Powell regrets Iraq invasion speech

[Jaidness]

Powell regrets Iraq invasion speech


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Sep 10, 2005

Former US secretary of state Colin Powell said he stained his reputation with a now notorious 2003 speech that made the case for the invasion of Iraq, which he said has led to a "mess".

"It's a blot," the former general said in an unusually candid interview airing on America's ABC television network. "It was painful. It's painful now."

Powell's February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council included intelligence, later discredited, to bolster US claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that posed an imminent threat, and that more UN arms inspections were pointless.

Powell, who left the Bush administration in January 2005, said in the interview he feels "terrible" about the claims he made in the speech.

US intelligence analysts had failed him and the country by providing faulty information, Powell said.

"There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me," he said.

Powell was widely seen as being at odds with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney, which made him a relative "good guy" in the eyes of many in Europe and elsewhere who broadly opposed the US-led war that toppled Saddam.

Powell, a former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, said the US now had little choice but to stay the course in Iraq and keep building up Iraqi security forces so they could one day stand on their own feet.

But he questioned the administration's planning, suggesting the US should have sent more troops to "impose our will on the whole country" in the invasion's immediate aftermath.

"And it may not have turned out to be such a mess if we had done some things differently," he said. "But it is now a difficult situation, but difficult situations are there to be worked on and solved, not walked away from, not cutting and running from."

Powell said he was happy that Saddam was gone but acknowledged he had seen no evidence to back up Bush administration claims of a link between Saddam and the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

"I have never seen a connection," he said.

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411749/610251

[stresseater]

Here's the rest of the origional article from the horses mouth .... so to speak...

Former US secretary of state Colin Powell says his United Nations speech making the case for the US-led war on Iraq was "a blot" on his record. Mr Powell has also said that he had "never seen evidence to suggest" a connection between the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States and the Saddam regime.

In the February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council, Mr Powell forcefully made the case for war on the regime of Saddam Hussein, offering "proof" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The presentation included satellite photos of trucks that Mr Powell identified as mobile bioweapons laboratories.

After the invasion, US weapons inspectors reported finding no Iraqi nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.

In an interview with American ABC TV news to be broadcast on Friday (US time), Mr Powell said "it's a blot" on his record.

"I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now," he said.

Mr Powell spent five days at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) headquarters ahead of the speech studying intelligence reports, many of which turned out to be false.

He said he felt "terrible" at being misinformed .

However, he did not blame CIA director George Tenet.

Mr Tenet "did not sit there for five days with me misleading me," he said.

"He believed what he was giving to me was accurate."

Some members of the US intelligence community "knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up," Mr Powell said.
"These are not senior people, but these are people who were aware that some of these resources should not be considered reliable," he said.

"I was enormously disappointed."


Civil war concern

As for post-Saddam Iraq, Mr Powell said there was little choice but to keep investing in the Iraqi armed forces.

"What we didn't do in the immediate aftermath of the war was to impose our will on the whole country, with enough troops of our own, with enough troops from coalition forces, or, by (quickly) recreating the Iraqi (armed) forces," he said.

"It may not have turned out to be such a mess if we had done some things differently."

Mr Powell also voiced concern over a possible civil war in Iraq.

"A way has to be found for the Sunnis to be brought into the political process. You cannot let ... Iraq devolve into a mini-state in the north, a larger mini-state in the south, and sort of nothing in the middle," he said.

"The mission we set for ourselves at the beginning, and which we told the Iraqis that we were going to do, is to keep this as a single state. And that's the challenge that we have now."

Mr Powell downplayed his reported differences with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, and said he was on good terms with President George W Bush.

"There are some who say, 'well, you shouldn't have supported (the war), you should have resigned', but I'm glad that Saddam Hussein is gone," Mr Powell said.

On Washington's differences with Tehran, Mr Powell also said he does not see "a clear military option with respect to Iran".

- AFP

ABC link (http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1456650.htm)
Now that it's been put back into context let's discuss....
Seems to me that being mis lead is NOT the same thing as purposly lying about something. Sounds like a bunch of little guys trusted inte they shouldn't have and it got passed UP the pipeline from there.

[Jaidness]

mis·lead (ms-ld)
tr.v. mis·led (-ld), mis·lead·ing, mis·leads
1. To lead in the wrong direction.
2. To lead into error of thought or action, especially by intentionally deceiving. See Synonyms at deceive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

mis·leader n.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words AntonymsVerb 1. mislead - lead someone in the wrong direction or give someone wrong directions; "The pedestrian misdirected the out-of-town driver"
misguide, lead astray, misdirect
lead, guide, take, conduct, direct - take somebody somewhere; "We lead him to our chief"; "can you take me to the main entrance?"; "He conducted us to the palace"
2. mislead - give false or misleading information to
misinform
inform - impart knowledge of some fact, state or affairs, or event to; "I informed him of his rights"
lie - tell an untruth; pretend with intent to deceive; "Don't lie to your parents"; "She lied when she told me she was only 29"
beat around the bush, equivocate, palter, prevaricate, tergiversate - be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information
exaggerate, hyerbolise, hyperbolize, overstate, amplify, magnify, overdraw - to enlarge beyond bounds or the truth; "tended to romanticize and exaggerate this `gracious Old South' imagery"
sandbag - downplay one's ability (towards others) in a game in order to deceive, as in gambling
deceive, lead astray, betray - cause someone to believe an untruth; "The insurance company deceived me when they told me they were covering my house"


Now that it's been put back into context let's discuss....

[stresseater]

Well by definition I guess Powell was mislead by faulty informatioin. Like I said and this misinformation was passed up the chain of command. No sense in discussing what we both seem to agree on.... by definition of course.