Powell: "I'm not reading this. This is bulls--t."

[nostamj]

from today's mailing from www.americanprogress.com


More Proof They Knew

This morning's Los Angeles Times uncovers an explosive document buried at the end of the recent Senate Intelligence report. It shows that before Colin Powell's now-discredited U.N. speech justifying war in Iraq, State Department analysts told Powell and top administration officials about "dozens of factual problems" in the address (which was written by Vice President Cheney's staff). According to the Jan. 31, 2003 memo, there were problems with 38 of the claims made in the speech draft, which was crafted at the behest of the White House. (It was "intended to be the Bush administration's most compelling case" for war in Iraq.) In response, 28 were either "removed from the draft or altered" – but the others were left in. Powell was reportedly irate when first given the speech: According to the 9/3/03 U.S. News & World Report, Powell threw the speech in the air, yelling, "I'm not reading this. This is bulls--t." This past May, he reiterated his displeasure with the speech, saying, "It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and in some cases deliberately misleading."

ADMINISTRATION WAS WARNED: Analysts advised Powell that many of the claims were "weak" and "warned Powell against making an array of allegations they deemed implausible." They also warned Powell that he "was being put in the position of drawing the most sinister conclusions from satellite images, communications intercepts and human intelligence reports that had alternative, less-incriminating explanations."

DISCREDITED INFORMATION MADE IT IN, PART I: In the speech to the U.N., Powell "showed aerial images of a supposed decontamination vehicle circling a suspected chemical weapons site." The State Department explicitly warned against using this claim. "We caution that Iraq has given … what may be a plausible account for this activity — that this was an exercise involving the movement of conventional explosives." They concluded that the presence of a water truck "is common in such an event."

DISCREDITED INFORMATION MADE IT IN, PART II: The State Department disagreed that the aluminum tubes imported by Iraq could be used in a nuclear weapons program, a claim also made by President Bush in his State of the Union speech. The State Department memo said, "it is taken out of context and is highly misleading. Meantime, we will work with our IC colleagues to fix some more egregious errors in the tubes discussion."

[still_one]

1. This is old news

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/10/14/60II/main577975.shtml

[Solly Mack]

2. Powell made the speech. Powell holds equal blame

more proof Powell is a Bush team player through and through