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World News See other World News Articles Title: JOE LAURIA: Powell & Iraq—How One Resignation May Have Stopped the Disastrous Invasion An article in the NYT Magazine on Sunday tells us how the CIA helped cook the evidence to invade Iraq and why Colin Powell should have resigned rather than go along with it. On the morning of Feb. 5, 2003 I was in my office, an old radio booth overlooking the Trusteeship Council at UN Headquarters in New York, when I decided to walk over one chamber towards the Security Council. I entered a corridor on the left, high above the council, and went into an empty interpreter’s booth. I looked down on the scene below. The space was packed, the first time I’d seen the public gallery full in the 13 years to that point that I had covered the UN. The palpable tension in the air was what one might expect before a bullfight. I could see the then U.S. secretary of state, Colin Powell, in the crowd near his seat at the council’s horseshoe table, conversing with other diplomats. I then went back to my office to watch the UN feed as the proceedings commenced. The secretary of state put on a performance punctuated by a photograph that went around the world and which I immediately dubbed Powell’s “vile display.” It showed him at the Security Council table holding up what he said was a model vial of anthrax, a deadly biological weapon that Powell claimed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had an ample supply of. Powell’s “vile display” at Security Council with CIA Director George Tenet behind him. (US Government) “My … purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iraq’s involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions,” Powell began. Resolution 1441, passed by the Security Council three months earlier, had given Iraq one last chance to come clean with the UN’s WMD weapons inspectors or face “serious consequences.” “My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources,” Powell told the council. “These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.” The ‘Facts’ Among the “facts” and “solid intelligence” Powell claimed were Iraq’s procurement of the now infamous aluminum tubes he said were to be used in centrifuges as part of Saddam’s effort to restart a nuclear weapons program. “These illicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material,” Powell said. Another key “fact” was that Iraq had “mobile biological research laboratories,” according to an “Iraqi major who defected.” Major U.S. media were fully convinced. “Irrefutable,” read the headline of a Washington Post editorial, which said: “AFTER SECRETARY OF STATE Colin L. Powell’s presentation to the United Nations Security Council yesterday, it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Powell left no room to argue seriously that Iraq has accepted the Security Council’s offer of a “final opportunity” to disarm. … Mr. Powell’s evidence, including satellite photographs, audio recordings and reports from detainees and other informants, was overwhelming. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, called it ‘powerful and irrefutable.'” The New York Times editorial said: “Secretary of State Colin Powell presented the United Nations and a global television audience yesterday with the most powerful case to date that Saddam Hussein stands in defiance of Security Council resolutions and has no intention of revealing or surrendering whatever unconventional weapons he may have.” The Times cautioned: “Because the consequences of war are so terrible, and the cost of rebuilding Iraq so great, the United States cannot afford to confront Iraq without broad international support.” Despite Powell’s presentation and the U.S. media’s embrace of it, every other nation on the Security Council, with the exception of Britain and Spain, was highly skeptical of the U.S. argument for war, including allies Germany and France. Rumors were already swirling at UN headquarters that Powell had not been entirely on board with this speech and had spent the previous night at CIA headquarters in Virginia demanding better evidence to justify a U.S. invasion of a sovereign nation. Blix and ElBaradei Respond ElBaradei (l.) and Blix at Security Council. Feb. 14, 2003 (UN Photo/Sophia Paris) Nine days later, Powell was back at the Security Council on Feb. 14 for a report by Hans Blix, chairman of UNMOVIC, the UN’s weapons inspectors, and Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in charge of discovering whether Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. Again the chamber was packed, including the public gallery. Blix told the council that the inspections had been proceeding without hindrance from Iraq. He said: “Since we arrived in Iraq, we have conducted more than 400 inspections covering more than 300 sites. All inspections were performed without notice, and access was almost always provided promptly. In no case have we seen convincing evidence that the Iraqi side knew in advance that the inspectors were coming.” It was not what Powell wanted to hear. “Inspections are producing results. … The option of inspections has not been taken to the end,” French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said. “The use of force would be so fraught with risk for people, for the region and for international stability that it should only be envisioned as a last resort.” De Villepin continued: “No one today can claim the path of war will be shorter than the path of inspections. No one can claim that it would lead to a safer, more just, more stable world. For war is always the sanction of failure. Would this be our sole recourse in the face of the many challenges at this time? So let us give the United Nations inspectors the time they need for their mission to succeed.” With Powell sitting across from de Villepin, the packed public gallery suddenly erupted into a roar of approval of the French foreign minister, the spectators rising to their feet. It was a moment that defined the United Nations as a collection of international will to oppose even the mighty United States when it was dead set on a murderous, hegemonic course, without cause other than furthering its own power. According to The Guardian, Powell was incensed: “Colin Powell, US Secretary of State and former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, swept out of the Security Council chamber and stalked down the escalators to the basement briefing room. He had just heard Blix practically destroy any hope of the second resolution being passed by the Security Council. He was furious. Powell ordered officials to gather together the ‘E10’, the 10 elected members of the Security Council. He wanted to make his position clear. He, along with Blair, had been the man who had persuaded Bush that a route through the UN and the building of an international coalition was the way to disarm Saddam. The President, after initial reluctance, had finally agreed. Powell had used up a lot of political capital.” In the council chamber Powell had dismissed Blix’s briefing as mere “process” and said “these are all tricks that are being played on us.” He added: “The burden now is on Saddam Hussein with respect to the question of whether there will be war or peace.” France and Germany joined China and Russia and other council members in asking for the inspectors to be given more time. After his speech, at the press stakeout outside the Security Council chamber, I asked de Villepin what could be done to stop the war. He repeated that France and other nations would continue to support the work of the UN inspectors. Some days after this I found myself alone in a corridor with Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British ambassador to the UN. With momentum now shifted against the U.S. and UK, I asked him why now, after 12 years of incremental progress of UN inspections, with inspections ongoing, with the inspectors declaring no major unfound WMD, and with Iraq threatening no one, was there this sudden drive towards war? “Because Washington says so,” Greenstock told me in an extraordinary moment of candor. It was that simple. Washington said, “Jump!” and London asked, “How high?” Except Berlin and Paris had unusually joined Moscow and Beijing in saying, “No.” Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 12.
#1. To: Ada (#0)
This is nothing but hooey. The U.S. invaded Iraq because Saddam was selling oil for Euros. This violated the U.S. policy of Dollar Supremacy. Saddam had to go and he did. ;)
All the more reason why Powell should have done the right thing and resigned.
How could he resign? He was The First African African-American Secretary of State. The First of anything -- if it involves a female or a non- White or a pervert -- is always The Best Thing That Ever Happened.
The disease of firstism -- bad news!
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