amends as best he could, though whether he deserves forgiveness is up to the families of those who were killed or wounded in body and spirit.
However, I think Bush/Cheney would have launched the invasion even if Powell had not helped to promulgate the lies with his presentation at the UN. Congress had already given Bush the authority to invade with the Iraq War Resolution, and the UN Security Council never did approve the invasion.
Escurumbele
(4,094 posts)Powell had two options, one to resign and go live with the story to debunk everything Chaney/Bush were saying, two, to tell the truth during his UN presentation, that would have cut the legs of the war criminals, he just wanted to be part of it.
And that defense that he was conned makes Powell look very incompetent.
Martin Eden
(15,628 posts)The two options you cited involve actively contradicting the Bush administration's campaign of lies.
The other option is the one I noted in my previous post -- refusing to take an active part, not going to the UN. In that case, Bush would have invaded Iraq anyway.
Would we have gone to war if Powell actively debunked the lies?
Possibly, perhaps probably, not.
Skittles
(171,709 posts)they were a fucking DISGRACE and they were never held accountable - FUCK THEM ALL
we can do it
(13,024 posts)Thousands died because of the lie.
Escurumbele
(4,094 posts)inspector who confirmed there were no WMDs because during the Clinton presidency everything was taken out.
The tubes that Powell showed as proof were not fit to make WMDs either, and Powell knew it.
There was another guy who was interviewed a lot on TV, I can't remember his name right now, who brought proof that the WMD rhetoric was a lie. He was disgraced by the administration later on as a pedophile or sex offender, something like that. They were successful and shut him up.
Powell disgraced himself by misleading the USA and the World. The intelligence must have known, the question to be asked is if the intelligence agencies were in it too? The military was salivating by the thought of invading Iraq, even though the generals must have known they were not going in with the right number of troops, that they were ill-equipped...
I don't buy any of the stories about anyone in power in the USA not knowing the truth that Sadam Hussein was not involved in the 9/11 attacks, they knew most of the people who crashed the planes were Saudi's citizens...Forget it, Powell disgraced himself, he knew he was lying.
Read:
https://www.vox.com/2016/7/9/12123022/george-w-bush-lies-iraq-war
berni_mccoy
(23,018 posts)Powell knew the WMD threat was a complete fabrication. We all knew thanks to Joe Wilson. And because Joe Wilson spoke the truth to try to stop the war, Bush and Cheney blew her cover, costing the Intelligence community an entire operation in Iran, where they were actually working to prevent Iran from getting Nukes.
And this all happened before Powell tried to sell his snake oil.
And I believe you know this. Which makes your post dubious at best.
I too was in the Military during the first Gulf War and I know there was no chance in hell Iraq had any intention of going there.
sprinkleeninow
(22,343 posts)
IronLionZion
(51,267 posts)Freepers are brutally attacking him for supporting Obama
UTUSN
(77,795 posts)
Solly Mack
(96,942 posts)to one degree or another. As well the culpability of members of Congress, the DOJ, the CIA, NGOs, medical doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists, and others.
Intensely for 6 years and less so in the years that followed.
There was no rush in forming an opinion of Colin Powell.
There's a well documented trail - from DU and from the news/media leading up to the 2003 invasion and all during the Bush years. And after, when more information came out.
MuseRider
(35,176 posts)and hello Solly! I saw this and I thought, "Rush?" This has been going on and being talked about since it happened. I do not remember threads praising his goodness since then, yes this is a very old story here. A story that has been proven over and over again. Thank you for saying it so I do not have to, except I think I did anyway. LOL.
Solly Mack
(96,942 posts)There was so much info posted here during that time. Actual news articles from all over. The only rush was the rush to war.
Demobrat
(10,299 posts)Watching him disseminate the lie about the WMDs. The look on his face. His eyes darting around. The body language. His clenched hands. He didn’t want to be there.
But he was. He was lying and he knew it but he gave in to the pressure and he let them use him.
And now that’s his legacy. He chose it.
childfreebychoice
(476 posts)My best friend lost his only child, in the first round of fighting. Two yrs later, he committed suicide. His wife committed suicide, six months later. An aside, I remember reading somewhere, yrs ago, that when Powell was late for a meeting, Cheney had the doors locked, and wouldn't let him in. He worked for ppl who had no respect for him. Wolforwitz, feith, woo, rice are living and prospering, while hundreds of thousands of our soldiers r dead/severely maimed, to say nothing of the high number of suicides, and the innocents iraqis and afghans who have been killed.
48656c6c6f20
(7,638 posts)I did that 18 years ago when he did his little show at the UN.
traitorsgalore
(1,427 posts)If you refused to believe them that's your problem. It was well known science that the U.S. had the capability to detect nuclear weapons anywhere on Earth and that there were none in Iraq.
What you did was no different than anti-vaxxers today not believing in science.
orleans
(36,918 posts)powell was a victim? a victim of a lie?
he was that stupid?
no.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)I was here at DU for the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, and participated in thoroughly trashing Colin Powell. I couldn't believe my eyes at his performance at the UN.
But people here and in the anti-war movement at large started from a basis of not believing a damn thing that came out of that administration from Day One. There was no trust to build on — and of course there were no briefings for the likes of us, daily or otherwise. We were trying to piece together information from various sources as best we could, and we had our observations of what was being done to our democracy here at home.
You and General Powell both were being marinated, if you will, in a very intense broth. You have described its origins and intentional misuse, and its effects. You were privileged to be getting special information, after all, and in time your skepticism was worn down and overcome.
Here at home, there was a propaganda effort designed and enthusiastically carried out by broadcast and cable “news” shows. Special graphics and special theme music were featured every day throughout the day. The coming invasion was cause for celebration.
I was sickened when I recognized it for what it was — but people of my parents’ generation, if they came from Europe and had lived through WWII, not only saw what it was but were getting flashbacks and PTSD. However masses of US citizens, inclined to trust the government in matters of war, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Thank you again for your input, TomSlick.
TomSlick
(13,013 posts)misanthrope
(9,495 posts)you probably should. You would enjoy it.
https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/btw/watch.html
Hekate
(100,133 posts)Xoan
(25,570 posts)
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Bush invaded without the inspectors combing through the whole country. They could've been there for years. Could be there to this day. What happened was Saddam kicked them out. UN 1441 brought them back in. That was all that was needed for the international world to be sure there were no WMDs.
Powell knew this and should have, as Secretary of State, pushed back against Bush. "Why can't we wait a little longer? Why can't we wait a few years to see what they come up with?" And he should have done this publicly when it became clear that they were invading regardless of the facts.
What Bush did was akin to saying painters weren't finishing a paint job on a building, as they're painting, you see them painting, they're doing the job. It's getting done. Then you go and blow up the building. You know, to finish the paint job.
They found like 6 old canisters of improperly disposed mustard gas and it only took a few trillion dollars.
fescuerescue
(4,475 posts)And now that he's dead people think they can get that last word.
It's why every time someone prominent dies, there is lots of excitement on chat forums.
The thing is. Nobody cares. It's just another opinion among billions about a dead person who no longer influence anything.