Right before the United States invaded Iraq, Newsweek magazine published a remarkable story. Reporter John Barry revealed that former Iraqi weapons chief Hussein Kamel had told UN inspectors in 1995 that the country had destroyed its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
As FAIR pointed out at the time, this was a remarkable discovery, especially considering that Kamel’s words had be used so often by U.S. officials to serve the opposite point–that Iraq still posed a dire threat. As FAIR pointed out:
According to Newsweek, Kamel told the same story to CIA analysts in August 1995. If that is true, all of these U.S. officials have had access to Kamel’s statements that the weapons were destroyed. Their repeated citations of his testimony–without revealing that he also said the weapons no longer exist–suggests that the administration might be withholding critical evidence. In particular, it casts doubt on the credibility of [Colin] Powell’s February 5 presentation to the UN, which was widely hailed at the time for its persuasiveness.
That brings us to this week’s Newsweek, which includes an excerpt from Powell’s new book. The former secretary of state is still trying to claim that he didn’t mislead anyone about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction. Sure he wishes things had turned out differently, but he’s not the one to blame.
Powell writes:
Facts are verified information, which is then presented as objective reality. The rub here is the verified. How do you verify verified? Facts are slippery, and so is verification. Today’s verification may not be tomorrow’s. It turns out that facts may not really be facts; they can change as the verification changes; they may only tell part of the story, not the whole story; or they may be so qualified by verifiers that they’re empty of information.
Well OK.
He goes on to say, “My warning radar always goes on alert when qualifiers are attached to facts.” So I guess the point is that Colin Powell has these radars, but other people do not. And those people failed him and his warning system:
There is nothing worse than a leader believing he has accurate information when folks who know he doesn’t don’t tell him that he doesn’t. I found myself in trouble on more than one occasion because people kept silent when they should have spoken up. My infamous speech at the UN in 2003 about Iraqi WMD programs was not based on facts, though I thought it was.
And later, still blaming someone else for what he said: “Yes, the evidence was deeply flawed. So why did no one stand up and speak out during the intense hours we worked on the speech?”
As FAIR pointed out, various layers of the U.S. government were aware that the famous defector who was used to advance the Bush/Clinton Iraq WMD argument had actually told investigators that the weapons had been destroyed. Powell says someone should have told him this kind of thing.
It’s hard to believe Powell and his staff weren’t aware of those Kamel interviews. But there’s much more to it than that. Jonathan Schwarz (A Tiny Revolution, 5/10/12) shows pretty clearly that State Department intelligence analysts voiced serious reservations about a number of aspects of the case for war–starting with the infamous Iraqi aluminum tubes story. Schwarz also points out that in his United Nations speech, Powell added incriminating words to an intercepted phone conversation between Iraqi officials.
Indeed, as Schwarz documents, Powell’s presentation at the UN overstated the view of his own intelligence analysts on a number of important points. Arguments that were labeled “weak” by the analysts became facts (or “facts”) in Powell’s presentation.
Powell can blame his subordinates for this, and complain that someone should have stopped him. That’s his right, and hopefully people will see it for what it is.
The real question is why Newsweek would publish this self-serving revisionism. The magazine did critical reporting when it mattered on the Iraq War. Colin Powell wants you to think that never happened, and Newsweek is helping him do that in its own pages.
I’m not certain why it’s stated that someone has a “right” to lie.
I guess that’s the difference between “legality” and “morality”.
Regardless, Newsweek prints this horseshit for the same reasons it does most everything else …
To support the powers that be.
And to make money.
Powell’s career and celebrity allows for a happy marriage of those motives, doesn’t it?
Doug,
I believe the “right to lie’ is contained in the fine print of the “license to kill”.
Since I don’t have a license to kill available for inspection, a FOIA request may be required to determine the facticity this information.
“Facticity” …
I’ll have to remember that.
Thanks, Glenn.
Colin Powell. Wasn’t he the asshole who, as an army major, wrote the report that whitewashed the My Lai massacre?
Weapons inspector Scott Ritter had been put in charge of looking for unaccounted for SCUD missiles and in fact found the remains of all, but 2 or 3. He says he was told point blank that the UN/US would not accept this report and that the official story would be that a large number of the missiles were still unaccounted for.
Yes but weapons inspector Scot Ritter was charged with some sex crime so even though it didn’t have a damn thing to do with WMDs, his cred was spoiled. At least in the US. There is a book, “Curveball”, and another one, “The Italian Letters” which explain how this bogus manure heap was used to justify stealing the Iraqi oil fields. Keep the Military Industrial Complex happy, let saber rattlers keep masturbating on their toys.
Colin Powell’s revision to history is making him lose any and all credibility that he may have ever had. The administration that he was a part of, was getting ready to send troops in harms way. As a retired General, he should have stood up for those troops instead of the President. He did not take an oath to the President, but to the Constitution and as we have seen and continue to see, Powell’s loyalty was to the President and himself.
There is nothing he can say that will convince me that he didn’t know the truth when he was speaking at the UN. Powell will always have blood on his hands for those who died in Iraq. Always!
Maybe if Newsweek had not been (and still is) an apologist for the G. W. Bush administration, they could have avoided the dwindling circulation that caused them to downsize to a biweekly.
Colin Powell should be ashamed of himself. Millions of Americans knew the information he was presenting at the U. N. was bogus. He would have a better chance of restoring his sullied reputation if he just announced that he knew he was lying at the U. N., but he did it because he and the Bush administration wanted to go to war and grab the Iraqi oil fields.
Powell’s problem seems to have been that he took “information” as facts, before they were actually verified. And by verified, I don’t mean by hearsay. Perhaps the problem with politics in general is that unlike empirical scientists, they treat claims as facts before they are verified. This is the height of naiveté.
Also, chains of inferences are not evidence. Unfortunately, politicians seem to rely on them more often than they should.
Finally, there are probably too many bureaucratic levels between analysts and decision makers, so that the analysts’ findings are not accurately passed on to the decision makers.
Aha! But now what? Keyboard activism only goes so far.
Our energies are best spent electing progressives to Congress. Why dilute our power by fighting decade’s old deceit? Let’s elect people who will not tolerate corporatist/militarist/medical profits industry control of our government.
It seems quite obvious why this is coming out the way it is, “War Crimes”! At some point, some country will indict the whole bunch, perhaps even arrest some or all, take them to the Hague, put them on trial. Though this probably won’t occur until the American Empire falls, and even then, those who are still standing, will probably end their own existence.
Lying DEM Enablers!
What? Powell’s words above–“Facts are slippery, and so is verification. Today’s verification may not be tomorrow’s. It turns out that facts may not really be facts; they can change as the verification changes; they may only tell part of the story, not the whole story; or they may be so qualified by verifiers that they’re empty of information.”–are some of the most weasely I’ve ever read (facts are “slippery”? Jesus!). The poster above is right; Powell was instrumental in whitewashing the My Lai massacre. The fact is, Powell is reluctant to admit he lied during his little dog and pony show. “Big” Dick Cheney leaned on him hard, demanding that he play his part. Cheney insisted that Powell use the bogus intel that Powell knew was dubious at best. Cheney knew Powell had credibility, and that the public would buy anything he said. Can you imagine Cheney or Bush (or maybe Andrew Card) lying like that in front of the public? I remember very clearly being at a jobsite and watching the whole sorry thing on the customer’s teevee, my blood boiling with each preposterous lie. Of course, the media went apeshit with glee, declaring that Powell had “hit it out of the park,” among other things. This and Powell’s continuous lying and obfuscating since make him a war criminal like the rest of them. Powell’s always been ready to bow and scrape and use convenient lies to forward his career. It’s now his turn (like Tenant and Cheney and Bush and others before him) to blithely explain away, in the most revolting fashion, his part in the mass murder and mayhem. The whole lot of them belong in the docket at the Hague.
Oh, Colin Powell:
Truthiness? Not. Here’s the problem. I’ve seen that video of you presenting your”evidence.” Here’s what you need to do, Sir.
Watch the video, but turn off the sound, and just watch your body language. Your lips were saying one thing, but your body couldn’t lie. It was telling the truth.
Sorry, but you were lying to all those people when you talked about WMDs. Body language never lies.
yes colin powell is a liar but voting for more progressives for congress is not the answer given that the whole system is hopelessly corrupt and racist. how many years would it take to put righteous people in that rotten institution. i say vote for occupy wall street by hitting the streets.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency at the time (ElBaradei) refuted Powell’s lying testimony but that didn’t stop the U.S. from going to war because the decision had already been made to go to war. Nobody seemed to care about investigating the facts or conflicting information. How much attention did that get in the news media?
I have to ask myself what has happened to the mainstream news media? Has that been hijacked, too?
As for Powell, he owes the world an apology.
For a little more information on “pre Iraq” read Linda McQuaig’s book “It’s the Crude, Dude” and she states that when Cheney became vice Pres. he put together an energy task force, where documentation was then sealed and called secret. Some of that has now leaked and in there is maps of Iraq with no city names, just the names of the oil fields. On those sites were the names of China etc. (other countries other than the US) and Hussein was planning on letting other countries into his oil fields and buying the spoils once the sanctions were lifted when the inspectors found no WMD’s! Cheney could not have that – so the drums of war were sounded!
Powell is disgusting; a criminally dishonest specemin of vermin whose souleless fetid carcass will rot in hell.
Who gives a shit what Powell says and who gives a shit what sordid little journilists and the capitalist newspapers who own them say, write or think, we all know what vermin they are and what infinitely vile, multiple evils they have perpetrated and promoted.
In the land of greed and exploitation, lying is necessary to hold most jobs, but adding excuses like Gen. Powell’s goes over and beyond the rational thinking of these well-read responders. Unfortunately, most Americans are not able to learn more than TV and the msm provides. The “occupiers” are coming under police brutality just because they are the young people who are waking up from their poor treatment from this government of, by and for the 1%.
Powell lied, assisted in the attempted coverup of My Lai. He should have been prosecuted for war crimes. (Of course he may have been found innocent, but he should have been prosecuted.) So, let’s see, a guy who apparently tried to cover up war crimes decades before lies about yet another dirty little war. So, we would expect something else?
Mr.Powell, was also once involved in the U.S.Army ‘investgation’ of the so-called My Lai incident, that covered up the fact, that U.S. troops murderd countless Vietnamese civilians in 1968. My Powell, seems to always have different memories at different times. I watched Colin Powell lie his ass off to the United Nations and the world on live t.v. regarding our ‘necessity’, to invade Iraq, during the GWB days of infamy. Now Newsweek is allowing Powell to lie once again. Does this supposed ‘squeaky clean’ guy ever pay any real price for what he does or claims?
I remember watching Powell report on the WMDs with his truck pictures and so called facts. Anyone with half a brain could tell his presentation was bogus, but most people bought it and then hailed Powell as presidential material. At least he has the sense NOT to run for public office. What gets me is that so many in this country just blindly follow our “heroes” and other leaders who ride on a reputation of little repute.
Word to the wise General.Next time you right a book- remember not to admit you believe Obama is a failure and will NOT receive your endorsement.At least not if you expect to sell to libs.
Correction…”write” a book
Michael e is hearing things again “General, remember not to admit you believe Obama is a failure…”
Powell has never called Obama a failure…
In fact, he was on NBC last week with Matt Lauer
Lauer: “You endorsed Barack Obama back in 2008. You called him a transformational figure who represented generational change. Did you get from President Obama the kind of generational change, was he the transformational figure, or has he been, that you counted on?”
Powell “I think he has been. Not completely. There are some things that he has done that I wish he had not done. For example, leave Guantanamo open. I would have closed that rapidly. He tried, he was stopped by Congress. He stabilized the financial system. He brought about a stability in the economy. He fixed the auto industry. I think he took us out, not completely out, but he took us out of the most difficult problem we were facing at that time, which was an economy that was collapsing. And it’s improving, but not fast enough. So his number one – his number one goal for the rest of this year, as it should have been for the whole four years, is to get the economy running again.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/23/news/la-pn-colin-powell-romney-obama-endorsement-20120523