Reply #14: It is possible he did both [View All]

[karynnj]

That in September and October, he told Kerry and the others that force would be the last resort. It does sound as though he lied to them at this time and that he knew that they were comitted to war. It's possible that they kept him out of the loop, but in that case why did he say things at the UN that he knew were either untrue or likely to be untrue. In a way, because Powell had credibility, it was worse that he allowed himself To be used.

That he in the run up to the invasion in March said to go in with a big force would actually have been consistent with the Powell doctrine. If he was truely lied to in the fall, by the beginning of 2003, he had to know that the UN, the inspectors etc was a fraud. He had to choose where his loyalties lied - at that point he chose Bush rather than international law. If the invasion was illegal, which it sure seemed to be, he is complicit. He was one of the few people on the inside with the credibility to have gone to the country to try to stop the war.


Imagine the impact if Powell would have told the truth in a speech in January, 2003. (It could have sounded a lot like the Kerry speech of that time - but as one of the inner circle, it could have had an impact.)