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Titolo: Lie After Lie: What Exactly Colin Powell Knew Five Years Ago Today, And What He

Lie After Lie: What Exactly Colin Powell Knew Five Years Ago Today, And
What He Told The World
(For a round up of blog posts on the Powell anniversary, see here.)
Colin Powell made his Iraq presentation at the UN five years ago, on
February 5, 2003.
As much criticism as Powell has received for this—he calls it "painful"
and something that will "always be a part of my record"—it hasn't been
close to what's justified. Powell was far more than just horribly
mistaken: the evidence is conclusive that he fabricated evidence and
ignored repeated warnings that what he was saying was false.
Unfortunately, Congress has never investigated Powell's use of the
intelligence he was given. Even so, what's already in the public record is
extremely damning. So while the corporate media has never taken a close
look at this record, we can go through Powell's presentation line by line
to demonstrate the chasm between what he knew, and what he told the world.
As you'll see, there's quite a lot to say about it.
Powell's speech can be found on the State Department website here. All
other sources are linked below.
PUBLIC CERTAINTY, PRIVATE DOUBT
On that February 5 in front of the UN Security Council, was Colin Powell
certain what he was saying was accurate? He certainly was:
POWELL: My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by
sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you
are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
Later, regarding whether Iraq had reconstituted a nuclear weapons program,
he said:
POWELL: [T]here is no doubt in my mind... 
That's in public. What about in private? According to Larry Wilkerson,
Powell's chief of staff, here's what Powell was thinking at the time:
WILKERSON: [Powell] had walked into my office musing and he said words to
the effect of, I wonder how we'll all feel if we put half a million troops
in Iraq and march from one end of the country to the other and find
nothing.
UNAMBIGUOUS LIES
This is some of what Powell said about the infamous aluminum tubes
purchased by Iraq, supposedly meant for their covert nuclear weapons
program:
POWELL: [I]t strikes me as quite odd that these [aluminum] tubes are
manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for
comparable rockets. Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional
weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so.
Powell's own intelligence staff, the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR), prepared two memos commenting on drafts
of the presentation. They were later quietly released as appendices to the
Senate Intelligence Committee's report on WMD intelligence.
The second INR memo, written on February 3, 2003, told Powell this:
Our key remaining concern is the claim that the tubes are manufactured to
a tolerance that "far exceeds US requirements for comparable rockets." In
fact, the most comparable US system is a tactical rocket--ťthe US Mark 66
air-launched 70mm rocket--ťthat uses the same, high-grade (7075-T6)
aluminum, and that has specifications with similar tolerances. Note that
the Mk 66 specifications are unclassified, and the Department is planning
to share them with the IAEA.
FABRICATED EVIDENCE
Powell played an intercept of a conversation between Iraqi army officers
about the UN inspections. However, when he translated what they were
saying, he knowingly embellished it, turning it from evidence Iraq was
complying with U.N. resolutions to evidence Iraq was violating them. This
appears in Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack:
[Powell] had decided to add his personal interpretation of the intercepts
to the rehearsed script, taking them substantially further and casting
them in the most negative light...Concerning the intercept about
inspecting for the possibility of "forbidden ammo," Powell took the
interpretation further: "Clean out all of the areas... Make sure there is
nothing there." None of this was in the intercept.
Here's the conversation as Powell presented it at the UN. As Woodward
reported, the underlined sentences were simply added by Powell:
POWELL: "They're inspecting the ammunition you have, yes.'' 
"Yes."
"For the possibility there are forbidden ammo."
"For the possibility there is by chance forbidden ammo?''
"Yes."
"And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the
scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there.''
Powell then explained:
This is all part of a system of hiding things and moving things out of the
way and making sure they have left nothing behind.
According to the official State Department translation (and confirmed for
me by Imad Khadduri), the Iraqi soldier merely said:
"And we sent you a message to inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned
areas."
And it's no surprise the Iraqi said this. Here's what the Duelfer report
found about what was going on within the Iraqi government just before the
January 30th intercepted conversation:
The NMD director met with Republican Guard military leaders on 25 January
2003 and advised them they were to sign documents saying that there was no
WMD in their units, according to a former Iraqi senior officer. Husam Amin
told them that the government would hold them responsible if UNMOVIC found
any WMD in their units or areas, or if there was anything that cast doubt
on Iraq’s cooperation with UNMOVIC. Commanders established committees to
ensure their units retained no evidence of old WMD. 
Again: Powell took evidence of the Iraqis doing what they were supposed to
do—ťi.e., searching their gigantic ammunition dumps to make sure they
weren't accidentally holding onto banned chemical weapons—ťand doctored it
to make it look as if Iraq were hiding banned weapons. 
Since the State Department was questioned about this by journalist Gilbert
Cranberg, the translation at variance with Powell's version has
disappeared from its site. It's now available only via 
archive.org
.
DECEPTION BY OMISSION
Powell's presentation left out extremely important information, as here:
POWELL: Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took
years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the
deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in
minutes. Four tons. 
The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a
result of the defection of Hussein Kamal, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law.
As far as this went, this was accurate. However, Kamel, the head of Iraq's
WMD programs, defected in 1995. Iraq had produced this VX before the Gulf
War, in 1991—ťand according to Kamel, Iraq had secretly destroyed it soon
after the war. Then they lied about ever producing it (until his
defection). But according to Kamel, they weren't lying when they said they
no longer had it.
Indeed, in the UN's notes from Kamel's debriefing, he says Iraq had no
remaining WMD of any kind:
KAMEL: All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered destruction of all
chemical weapons. All weapons -- biological, chemical, missiles, nuclear
were destroyed.
And if that weren't enough, Kamel also said this in an interview on CNN:
SADLER: Can you state here and now -- does Iraq still to this day hold
weapons of mass destruction? 
KAMEL: No. Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. I am
being completely honest about this. 
But in 1996 Kamel returned to Iraq, where he was killed by Saddam's
regime. Thus the U.S. could safely take a witness who truthfully had said
Iraq had no remaining banned weapons, and pretend his testimony indicated
the exact opposite.
Did Powell know what he was doing at the time? It's unclear. Here's a
transcript of an exchange between Powell and Sam Husseini in Washington in
December, 2006, with video below:
HUSSEINI: You cited Hussein Kamel in your U.N. testimony. Did you know he
said there were no WMDs? 
POWELL: I only knew what the intelligence community told me.
HUSSEINI: But did you know that fact?
POWELL: Of course not! 
HUSSEINI: You didn't know that, even though it was reported?
POWELL: I've answered your question!
As you can see in the video, Powell was not happy to explore this line of
questioning. (He's also never shown any inclination to find out who
purportedly steered him wrong; when asked by Barbara Walters asked who was
responsible for the mistakes in the overall presentation, Powell stated "I
don't have the names.")
IGNORED WARNINGS
As mentioned above, the State Department's intelligence staff, called the
INR, prepared two memos on the presentation. They directly contradicted
Powell on the aluminum tubes issue, but also warned him many of his claims
were "weak," "not credible" or "highly questionable." Here are some
(amazingly enough, not all) of the examples the memos give.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: We know that Saddam's son, Qusay, ordered the removal of all
prohibited weapons from Saddam's numerous palace complexes.
The first INR memo, from January 29, 2003, flagged this claim as "WEAK":
second bullet. WEAK. Qusay order to remove prohibited items from palaces.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: [K]ey files from military and scientific establishments have been
placed in cars that are being driven around the countryside by Iraqi
intelligence agents to avoid detection.
The first INR memo:
last bullet. WEAK. Sensitive files being driven around in cars, in
apparent shell game. Plausibility open to question.
This claim was again flagged in the second INR memo, from February 3, 2003:
Page 4, last bullet, re key files being driven around in cars to avoid
inspectors. This claim is highly questionable and promises to be targeted
by critics and possibly UN inspection officials as well.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: [W]e know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was
disbursing [sic] rocket launchers and warheads containing biological
warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various
locations in western Iraq.
January 29, 2003 INR memo:
last bullet. WEAK. Missiles with biological warheads reportedly dispersed.
This would be somewhat true in terms of short-range missiles with
conventional warheads, but is questionable in terms of longer-range
missiles or biological warheads.
February 3, 2003 INR memo:
Page 5. first para, claim re missile brigade dispersing rocket launchers
and BW warheads. This claim too is highly questionable and might be
subjected to criticism by UN inspection officials.
At the UN, Powell described a satellite picture this way:
The two arrows indicate the presence of sure signs that the bunkers are
storing chemical munitions... 
The truck you [...] see is a signature item. It's a decontamination
vehicle in case something goes wrong.
January 29, 2003 INR memo:
***/WEAK. We support much of this discussion, but we note that
decontamination vehicles--cited several times in the text--are water
trucks that can have legitimate uses... 
..Iraq has given UNMOVIC what may be a plausible account for this
activity--ťthat this was an exercise involving the movement of
conventional explosives; presence of a fire safety truck (water truck,
which could also be used as a decontamination vehicle) is common in such
an event.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them
sources of the intelligence services of other countries.
February 3, 2003 INR memo:
Numerous references to humint as fact. (E.g., "We know that...) We have
been told that some are being adjusted, but we gather some others--such as
information involving multiple-corroboration--ťwill stay...In the Iraq
context, "multiple corroboration" hardly guarantees authenticity of
information.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: [I]n mid-December weapons experts at one facility were replaced by
Iraqi intelligence agents who were to deceive inspectors about the work
that was being done there.
January 29, 2003 INR memo:
last bullet. **/WEAK. Iraqi intelligence officials posing as WMD
scientists. Such claims are not credible and are open to criticism,
particularly by the UN inspectorates.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: A dozen [WMD] experts have been placed under house arrest, not in
their own houses, but as a group at one of Saddam Hussein's guest houses.
January 29, 2003 INR memo:
second bullet. WEAK. 12 experts reportedly under house arrest... Highly
questionable.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for
launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons.
January 29, 2003 INR memo:
..the claim that experts agree UAVs fitted with spray tanks are "an ideal
method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons" is WEAK.
• • • 
Now, with that for context, it's useful to look back at what Powell said
in a November, 2005 interview with Barbara Walters:
There was some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time
that some of these sources were not good and shouldn't be relied upon, and
they didn't speak up. That devastated me.
That can be contrasted with this October, 2003 exchange from 60 Minutes II
with Greg Thielmann, who headed the office of Strategic, Proliferation,
and Military Affairs in the INR until September 2002:
PELLEY: If the secretary took the information that his own intelligence
bureau had developed and turned it on its head, which is what you're
saying, to what end? 
Mr. THIELMANN: I can only assume that he was doing it to loyally support
the president of the United States and build the strongest possible case
for arguing that there was no alternative to the use of military force.
Clearly, Powell's loyalty to George Bush extended to being willing to
deceive the world: the United Nations, Americans, and the coalition troops
about to be sent to kill and die in Iraq. He has never been held
accountable for his actions, and it's extremely unlikely he ever will be.
—Jonathan Schwarz
-- 
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No all'antisemitismo "anche quando esso
si travesta da antisionismo". E' l'appello lanciato da Giorgio 
Napolitano nella giornata della Memoria, (dello scorso anno ndt) 
celebrata al Quirinale, in una cerimonia solenne cui hanno partecipato 
anche il presidente del Consiglio Romano Prodi, i presidenti della 
Camera e Senato Fausto Bertinotti e Franco Marini.
"Antisionismo", ha detto il capo dello stato, "significa negazione della 
fonte ispiratrice dello stato ebraico, delle ragioni della sua nascita, 
ieri, e della sua sicurezza oggi, al di là dei governi che si alternano 
nella guida di Israele".
Il Presidente della Repubblica Italiana:
Giorgio Napolitano.