Via FireDogLake, we have the following juicy morsel. Read it carefully, you're going to be tested on it at the end (emphasis added):
... On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department’s top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim...
I queried Powell at a reception following a talk he gave in Los Angeles on Monday. Pointing out that the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate showed that his State Department had gotten it right on the nonexistent Iraq nuclear threat, I asked why did the president ignore that wisdom in his stated case for the invasion?
“The CIA was pushing the aluminum tube argument heavily and Cheney went with that instead of what our guys wrote,” Powell said. And the Niger reference in Bush’s State of the Union speech? “That was a big mistake,” he said. “It should never have been in the speech. I didn’t need Wilson to tell me that there wasn’t a Niger connection. He didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know. I never believed it.”
And now, the $64,000 question -- who in the above was the "liar?" Was it Powell, who now admits he knew the Niger claim was bogus but still hyped it at the time, anyway? Was it Dick Cheney, who was told one thing but insisted on pushing a totally different story? Or was it George W. Dumbass, who knew he was promoting nonsense but went ahead and did it anyway?
Your answer?
4 comments:
A: All of the above.
All of the above.
Who will get impeached over it?
None of the above.
I'm going to differ slightly on this - I think Cheney and Bush both knowingly propogated their lies deliberately.
Although Powell may have known he was lying, I think his participation was reluctant. His relatively quick marginalization in the administration after the US decided to "go it alone" speaks volumes.
Additionally, Powell's body language during the run-up made it quite clear that he was uncomfortable with what he was saying.
(That doesn't entirely absolve Powell, but I think he was acting "under pressure" from Cheney, Bush and others, and perhaps holds a lesser degree of culpability)
Powell has probably had a lot more "sleepless nights" than Bush or Cheney.
Post a Comment