“I was deeply disturbed by what intelligence presented to me and to the rest of us, and what really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of the sourcing.”
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell
BBC INTERVIEW, VIDEO HERE
Advise to George Bush…
Don’t check the mailbox for a sloppy “please forgive me” card from Nancy Pelosi, don’t expect an American Greetings ecard from Howard Dean in your email, don’t look for Dick Durbin to pick up the phone and call begging for forgiveness, or for Teddy Kennedy to ask you out for drinks… even though news came out today that the Administration never knew of any doubts on WMD information given to them before the war. From the Sunday Herald Sun’s interview with Colin Powell:
THE US administration was never told of doubts about the secret intelligence used to justify war with Iraq, former secretary of state Colin Powell told the BBC in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday night.
Mr Powell, who argued the case for military action against Saddam Hussein in the UN in 2003, told BBC News 24 television he was “deeply disappointed in what the intelligence community had presented to me and to the rest of us.”
“What really upset me more than anything else was that there were people in the intelligence community that had doubts about some of this sourcing, but those doubts never surfaced to us,” he said.Mr Powell’s comments follow US President George W. Bush’s acceptance earlier this week of responsibility for going to war on intelligence, much of which “turned out to be wrong”.
And here is another bit of buried news by our media:
President Bush insisted he was still right to order the invasion and argued a hurried withdrawal would be “a recipe for disaster”.
The British government, Washington’s key allies in the invasion, has similarly refused to give a withdrawal date for its 8,000 or so troops in Iraq’s four southern states, although has said it could happen next year.
And, Powell, who I believe outranked John Murtha, but I could be wrong on that, also spoke out for keeping the troops in place until the job is done.
“Essentially just to walk away, to say that we’re taking all of our troops out as fast as we can, would be a tragic mistake”. A US presence would be required in Iraq for “years”, he added.
“We’ve invested a great deal in this country, and the Iraqi people deserve democracy and the freedom that they were promised when we got rid of Saddam Hussein and we have to stay with them… until they decide that they can get it now on their own, they don’t need us any longer,” he added.
“And even then, I suspect, there will be a continuing relationship and presence of some significance for some years to come.”
Powell also accuses America’s European Allies of hypocrisy in feigning shock to CIA flights:
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has indicated that Europeans are being disingenuous when they deny knowledge of the rendition of terror suspects.
Mr Powell said the recently highlighted practice of moving people to places where they are not covered by US law was neither “new or unknown” to Europe.“Well, most of our European friends cannot be shocked that this kind of thing takes place… The fact that we have, over the years, had procedures in place that would deal with people who are responsible for terrorist activities, or suspected of terrorist activities, and so the thing that is called rendition is not something that is new or unknown to my European friends.”
Powell said this practice of rendition, or moving prisoners, was not new.
Mark in Mexico has more thoughts. Glenn reported this last night.
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