Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Intervista a Colin Powell

Powell regrets UN speech on Iraq WMDs
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1456650.htm
Toh, molti dei report esaminati da Powell erano falsi. Adesso sarebbe
anche interessante sapere chi li ha messi sulla sua scrivania.
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Former US secretary of state Colin Powell says his United Nations
speech making the case for the US-led war on Iraq was "a blot" on his
record.
Mr Powell has also said that he had "never seen evidence to suggest" a
connection between the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United
States and the Saddam regime.
In the February 2003 presentation to the UN Security Council, Mr Powell
forcefully made the case for war on the regime of Saddam Hussein,
offering "proof" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
The presentation included satellite photos of trucks that Mr Powell
identified as mobile bioweapons laboratories.
After the invasion, US weapons inspectors reported finding no Iraqi
nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
In an interview with American ABC TV news to be broadcast on Friday (US
time), Mr Powell said "it's a blot" on his record.
"I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the
world, and (it) will always be a part of my record. It was painful.
It's painful now," he said.
Mr Powell spent five days at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
headquarters ahead of the speech studying intelligence reports, many of
which turned out to be false.
He said he felt "terrible" at being misinformed.
However, he did not blame CIA director George Tenet.
Mr Tenet "did not sit there for five days with me misleading me," he
said.
"He believed what he was giving to me was accurate."
Some members of the US intelligence community "knew at that time that
some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and
they didn't speak up," Mr Powell said.
"These are not senior people, but these are people who were aware that
some of these resources should not be considered reliable," he said.
"I was enormously disappointed."
Civil war concern
As for post-Saddam Iraq, Mr Powell said there was little choice but to
keep investing in the Iraqi armed forces.
"What we didn't do in the immediate aftermath of the war was to impose
our will on the whole country, with enough troops of our own, with
enough troops from coalition forces, or, by (quickly) recreating the
Iraqi (armed) forces," he said.
"It may not have turned out to be such a mess if we had done some
things differently."
Mr Powell also voiced concern over a possible civil war in Iraq.
"A way has to be found for the Sunnis to be brought into the political
process. You cannot let ... Iraq devolve into a mini-state in the
north, a larger mini-state in the south, and sort of nothing in the
middle," he said.
"The mission we set for ourselves at the beginning, and which we told
the Iraqis that we were going to do, is to keep this as a single state.
And that's the challenge that we have now."
Mr Powell downplayed his reported differences with Vice President Dick
Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, and said he was on
good terms with President George W Bush.
"There are some who say, 'well, you shouldn't have supported (the war),
you should have resigned', but I'm glad that Saddam Hussein is gone,"
Mr Powell said.
On Washington's differences with Tehran, Mr Powell also said he does
not see "a clear military option with respect to Iran".