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Colin Powell Got Snookered at CIA
Think back six years. How often did we hear then-Secretary of State Colin Powell tout his intense four-day vigil at CIA headquarters preparing the speech he would give to the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003? Retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff, who was asked by Powell to herd cats in putting that speech together, recently threw light on why it turned out to be such an acute embarrassment.
Surrogates of Vice President Dick Cheney were insisting on giving prominence to highly dubious reports of operational ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but on this particular issue (unlike the phantom WMD) CIA and State department intelligence analysts had stood firm in the face of heavy pressure. Indeed, the CIA ombudsman saw fit to tell Congress that never in his 32 years as a CIA analyst had he witnessed a more aggressive "hammering" on analysts to change their minds and give credence to reporting that was trash.
How was it, then, that Secretary Powell ended up citing a "sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorist network" to depict a relationship that did not exist? Fair labeling: Reading what follows may not make you quite as ill as reading the Department of Justice torture memos, but it may well sicken-and anger-you just the same.
According to Col. Wilkerson, just days before trying to sell the invasion of Iraq to the United Nations, his boss Colin Powell had decided not to regurgitate the dubious allegations about Saddam Hussein's ties to al-Qaeda. Just in the nick of time, however, top CIA officials produced a "bombshell" report alleging such ties. The information was more than a year old and apparently extricated via torture, but Powell took the bait.
Wilkerson says the key moment occurred on Feb. 1, 2003, as the two men labored at the CIA over Powell's presentation to the U.N. Security Council four days later.
"Powell and I had a one-on-one - no one else even in the room - about his angst over what was a rather dull recounting of several old stories about Al Qa'ida-Baghdad ties [in the draft speech]," Wilkerson said. "I agreed with him that what we had was bull___t, and Powell decided to eliminate all mention of terrorist contacts between AQ and Baghdad.
"Within an hour, [CIA Director George] Tenet and [CIA Deputy Director John] McLaughlin dropped a bombshell on the table in the director's conference room: a high-level AQ detainee had just revealed under interrogation substantive contacts between AQ and Baghdad, including Iraqis training AQ operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons."
Although Tenet and McLaughlin wouldn't give Powell the identity of the al-Qaeda source, Wilkerson said he now understands that it was Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, who had been captured 15 months earlier; who later claimed he gave the CIA false information in the face of actual and threatened torture; and who now seems to be quite dead.
Presumably not realizing that the "new" intelligence was tainted, "Powell changed his mind and this information was included in his UNSC presentation, along with more general information from a previous draft about Baghdad's terrorist tendencies," Wilkerson said.
Wilkerson's account provides insight into how the need to justify war gave impetus to the use of torture for extracting information, and how the Bush administration's reliance on harsh interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects helped grease the skids to war. Both.
Sealing the Deal
Powell, whose credibility essentially sealed the deal for war as far as millions of Americans were concerned, let himself be manipulated by senior CIA officials who kept him in the dark about crucial details, including the fact that the Defense Intelligence Agency had thrown serious doubt on al-Libi's credibility. Wilkerson told me:
"As you can see, nowhere were we told that the high-level AQ operative had a name, or that he had been interrogated [in Egypt] with no US personnel present or much earlier rather than just recently (the clear implication of Tenet's breathtaking delivery).
"And not a single dissent was mentioned (later we learned of the DIA dissent) ... All of this was hidden from us - the specific identity, we were informed, due to the desire to protect sources and methods as well as a cooperative foreign intelligence service....
"As for me in particular, I learned the identity of al-Libi only in 2004 and of the DIA dissent about the same time, of al-Libi's recanting slightly later, and of the entire affair's probably being a Tenet-McLaughlin fabrication - to at least a certain extent - only after I began to put some things together and to receive reinforcement of the ‘fabrication' theme from other examples."
Among those other examples, Wilkerson said, was the case of the Iraqi defector codenamed Curveball, who supplied false intelligence about mobile labs for making biological and chemical weapons, and various Iraqi walk-ins who spun bogus stories about an Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
Though some of those sources appear to have concocted their tales after being recruited by the pro-invasion exiles of the Iraqi National Congress, al-Libi told his stories-he later claimed-to avoid or stop torture. This is a central point in the current debate about why torture was used and whether it saved American lives.
Torture Can Produce
For those of you distracted by the
Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) spotlight on "what-did-Pelosi-know-about-
The al-Libi case might help you understand why, even though information from torture is notoriously unreliable, President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and the me-too officials running U.S. intelligence ordered it anyway.
In short, if it is untruthful information you are after, torture can work just fine! As the distinguished Senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham put it during a Senate hearing on May 13-with a hat-tip to the Inquisition-"One of the reasons these techniques have been used for about 500 years is that they work."
All you really need to know is what you want the victims to "confess" to and then torture them, or render them abroad to "friendly" intelligence services toward the same end.
Poster Child for Torture
Al-Libi, born in 1963 in Libya, ran an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan from 1995 to 2000. He was detained in Pakistan on Nov. 11, 2001, and then sent to a U.S. detention facility in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He was deemed a prize catch, since it was thought that he might know of, or at least be induced to "confess" to, Iraqi training of al-Qaeda.
The CIA successfully fought off the FBI for first rights to interrogate al-Libi. FBI's Dan Coleman, who "lost" al-Libi to the CIA (at whose orders, I wonder?), said, "Administration officials were always pushing us to come up with links" between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile, at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, Maj. Paul Burney, a psychiatrist sent there in summer 2002, says, "A large part of that time we were focused on trying to establish a link between al-Qaeda and Iraq, and we were not successful," according to Burney's recent testimony to the Senate. Burney added:
"The more frustrated people got in not being able to establish that link...there was more and more pressure to resort to measures that might produce more immediate results."
CIA interrogators elicited some "cooperation" from al-Libi through a combination of rough treatment and threats that he would be turned over to Egyptian intelligence with even greater experience in the torture business.
By June 2002, al-Libi had told the CIA that Iraq had "provided" unspecified chemical and biological weapons training for two al-Qaeda operatives, an allegation that soon found its way into other U.S. intelligence reports. Al-Libi's claim was well received even though the DIA was highly suspicious.
Serious Misgivings
"He lacks specific details" about the supposed training, DIA observed. "It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest."
Despite his cooperation, al-Libi was still shipped to Egypt where he underwent more abuse, according to a declassified CIA cable from 2004; the year al-Libi recanted his earlier statements. The cable reported that al-Libi said Egyptian interrogators wanted information about al-Qaeda's connections with Iraq, a subject "about which [al-Libi] said he knew nothing and had difficulty even coming up with a story." (This, despite the limited "success" CIA interrogators claimed to have had on this issue.)
According to the CIA cable, al-Libi said his interrogators did not like his responses and "placed him in a small box" for about 17 hours. After he was let out of the box, al-Libi was given a last chance to "tell the truth."
When his answers still did not satisfy, al-Libi says he "was knocked over with an arm thrust across his chest and fell on his back" and then was "punched for 15 minutes."
And, sure enough, as Sen. Lindsay Graham has noted, this stuff really works! For it was then that al-Libi expanded on his tales about collaboration between al-Qaeda and Iraq, adding that three al-Qaeda operatives had gone to Iraq "to learn about nuclear weapons." Al-Libi added that the treatment he received improved after he told that to his interrogators.
In any case, al-Libi's stories apparently were music to the ears of Colin Powell, who was under pressure to establish in his U.N. speech some evidence of a "sinister nexus" between Iraq and al-Qaeda-the "axis-of-evil" kind of epithet he ended up using to try to justify invading Iraq.
Al-Libi recanted his claims in January 2004. This prompted the CIA, a month later, to recall all intelligence reports based on his statements, a fact recorded in a footnote to the report issued by the 9/11 Commission. But he was really a big help before he recanted!
Just What the Doctor Ordered
George Bush relied on al-Libi's false confession for his crucial speech in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, just a few days before Congress voted on the Iraq War resolution. Bush declared, "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and deadly gases."
Colin Powell relied on it for his own speech to the U.N. on Feb. 5, 2003: "I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these [chemical and biological] weapons to al-Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story."
Bear in mind that before the attack on Iraq on March 19, 2003, polls showed that some 70 percent Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had operational ties with al-Qaeda and thus was partly responsible for the attacks of 9/11. Worse still, about half of the American people had been led to believe that Saddam was actually involved in 9/11.
For a while, al-Libi was practically the poster boy for the success of the Cheney/Bush torture regime; that is, at least until it was learned that he recanted, explaining that he only told his interrogators what he thought would stop the torture.
In his disingenuous memoir, At the Center of the Storm, George Tenet sought to defend the CIA's acceptance of the original claims made by al-Libi in the run-up to the Iraq war. Tenet even suggested that al-Libi may have been right the first time-that it may have been his subsequent recantation that was not genuine.
"He clearly lied," Tenet wrote. "We just don't know when. Did he lie when he first said that Al Qaeda members received training in Iraq or did he lie when he said they did not? In my mind, either case might still be true."
I am not making this up. That incisive analysis appears on page 353 of Tenet's book.
Tenet, of course, is hardly a disinterested observer. If there was a CIA plan to extract a false confession, it's likely he was a key participant. After all, he devoted 2002-03 to the mission of manufacturing a "slam-dunk" WMD-case for invading Iraq, in order to please his bosses. He had both the motive and the opportunity to commit this crime and, later, huge incentive to cover it up.
Al-Libi "Commits Suicide"
If al-Libi is now dead - strangely our embassy in Tripoli has been unable to find out for sure - this means the world will never hear his own account of the torture he experienced and the story he made up and then recanted. And we have already been asked to believe he "committed suicide" even though al-Libi apparently was a devout Muslim, and Islam prohibits suicide.
Hafed al-Ghwell, a Libyan-American and a prominent critic of the Gaddafi regime, explained to Newsweek, "This idea of committing suicide in your prison cell is an old story in Libya." He added that, throughout Gaddafi's 40-year rule, there have been several instances in which political prisoners were reported to have committed suicide, but that "then the families get the bodies back and discover the prisoners had been shot in the back or tortured to death."
Am I suggesting...?
Anatomy of a Crime
Commenting on what he called the "Cheney interrogation techniques," Col. Wilkerson, writing for The Washington Note on May 13, made the following points:
"...as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 - well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion - its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but on discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq to al-Qaeda.
"So furious was this effort on one particular detainee, even when the interrogation team had reported to Cheney's office that their detainee ‘was compliant' (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP's office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa'ida-Baghdad contacts yet.
"As far as al-Libi is concerned, his harsh interrogation ceased after, under waterboarding in Egypt, he ‘revealed' such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop."
Cheney Family Honor
Stung by Wilkerson's criticism of her father, Liz Cheney, who worked in the State Department during the Bush/Cheney administration, lashed out publicly at Wilkerson on Sunday, charging he has made "a cottage industry out of fantasies" about the former Vice President. All that Ms. Cheney could manage in support of her contention was to point out that al-Libi was not among the three al-Qaeda detainees the CIA has said it waterboarded.
After his article in The Washington Note, I asked Col. Wilkerson for a retrospective look at how it could have been that the torture-derived information from al-Libi was not recognized for what it was and thus kept out of Secretary Powell's speech at the UN.
Since al-Libi had been captured over a year before the speech and had been put at the tender mercies of the Egyptian intelligence service, should he and Powell not have suspected that al-Libi had been tortured?
Wilkerson responded by e-mail with the comments cited above regarding Tenet and McLaughlin interrupting Powell's evaluation of the Iraqi WMD intelligence with their new -just trust us-"bombshell."
I asked Col. Wilkerson: "Were there no others from the State Department with you at CIA headquarters on Feb. 1, 2003. Was the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), State's very professional, incorruptible intelligence unit, not represented? He answered:
"When I gathered ‘my team' - some were selected for me, such as Will Toby from Bob Joseph's NSC staff and John Hanna from the VP's office - in my office at State to give them an initial briefing and marching orders, I asked Carl [Ford, then head of INR] to attend. I wanted Carl - or even more so, one of his deputies whom I knew well and trusted completely, Tom Fingar - to be on ‘my team'.
"Carl stayed after the meeting and I asked him straightforwardly to come with me or to send someone from INR. Carl said that he did not need to come or to send anyone because he had the Secretary's ear (he was right on that) and could weigh in at any time he wanted to.
"Moreover, he told me, the Secretary knew very well where INR stood, as did I myself (he was right on that too).
"As I look back, I believe one of my gravest errors was in not insisting that INR send someone with me.
"Fascinating and completely puzzling at first was the total absence of a Department of Defense representative on my team; however, after 3-4 days and nights I figured out ... DoD was covering its own butt, to an extent, by having no direct fingerprints on the affair - and being directly wired into Cheney's office, Rumsfeld's folks knew they were protected by Toby and Hanna.
"When we all arrived at CIA, we were given the NIC [National Intelligence Council] spaces and staff. [But] I could not even get on a computer!! Protests to Tenet and McLaughlin got me perfunctory CIA-blah blah about security clearances, etc. - and me with 7 days and nights to prepare a monumentally important presentation! ...
"[It took] 24 hours before George or John acknowledged I could be on a computer.... From there on, it was a madhouse.
"But at the end of the day, had I had an INR rep, had I had better support, had I been more concerned with WHAT I was assembling rather than HOW on earth I would assemble it and present it on time, I'm not sure at all it would have made any difference in the march to war."
Not the Only Criminal Activity
So there you have it folks, the anatomy of a crime - one of several such already on the record, with some of the same dramatis personae.
Mention of Carl Ford and Tenet and McLaughlin remind me of another episode that has gone down in the annals of intelligence as almost equally contemptible. This one had to do with their furious attempt to prove there were mobile biological weapons labs of the kind Curveball had described.
Remember, Tenet and McLaughlin had been warned about Curveball long before they let then-Secretary of State Powell shame himself, and the rest of us, by peddling Curveball's wares at the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003. But the amateur attempts at deception did not stop there. After the war began, CIA intrepid analysts, still "leaning forward," misrepresented a tractor-trailer found in Iraq outfitted with industrial equipment as one of the mobile bio-labs.
On May 28, 2003, CIA analysts cooked up a fraudulent six-page report claiming that the trailer discovered earlier in May was proof they had been right about Iraq's "bio-weapons labs."
They then performed what in Army parlance is called a "midnight requisition," finding the only Defense Intelligence Agency analyst sympathetic to their position and getting him to provide DIA "coordination," (which was almost immediately withdrawn by DIA).
On May 29, President George W. Bush,
visiting Poland, proudly announced on Polish TV, "We have found the
weapons of mass destruction." (For a contemporaneous debunking of
the CIA-DIA report, see "America's Matrix," http://www.consortiumnews.com/
When the State Department's Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts realized that this was not some kind of Polish joke, they "went ballistic," according to Carl Ford, who immediately warned Powell there was a very large problem. Tenet, in turn, must have learned of this quickly, for he called Ford on the carpet, literally, the following day. No shrinking violet, Ford held his ground. He told Tenet and McLaughlin, "That report is one of the worst intelligence assessments I've ever read."
What seems clear is that Tenet and McLaughlin learned nothing from their decision just four months earlier to play fast and loose with intelligence-regardless of the risk of heavy embarrassment to the Secretary of State or, in this case, the President.
"They Should Have Been Shot"
This episode-and several like it-are described in Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, who say that Ford is still angry over the fraudulent paper. Ford told the authors:
"It was clear that they [Tenet and McLaughlin] had been personally involved in the preparation of the [bio-weapons labs] report. As it turned out, that analysis was unprofessional and even unethical. People did funny thing with the evidence...It wasn't just that it was wrong. They lied...they should have been shot." (Page 229)
Small wonder Ford has remained angry-like Wilkerson. It was all just too much. Ford knew he had made a huge mistake in early Feb. 2003, by assuming that Colin Powell would face down the blandishments of Tenet, McLaughlin, and the White House members of Wilkerson's team.
The way these things normally work, it was not unreasonable for Ford to assume further that he would have the opportunity, in extremis, to trade on his credibility with, and entrée to, Secretary Powell to thwart the CIA seniors, if they peddled their meretricious wares at CIA headquarters.
In the end, Powell went along; Col. Wilkerson was left to twist slowly in the wind, so to speak. Bush, Cheney, and their courtiers prevailed and our country embarked on what the post-WWII Nuremberg Tribunal termed the "supreme international crime"-a war of aggression.
Sad. Very sad. Criminal, I would say.
- Posted in
42 Comments so far
Show AllIf waterboarded, Cheney would admit to being a Communist by the time the "pros" were done with him. Powell should have known better. Geeeez! This makes Watergate look like a Sunday picnic - there is treason all around with unbelievable criminality to boot!
I have been thinking through on the same lines of thought..
If this is indeed a real possibility, it would expose Dick Cheney was the weakest link during the Nixon Era of Chinese diplomacy. Executive power without checks and balance is a Chinese Communist Operation.
And John Wu the ultimate double agent in play. Trained to bring the American into Chinese mindset with regards to Justice.
toophat for you!
Another apology for Colin Powell. What is it about him that liberals feel the need to protect him and apologize for his mistakes? He's as guilty as Bush. Sorry. The deed is done, and Mr. Powell did it with eyes wide open, just like he made his bed with these criminals. At least McGovern doesn't feel the need (at least I don't think he does) of defending the new war criminal in the White House. Unfortunately, 80% of liberals will bend over backwards to defend this new one. All because they think they're politically correct, and feeling proud of yourself for that, my friend, is what it's all about, even if it means a massacre in Vietnam or a massacre in Pakistan via drones.
Re Fenner May 19th, 2009 8:46 am
Right with you on this one. Remorseless killer, or one who experiences a pang of guilt in the aftermath? It's all the same to the victims (as they say on "Law & Order," intent follows the bullet). Powell deserves the same fate as Cheney, Rummy, Shrub and the rest of the treasonous neocon cabal.
Well put. If we are going to let them off on ignorance, might as well start with Bush. No, no need to measure the I.Q. of a war criminal and use that as defense. Most of them would get off handily that way. Unfortunately, many so called liberals are much more interested in how PC they look among their friends, than to truly look into the crimes of the people they support.
I agree. Powell, to his eternal shame, never questioned the intelligence and with the entire world watching, decided to enable the Iraq War ... like a good little cabana boy. Too bad he didnt have the balls to stand up against his bosses. Clearly he has never been able to live it down.
I don't see this as an apology for Powell (he has a long list of crimes going back to covering up the Mai Lai massacre) just a sordid description of how he was manipulated to make the case for the Iraq War (much to the detriment of his beloved career).
Did I miss the part where McGovern forgives him or holds him in high esteem?
Powell is not as stupid as the title to this report implies. When he gave his march to war presentation to the world, it was a salacious, dog and pony show that hinged on some alleged photos of Saddam's mobile biological warfare units. The whole world saw all the "evidence" that he had then. His report was vile, fear-based propaganda of the lowest denominator. People of even moderate intelligence didn't believe the conclusions he tried to get them to quickly jump to. But Powell also thought it was a reasonable gamble that the war on Iraq would be quick and easy, and that any plausibly deniable "mistakes" would be overshadowed by the glow of victory . Powell hung tight with the war mongers and he promoted their impending holocaust when it mattered most, and he should hang with them now.
yeah, that vial of sugar he held in his hand at the UN, claiming it was iraqi anthrax? puhleeeez....powell has known all along his role in the game, project an image, and let it be used by people behind the scenes.
after that UN speech, the liberals in the MSM were positively orgasmic that now a convincing case had been made.
that there was internal dissent in the disinformation (aka "intelligence") apparatus of the US, who would be surprised at?
americans love being lied to by humorless straight-talkers, esp. when their names are preceded by words like "general, admiral," etc. and, just like obama, it doesn't hurt the cause that it's a black man slogging the crap around. liberals coo and get all dreamy when a black man tells them we've got to kill us some muslims.
powell has been a waterboy for the team since my lai, so why is mcgovern surprised?
Two comments:
1) Let some average 'Joe the plumber' lie to the IRS about a fictitious $1000 tax-credit and see what happens if he gets caught.
2) Paragraph from this article: "Bear in mind that before the attack on Iraq on March 19, 2003, polls showed that some 70 percent Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had operational ties with al-Qaeda and thus was partly responsible for the attacks of 9/11. Worse still, about half of the American people had been led to believe that Saddam was actually involved in 9/11." PROOF once again as I stated so often during the lead-up and subsequent war, "Most Americans are ignorant and would rather believe a lie than the truth". I lost several friends over all of this, most of them calling me unpatriotic, though only one of them was a veteran like myself. Nothing will change and no one will ever be punished in any way over this mess. Only the innocents in Iraq and Afghanistan and our soldiers and mercenaries who suffer from internal struggles will pay.
I have some very old friends who live in Western Arizona and we have been in close contact over this next offer. We have discussed the ramifications---for all of us----and realize that in order for us to survive the coming disaster we must prepare far in advance and this is part of that preparation.
We will offer clean brand new "beach front property" at a far below average price to anyone who believes that Mr. Powell was "snookered" by anyone.
In order to be able to fulfill this promise we must wait for two things to occur; 1) Mr. Powell to finally come forward with the truth that he was NOT snookered, and he went along with the Bush and Republican administration lies without being lied to-----and 2)then simply wait for California to 'fall off' into the Pacific Ocean----then you can move onto your beautiful; pristine beach front "lot".
If any of you believe any part of this article, then you'll love watching the sun set from the porch of your brand new beach house--on the beautiful, sunny "coast of Arizona"--right?
Good Luck America, you really need it.
So. it wasn't a tiking time bomb with agonized government officials reluctantly extracting the truth through torture with the pure motive of fulfilling the greater good by saving the innocent. Apparently it was just a bunch of political hacks who would do anything required to make the case for war. I'm not surprized and I don't think I would have been snookered-- because I have always had a low opinion of the CIA and its operations. I expect them to be liars and to lie to anyone who they are not directly controlled by. Apparently Colin Powell had a higher opinion of them. But why?
An Administration comes to power intent on "doing" Iraq. However, a catalyst sufficient to rallying public support and providing legal and moral cover is lacking.
Intelligence warnings mount. Imminent attacks by Al Qaeda are brewing. The Administration decides coolly to wait.
On September 11, 2001, the catalyst arrives. 19 Al Qaeda operatives murderously attack the U.S., hijacking fully-loaded passenger planes and using them as terrorist-guided missiles. 1 of the attackers was Egyptian, 1 was Lebanese, 2 were from the United Arab Emirates, and 15 were from Saudi Arabia. The latter badly out-numbered all others on each and every flight. All of the terrorists originated from Middle Eastern countries that the Administration had no intention of holding accountable.
Intelligence linking Al Qaeda with Iraq was ordered up. However, since the hijackers were also enemies of Iraq, no linkage was to be found. Unsatisfied, the Administration resorted to raising its voice, repeating its demand.
Torture began. Out of it, came the cherished link (embellished and blessed in front of the entire world by none other than the once-venerable Colin Powell). Voila! A war was born--one based on aggression, ignorance, lies and fraud.
So, what comes next? Does this remain the new us? Or, do we try to do the right thing by putting some bad folks in jail.
Did Colin Powell ever actually come forth with the truth about anything he was associate with in the military? Not according to this article: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010108/corn/
Once GWB mentioned Iraq within a week of being sworn in as President, I knew at that time what they all said were lies. Reading only two eye-opening books taught me how to hear their 'code.' One was Voltaire's Bastards by John Ralston Saul and the other was William Blum's Killing Hope.
What military man could ever avoid a trap?
I think McGovern is paving the way for the defense of Colin Powell. He ultimately holds Powell guilty, but miracles be bound, it is to a lessor, almost forgivable crime of being, what? snookered?
What's the final verdict on being snookered? 5 years, out in 3? Libby style of 2 years? Or should we not hold our breaths and imagine this will all go the same way the "prosecution" of the AIPAC espionage trial under Obama?
hmm.
gosh.
Powell would do anything the repug ask. Remember the Dictators starting with the crook of all crooks Bush Sr. Powell was promoted from Col. to General (1) Star quickly because Bush Sr. wanted the black vote. It didnt work. Then hanging his nose deep in the republicans rear he was promoted from one star to four, bypassing a number of generals that had much longer time in grade. There were thirty-two well qualified Generals resigned over that farce.
Cheney was greasing the wheels for torture well in advance of having any prisoners precisely because torture was known to be a reliable way of producing what Cheney refers to as "actionable intelligence."
Of course, "actionable intelligence" need not have been true or even remotely accurate as long as it was useful for Cheney’s purposes. Torture (especially repetitive torture) was uniquely suited to fabricating "actionable intelligence" as Cheney’s victims eventually learned to create whatever sort of details the Torturer in Chief sought (such as a link between 9/11 and Iraq).
Bring America Back !!!!............Key words to highlight in this long but fine piece are"...'Colin Powell let himself be manipulated... and ...'sad, very sad--criminal I would say!'
***So now Colin Powell finds himself attracted to the new
Adninistration and votes for Obama.
***Cheney is dis-inheriting Powell as a Repubby, trying his best to set up Powell as a Trojan Horse Demmy. Sure, you and Barak go shoot some hoops together, & get chummy ! Take Michael with you, Stone, that is not Jordan.
**WHOA< Powell knew there were no WMD'S in Iraq, and he knew there was NO connect to 9/11 or al Qaeda !! He was part and parcel of the Shock and Awe Invasion of a defenseless nation, hundreds of thousands dead, injured Iraqi innocent victims !! HE KNEW !!!!!
***There is a CONFESSION needed first, way before forgiveness of Powell. He needs to Snitch on all those War Mongers who put us in Iraq, and he needs to document everything he knows about pre and post 9/11.
*Despite this masterpiece article trying to justify Powell going to the UN, the cart must come before the horse, then Colin Powell may become a worthy American, once again.
*Or, Powell needs to retire into obscurity, for he has nothing, absolutely nothing, to offer us service wise !
Part of the problem was that our news media could never write or speak of powell without insisting he was "well respected". maybe he was, and that's why they needed him to perform that pathetic charade.
he was if i remember right standing in ront of a curtain put there to hide Picasso's "Guernica".
it was not thought advisable to have somebody sell a war crime while standing before the image of another.
powell himself did not need a curtain because the u.s. media had already cloaked him in respectability so we did not see his long Vietnam war crimes rapsheet.
Finally, as others have noted, it seems obvious that mcgovern is making phony excuses for powell.
of course he knew he was lying.
Eyes wide shut.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Since his disgraceful performance before the U.N., Powell's only regret appears to be the "permanent blot" on his record. Aside from the occasional utterance of a few mealymouthed weasel words, Colin Powell has done absolutely nothing that would indicate his acceptance of responsibility for the devastating consequences of his actions.
Despite my entrenched cynicism, I cannot help but be very disappointed in you, Ray. If Colin Powell's culpability in selling a war crime to the American people is to be magically mitigated, let the attempt come from Powell himself. Not Barbara Walters or Katie Couric. Not some hack at the NYT. Not you.
Powell's no innocent. We all knew that the "intelligence" was bs back then. We all knew it was a pack of lies. Powell was at least as smart as the rest of us to figure it out. No pass.
I agree with the posts on the blog. Does anyone know why McGovern would waste ink on this story? I've read other articles by him whereby he's ferreting out the Criminal in Chief now in the White House (who incidentally had quite a bit of contact with Powell during the campaign).
Peace would be nice!
Colon Powell is a low-down sack of shit, just like Obama.
"Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. During his career as a CIA analyst, he prepared and briefed the President's Daily Brief and chaired National Intelligence Estimates. He is a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)."
Really? Well, fuck you, Ray.
"Fenner May 19th, 2009 9:47 pm
I agree with the posts on the blog. Does anyone know why McGovern would waste ink on this story? ..."
I'm not sure what you find particular wrong with the article and you should have given some specifics on this, to make it clear what you precisely find disagreeable with what he relates in this piece.
"Arvin May 19th, 2009 9:25 pm
Since his disgraceful performance before the U.N., Powell's only regret appears to be the "permanent blot" on his record. Aside from the occasional utterance of a few mealymouthed weasel words, Colin Powell has done absolutely nothing that would indicate his acceptance of responsibility for the devastating consequences of his actions."
And that's true for his prior war crimes in the 1990's, Vietnam, and possibly other cases inbetween. From what I read some years ago, he's been a war criminal since his "service" in the Vietnam War, but that evidently wasn't the last of his criminality related to wars. Unfortunately!
IT WAS clear in the 1990's that he didn't care, not enough to demonstrate it at all anyway, and it was clear when he gave his speech at the UN on Feb. 5, 2003. It was unmistably clear when he had the gall and lack of spine to stand in front of the whole world's audience trying to get us all to believe that two trailers in a part of Iraqi desert were WMD labs, while all we could see were the exteriors of these trailers and nothing outside except desert sand. Like that is proof of WMD labs? I DO NOT think so!
To make such a claim and, worse, as "justification" for war, now this is a CRIME! But he's more afraid of having and demonstrating real moral spine, than he is about blatantly committing a criminal act in front of a world audience!
Arvin:
"Despite my entrenched cynicism, I cannot help but be very disappointed in you, Ray. If Colin Powell's culpability in selling a war crime to the American people is to be magically mitigated, let the attempt come from Powell himself. Not .... ... Not you."
Besides for the crime that I referred to in my prior post in reply to the post by , I'm not sure Powell committed any other crime when speaking at the UN on Feb. 5, 2003. If what Ray McGovern says about the basis for Powell telling the world that Saddam was supposedly linked to Al Qa'ida is true, then I guess Powell didn't commit a crime when stating this on that date at the UN. And I don't know what else he said, though it's probably something that we can find without much difficulty.
Powell's first mistake, ....believing ANYTHING from the US government
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Apparently, the Al Qa'ida link claim was quickly disposed of following Colin Powell's Feb. 5, 2003, speech before the UNGA, and [prior] to the launch on the war on Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War_(2003)
The quote is taken from this above Wikipedia page under the subheading of "President Bush formally makes the case for war".
EXCERPT:
In February 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations General Assembly, continuing U.S. efforts to gain U.N. authorization for an invasion. Powell presented evidence alleging that Iraq was actively producing chemical and biological weapons and had ties to al-Qaeda As a follow-up to Powell’s presentation, the United States, United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Australia, Denmark, Japan, and Spain proposed a UN Resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq, but NATO members like Canada, France, and Germany, together with Russia, strongly urged continued diplomacy. Facing a losing vote as well as a likely veto from France and Russia, the U.S., UK, Spain, Poland, Denmark, Italy, Japan, and Australia eventually withdrew their resolution.[53][54]
With the failure of its resolution, the U.S. and their supporters abandoned the Security Council procedures and decided to pursue the invasion without U.N. authorization, a decision of questionable legality under international law.[55] This decision was widely unpopular worldwide, and opposition to the invasion coalesced on February 15 in a worldwide anti-war protest ....
END EXCERPT
Following, btw, is the precise statement made on Feb. 5, 2003, before the UNGA.
This is quoted from the same Wikipedia page as above, but under the subheading of "Casus belli and rationale".
EXCERPT:
The Bush administration's overall rationale for the invasion of Iraq was presented in detail by Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations Security Council on February 5, 2003; in summary, he stated:
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression... given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not some day use these weapons at a time and the place and in the manner of his choosing at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond? The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11 world.[70]"
Since the invasion, U.S. and British claims concerning Iraqi weapons programs and links to terrorist organizations have been discredited. While the debate of whether Iraq intended to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons in the future remains open, no WMDs have been found in Iraq since the invasion despite comprehensive inspections lasting more than 18 months.[71] In Cairo, on February 24, 2001, Colin Powell had predicted as much, saying "He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."[72] Similarly, assertions of significant operational links[citation needed] between Iraq and al Qaeda have largely been discredited by the intelligence community, and Secretary Powell himself eventually admitted he had no incontrovertible proof.[73]
END EXCERPT
Iraq Resolution: The war resolution, the authorisation with attached conditions that were strict requirements, of the U.S. Congress and signed in Oct. 2002 is what the following page is about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution
"Public relations preparations for 2003 invasion of Iraq"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Public_relations_preparations_for_2003_invasion_of_Iraq
"United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The_UN_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_war
EXCERPTS:
Unaccepted resolution
In February 24, 2003, the US, the UK and Spain presented a draft resolution to the Security Council which declared that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity afforded to it resolution 1441.[3] The resolution split the UN and led to serious diplomatic rifts, with the US and the UK coming under sustained criticism from France, Russia and Germany. The resolution was eventually withdrawn, with the sponsors contending that it had been sabotaged by France's threat to veto the new resolution "whatever the circumstances", while critics of the resolution (and France itself) argued that the French position had been intentionally misrepresented and that the majority of the Security Council had opposed the proposed resolution.
...
Positions of Security Council members
* United States - The U.S. maintained that Iraq was not cooperating with UN inspectors and had not met its obligations to 17 UN resolutions. The U.S. felt that Resolution 1441 called for the immediate, total unilateral disarmament of Iraq and continued to show frustration at the fact that months after the resolution was passed Iraq was still not, in its view, disarming. ...
United Kingdom - Within the Security Council, the UK was the primary supporter of the U.S. plan to invade Iraq. Prime Minister Tony Blair publicly and vigorously supported U.S. policy on Iraq, and portrayed himself as exerting a moderating influence on Bush. British public opinion polls in late January showed that the public support for the war was deteriorating. It had fallen from 50 percent to 30 percent by March.
...
Spain - Spain supported the US's position on Iraq and supported the use of force to disarm Iraq, even without UN approval.
...
Analysis
According to Britain, a majority of the U.N. Security Council members supported its proposed 18th resolution which gave Iraq a deadline to comply with previous resolutions, until France announced that they would veto any new resolution that gave Iraq a deadline. However, for a resolution to pass, a supermajority of 9 out of 15 votes are needed. Only four countries announced they would support a resolution backing the war.[3]
...
The Institute for Policy Studies published a report [6] analyzing what it called the "arm-twisting offensive" by the United States government to get nations to support it. Although President Bush described nations supporting him as the "coalition of the willing", the report concluded that it was more accurately described as a "coalition of the coerced." According to the report, most nations supporting Bush "were recruited through coercion, bullying, and bribery." The techniques used to pressure nations to support the United States included a variety of incentives including:
...
END EXCERPTS
"Incentives"? Yes, or rather [bribes], but also [threats], real and serious.
"Blair's tests for Iraq Disarmament"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Blair%27s_tests_for_Iraq_Disarmament
EXCERPTS:
On March 12, 2003, Tony Blair and Jack Straw proposed a draft resolution to the United Nations. If the demands for disarmament were met by 17 March, it was suggested that military action would be averted and Saddam Hussein allowed to remain in power.
The six tests involved:
...
Response
Saddam denied possession of weapons of mass destruction. Iraqi intelligence offered to allow several thousand US troops to search for banned weapons.
END EXCERPTS
"2003 invasion of Iraq"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq
EXCERPT:
According to the then President of the United States George W. Bush and then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Tony Blair, the reasons for the invasion were "to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), to end Saddam Hussein's support for terrorism, and to free the Iraqi people."[16] According to Blair, the trigger was Iraq's failure to take a "final opportunity" to disarm itself of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that U.S. and coalition officials called an immediate and intolerable threat to world peace.[17] Although some remnants of pre-1991 production were found after the end of the war, U.S. government spokespeople confirmed that these were not the weapons for which the U.S. went to war.[18][19] In 2005, the Central Intelligence Agency released a report saying that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.[20]
...
Legality of invasion
With an overwhelming majority of Republicans voting to support it and most Democrats voting against it, the United States Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002. The resolution asserts the authorization by the Constitution of the United States and the Congress for the President to fight anti-United States terrorism. Citing the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, the resolution reiterated that it should be the policy of the United States to remove the Saddam Hussein regime and promote a democratic replacement. The resolution "supported" and "encouraged" diplomatic efforts by President George W. Bush to "strictly enforce through the U.N. Security Council all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq" and "obtain prompt and decisive action by the Security Council to ensure that Iraq abandons its strategy of delay, evasion, and noncompliance and promptly and strictly complies with all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." ...
The legality of the invasion of Iraq has been challenged since its inception on a number of fronts, and several prominent supporters of the invasion in all the invading nations have publicly and privately cast doubt on its legality. It is claimed that the invasion was fully legal because authorization was implied by the United Nations Security Council.[83][84] International legal experts, including the International Commission of Jurists, a group of 31 leading Canadian law professors, and the U.S.-based Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy have denounced both of these rationales.[85][86][87]
On Thursday November 20, 2003, an article published in the Guardian alleged that Richard Perle, a senior member of the administration's Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee, conceded that the invasion was illegal but still justified.[88][89]
END EXCERPT
"War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal",
by Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger, Nov 20, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/nov/20/usa.iraq1
EXCERPTS:
...
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."
President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.
But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.
French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".
Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.
...
Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, ....
The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies were under imminent threat.
END EXCERPTS
The war rather started [before] 2003, plenty of months before March 19 or 20, 2003, the day of the official launch of the war. Below I'll quote from the following Wikipedia page, but will now add, beforehand, that I also read a few or more years ago that some U.S. soldiers testified about having been members of aerial bombings of Iraq starting (I believe to recall) in May 2002, spring anyway, and going through to I believe September or October, 2002, and while this was, f.e., for disarming Saddam Hussein of his aerial defences.
"2003 invasion of Iraq"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_invasion_of_Iraq
EXCERPT:
Preparation
CIA Special Activities Division (SAD) Paramilitary teams entered Iraq in July 2002 prior to the 2003 invasion. Once on the ground they prepared for the subsequent arrival of US military forces. SAD teams then combined with US Army Special Forces to organize the Kurdish Peshmerga. This joint team combined to defeat Ansar al-Islam, an ally of Al Qaida, in a battle in the northeast corner of Iraq. The US side was carried out by Paramilitary Officers from SAD and the Army's 10th Special Forces Group. [100][101][102]
SAD teams also conducted high risk special reconnaissance missions behind Iraqi lines to identify senior leadership targets. These missions led to the initial strikes against Saddam Hussein and his key generals. ... SAD operations officers were also successful in convincing key Iraqi Army officers to surrender their units once the fighting started and/or not to oppose the invasion force.[105] NATO member Turkey refused to allow its territory to be used for the invasion. As a result, the SAD/SOG and US Army Special Forces joint teams and the Kurdish Peshmerga were the entire northern force against government forces during the invasion. Their efforts kept the 5th Corps of the Iraqi army in place to defend against the Kurds rather than their moving to contest the coalition force.
According to General Tommy Franks, April Fool, an American officer working undercover as a diplomat, was approached by an Iraqi intelligence agent. April Fool then sold to the Iraqi false "top secret" invasion plans provided by Franks' team. This decoy deception successfully misled the Iraqi military into deploying major forces in Northern and Western Iraq in anticipation of attacks via Turkey or Jordan, which never took place. This greatly reduced the defensive capacity in the rest of Iraq and significantly facilitated the actual attacks via Kuwait and the Persian Gulf in the southeast.
END EXCERPT
DAMN hellbent s.o.b's! Definitely [criminals] of supreme order!
"Iraq disarmament crisis"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_disarmament_crisis
"Iraq and weapons of mass destruction"
(historical, timeline, ... and url broken over 2 lines)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
EXCERPTS:
Prelude
In late 2002 Saddam Hussein, in a letter to Hans Blix, invited UN weapons inspectors back into the country. Subsequently the Security Council issued resolution 1441 authorizing new inspections in Iraq. The carefully-worded U.N. resolution put the burden on Iraq, not U.N. inspectors, to prove that they no longer had weapons of mass destruction. (insert: SICK, EVIL JOKE that is! must all be possessed by [demons], the or these bastards must be!) ...
In January 2003, United Nations weapons inspectors reported that they had found no indication that Iraq possessed nuclear weapons or an active program. ...
...
Legal justification
On March 17, 2003, Peter Goldsmith, Attorney General of the UK, set out his government's legal justification for an invasion of Iraq. He said that Security Council resolution 678 authorised force against Iraq, which was suspended but not terminated by resolution 687, which imposed continuing obligations on Iraq to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction. A material breach of resolution 687 would revive the authority to use force under resolution 678. In resolution 1441 the Security Council determined that Iraq was in material breach of resolution 687 because it had not fully carried out its obligations to disarm. Although resolution 1441 had given Iraq a final chance to comply, UK Attorney General Goldsmith wrote "it is plain that Iraq has failed so to comply". Most member governments of the United Nations Security Council made clear that after resolution 1441 there still was no authorization for the use of force. Indeed, at the time 1441 was passed, both the US and UK representatives stated explicitly that 1441 contained no provision for military action. As the New York Times noted about the negotiations,
"There's no 'automaticity' and this is a two-stage process, and in that regard we have met the principal concerns that have been expressed for the resolution,’ [stated US ambassador Negroponte at the time] ‘Whatever violation there is, or is judged to exist, will be dealt with in the council, and the council will have an opportunity to consider the matter before any other action is taken."[73]
The British ambassador to the UN, Sir Jeremy Greenstock concurred,
"We heard loud and clear during the negotiations the concerns about "automaticity" and "hidden triggers" - the concern that on a decision so crucial we should not rush into military action; that on a decision so crucial any Iraqi violations should be discussed by the Council. Let me be equally clear in response, as one of. the co-sponsors of the text we have adopted. There is no "automaticity" in this Resolution.[74]"
The UN itself never had the chance to declare that Iraq had failed to take its "final opportunity" to comply as the US invasion made it a moot point. American President George W. Bush stated that Saddam Hussein had 48 hours to step down and leave Iraq.[75] As the deadline approached, the US announced that forces would be sent to verify his disarmament and a transition to a new government.[citation needed]
...
END EXCERPTS
The first quoted text below is from the same Wikipedia page as above, but under the subheading of, "Between inspections: 1998-2002".
EXCERPT:
Between inspections: 1998-2002
...
In 2002, Scott Ritter stated that, as of 1998, 90–95% of Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical capabilities, and long-range ballistic missiles capable of delivering such weapons, had been verified as destroyed. Technical 100% verification was not possible, said Ritter, not because Iraq still had any hidden weapons, but because Iraq had preemptively destroyed some stockpiles and claimed they had never existed. Many people were surprised by Ritter's turnaround in his view of Iraq during a period when no inspections were made.[58] During the 2002–2003 build-up to war Ritter criticized the Bush administration and maintained that it had provided no credible evidence that Iraq had reconstituted a significant WMD capability. In an interview with Time in September 2002 Ritter said there were attempts to use UNSCOM for spying on Iraq.[59] In doing so, he was merely confirming what had been known since 1999: according to the New York Times for Jan. 8, 1999, , "In March [1998], in a last-ditch attempt to uncover Saddam Hussein's covert weapons and intelligence networks, the United States used the United Nations inspection team to send an American spy into Baghdad to install a highly sophisticated electronic eavesdropping system."[60][61]
END EXCERPT
My last post before this one, with the main theme of Iraq's WMD, which no longer existed, concludes with the topic of legalities and that part ends with information from Scott Ritter.
The following article of his fits strongly well with what the prior post concludes with from him.
"Dinner With Ahmed", Scott Ritter, TruthDig.com, Mar 18, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/18/7738
EXCERPTS:
...
In early June 1998, UNSCOM weapons inspectors received a technical report from a U.S. military laboratory in Aberdeen, Md., which specialized in chemical and biological agent analysis. In March 1998, UNSCOM had retrieved from Iraq several fragments of ballistic missile warheads from a site that had been used by the Iraqis in their program of unilateral destruction of WMD in the summer of 1991. The Iraqis, in an effort to clarify glaring discrepancies in the accounting of their weapons-of-mass-destruction stockpiles, had admitted that a certain number of these warheads had been filled with chemical and biological agent, in particular nerve agent, and anthrax and botulinum toxin biological agent. In an effort to verify the Iraqi claims, UNSCOM had excavated warhead fragments from the declared destruction sites and sent them to the U.S. military laboratory in Aberdeen for analysis.
By early June 1998 the results were back, and they were, on the surface, stunning: Rather than finding evidence of the declared chemical or biological agent that the Iraqis had admitted placing in the warheads, the Aberdeen lab results showed trace evidence of the chemical degradation byproduct of stabilized VX nerve agent, one of the most deadly substances known to man. The Iraqis had admitted trying to produce VX nerve agent in the past, but denied that they had ever succeeded in stabilizing the volatile chemical (...), let alone filling any warhead with VX. The lab results from Aberdeen, if correct, dramatically contradicted the Iraqi claims and potentially turned the entire disarmament effort of UNSCOM in Iraq on its head.
...
... This discovery forced the Iraqis to admit having attempted VX stabilization. But in the end, the Iraqis maintained that all of their efforts had failed, and that VX agent had never been "weaponized," or loaded into a warhead or shell. Now, with the Aberdeen lab report, this last lie seemed to have been uncovered.
Over lunch in the U.N. cafeteria, I listened while the UNSCOM chemical weapons inspectors vented their anger and frustration. ...
...
On June 23rd, The Washington Post published a front-page story headlined "Tests Show Nerve Gas Agent in Iraqi Weapons." The article made the main gist of the Aberdeen lab results public. ...
...
As for the Aberdeen VX lab report, the Iraqi government in the end had been telling the truth. It had not succeeded in stabilizing VX nerve agent, and it had never filled any weapons with the agent. ...
END EXCERPTS
A whole lot of U.S.-UNSCOM friction, ... developed due to the above VX LIE of the USA, as very well explained in the above article.
Re. the USA's "coalition of the willing"
The text that'll be excerpted following the Wikipedia page link is from under the subheading of "Analysis", which is near the end of the page.
"United Nations Security Council and the Iraq War"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The_UN_Security_Council_and_the_Iraq_war
EXCERPT:
The Institute for Policy Studies published a report [6] analyzing what it called the "arm-twisting offensive" by the United States government to get nations to support it. Although President Bush described nations supporting him as the "coalition of the willing", the report concluded that it was more accurately described as a "coalition of the coerced." According to the report, most nations supporting Bush "were recruited through coercion, bullying, and bribery." The techniques used to pressure nations to support the United States included a variety of incentives including:
* Promises of aid and loan guarantees to nations who supported the US
* Promises of military assistance to nations who supported the US
* Threats to veto NATO membership applications for countries who don't do what the US asked
* Leveraging the size of the US export market and US influence over financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
* Deciding which countries receive trade benefits under such laws as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which, as one of its conditions for eligibility for such benefits, requires that a country does "not engage in activities that undermine United States national security interests".
* Deciding what countries it should buy petroleum from in stocking its strategic reserves. The US has exerted such pressure on several oil-exporting nations, such as Mexico.
END EXCERPT
NOW that is criminal, rogue, gangster, ... evil as ... [hell]!
Continuing to excerpt from the same, above, page we get some additional "kicks" out of reading this shit so insanely evil it's [incredible]; only it really happened!
EXCERPT:
At a press conference, the White House press corps broke out in laughter when Ari Fleischer denied that "the leaders of other nations are buyable".
In addition to the above tactics, the British newspaper The Observer published an investigative report revealing that the National Security Agency of the United States was conducting a secret surveillance operation directed at intercepting the telephone and email communications of several Security Council diplomats, both in their offices and in their homes. This campaign, the result of a directive by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, was aimed primarily at the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan. The investigative report cited an NSA memo which advised senior agency officials that it was "'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning information not only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any second resolution on Iraq, but also 'policies', 'negotiating positions', 'alliances' and 'dependencies' - the 'whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises'."
...
Clare Short, a British cabinet minister who resigned in May 2003 over the war, stated in media interviews that British intelligence regularly spied on UN officials. She stated that she had read transcripts of Kofi Annan's conversations.
END EXCERPT
In the introductory text for the above Wikipedia page we learn which states voted for and against this crime.
EXCERPT:
...
Prior to 2002, the Security Council had passed 16 resolutions on Iraq. In 2002, the Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 1441.
In 2003, the governments of the U.S., Britain, and Spain proposed another resolution on Iraq, which they called the "eighteenth resolution" and others called the "second resolution." This proposed resolution was subsequently withdrawn when it became clear that several permanent members of the Council would cast no votes on any new resolution, thereby vetoing it. [1] ... Regardless of the threatened or likely vetoes, it seems that the coalition at no time was assured any more than four affirmative votes in the Council—the U.S., Britain, Spain, and Bulgaria—well short of the requirement for nine affirmative votes.[2]
END EXCERPT
For more information on how the UNSC states voted I already excerpted text and posted it in an earlier post in this page, the post containing the (Wikipedia page) subheading of "Unaccepted resolution". However, the U.S., U.K., Spain, and Bulgaria voted for this crime; regardless of what the rest of the states of the UNSC thought.
We definitely do NOT need to know that false confessions were forcefully obtained through torture by the Bush-[Cheney] administration for trying to "justify" war on Iraq to be able to prosecute them. That could have been done the second it was known that the war was launched on March 19 or 20, 2009, albeit I believe to have read yesterday that the war was actually launched a day earlier and that only the people who "needed" to know knew (but while was actually begun in 2002, as stated in a prior post of mine in this CD page).
Even their curbing of the UN weapons inspections days earlier [was] a criminal act!
The CIA, Bush Senior, Dick Cheney , Bush Junior , Rummy, Rove, Tenet, Goss, and the cast of the lying rat pack are all birds of a feather.
Thats what these people are good at, character assassinations, real assignations,military coups, murder, war misdirection,
and total destruction of anything that gets in their way.
The Main stream media will spend hours over the next 2or 3 months resurrecting Micheal Vick as a reformed soul, and just minutes on the evils of the CIA and Bush/Cheneys illegal Patriots Acts and war of occupation.
There are still billions to be made, and the corporations are going to milk America until everyone in the middle east is dead.
You don't tug on Superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger
And you don't mess around with the CIA, da do da do...
Let the misdirection and the spin misters continue their wars of deception and murder.
BornFreeMen
Victim of bulls??t Patriot Act warrant less surveillance community watch gang stalking torture program.
The really sad part about these fake Christians national security wanna be heroes is that they spent two years following me with the intent of letting me know they were there 24/7,
They tortured me psychologically, they know it, if they were trying to be covert to uncover a terrorist cell, which I am not a member of, they have failed. They used me as a training tool for buddy's nationwide, why? Because I live in Florida, near Tampa, theme parks, beaches and golf.
And I will always know when they are there, because now I am fully aware of what they do, they could never in a million years fool me, but then again, that was not the intent of their surveillance. Torture to drive me crazy was the intent
I have a hard time excusing Colin Powell, he was part and parcel of the Bush administration. As a former general, he represented/represents the military and militarism. It appears that he did himself in at the UN, and its not likely that he will ever be president (but you never know). Anyway, thank God for small favors.
Ray McGovern a former CIA now Jesus freak...
Powell is the face of naivety. mmm ok!
Gee, the CIA lied, distorted evidence, manipulated politicians--whatever Powell knew or didn't.
Gee, might there be an inherent conflict between a shadow agency and transparent government?
Could techniques used to stabilize and destabilize regimes abroad be used at home by, say, buying the particulars a plane ticket to Washington -- those that aren't already there?
I'm all for an agency, central or otherwise, that gathers information and evaluates. But the smell of sulpher's getting kind of strong.