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kate
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Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
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 Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 8:10 am Post subject: White House 'never told' of WMD doubts (Powell) |
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Powell finally steps up. Since the left loves him, this may help put the "Bush lied" mantra to bed, with these comments about the intelligence.
Herald Sun
| Quote: | White House 'never told' of WMD doubts
From correspondents in London
18dec05
THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night.
Mr Powell, who argued the case for military action against Saddam Hussein in the UN in 2003, told BBC News 24 television he was "deeply disappointed in what the intelligence community had presented to me and to the rest of us."
"What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced to us," he said.
Mr Powell's comments follow US President George W. Bush's acceptance earlier this week of responsibility for going to war on intelligence, much of which "turned out to be wrong".
US involvement in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion has led to the loss of 2,140 of its troops and badly hit the Republican president's popularity.
The opposition Democrats have increased calls for a timetable for a military withdrawal.
But ahead of this week's parliamentary elections in Iraq, President Bush insisted he was still right to order the invasion and argued a hurried withdrawal would be "a recipe for disaster".
The British government, Washington's key allies in the invasion, has similarly refused to give a withdrawal date for its 8,000 or so troops in Iraq's four southern states, although has said it could happen next year.
For his part, Mr Powell considered the US military could not be deployed in Iraq at its current strength for years to come, raising the possibility of withdrawal from next year.
But he told the BBC that "essentially just to walk away, to say that we're taking all of our troops out as fast as we can, would be a tragic mistake". A US presence would be required in Iraq for "years", he added.
"We've invested a great deal in this country, and the Iraqi people deserve democracy and the freedom that they were promised when we got rid of Saddam Hussein and we have to stay with them... until they decide that they can get it now on their own, they don't need us any longer," he added.
"And even then, I suspect, there will be a continuing relationship and presence of some significance for some years to come."
In the interview, Mr Powell confirmed that White House "hawks" US Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had bypassed him and other colleagues on occasions.
Mr Powell's former chief-of-staff Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson made the damning allegations last month, accusing Cheney and Rumsfeld of running a "cabal" and hijacking US military and foreign policy.
Discussions with Rumsfeld about dealing with the aftermath of the Iraq invasion were "not pleasant", Mr Powell admitted in the interview. |
edit to add: found more of the interview at BBC
"Powell raps Europe on CIA flights"
Ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated that Europeans are being
disingenuous when they deny knowledge of the rendition of terror suspects.
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LewWaters
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Joined: 18 May 2004
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Location: Washington State
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| Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:01 pm Post subject: |
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I still wonder if the intelligence was really all that faulty, or if what happened with the WMDs went unnoticed?
It just doesn't make sense to me that nearly every intelligence agency in the world could have presented such 'faulty' intelligence. |
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kate
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Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
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| Posted: Sun Dec 18, 2005 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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I agree Lew. WMDs went somewhere, ie Syria, Jordan, Libya. Even David Kay raised the Syria issue
In the political landscape playing out against Bush that is now reaching critical mass, at least on this point Powell's voice is supportive of the president.
Captain Ed's take
| Quote: | Colin Powell has dropped a water balloon on his friends of the Left and their "Bush Lied, People Died!" cri du coeur during a BBC interview due to be aired within hours. Mark in Mexico caught this early report of Powell's revelation that the American intelligence agencies never gave the White House any contradictory intelligence to the prevailing wisdom that Saddam Hussein had retained and hidden his WMD stocks and capability throughout the twelve-year quagmire of UN impotence, corruption, and failing containment:
This, of course, brings up the question as to whether those doubts actually existed at the time -- or more accurately, whether any evidence had developed counter to the existing intelligence before the invasion at all. Later, of course, the CIA came up with information that cast doubt on the Bush administration's interpretation of the intelligence both he and Congress reviewed -- the same intelligence Powell saw in both administrations and the same conclusions reached by all Western nations before Bush took office in 2001.
<snip>
It sounds like the notion that the CIA has decided to conduct its own war against Bush and the elected government isn't quite as far-fetched as one might imagine. Powell's accusation will put quite a different take on the presumed narrative and start people wondering what the hell Langley has been doing since 9/11. It's starting to look like they have hung the CYA sign in front of the facility to replace their old logo. |
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