Did he lie to the nation?

[Gorque]

Colin Powell passed away today and I am saddened by his passing, for to me, he always put the nation first, above politics, IMHO. However, his testimony before the U.N. is, suspect. Did he lie intentionally?

PS: If this O.P. transgresses forum rules, kindly delete it.

[Linkagain]

Not unless he was ordered to

[VanillaNuns]

Colin Powell always struck me as a decent and honorable man. He was sounded out as a possible VP to run alongside George Bush in the 2000 election campaign, but wouldn't compromise on his principles. He was a moderate who couldn't endorse some of Bush's right wing social policies.

[ljadw]

Of course he did lie ,after all he was a politician and later he was fired by Bush for disloyalty .

[VanillaNuns]

Colin Powell wasn't sacked. He had already made known his intention to serve one term as Secretary of State and resign after the 2004 election.

https://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITIC ... index.html

He had, however, made his position untenable by making comments about the Bush administration's foreign policy decisions whilst still in office.

Why? Because he had nothing to lose, he was going to retire anyway.

If you tell your boss you are going to resign at the end of the week and everyone in the office already knows, the boss can't turn around and sack you the day before without looking like an idiot...

Bush probably did want Powell gone. But why pick a fight when he'd already decided to step down of his own accord...

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Gorque,

What was the alleged lie?

If it related to WMDs, it should be remembered that the British, French and Russian intelligence services all thought Iraq still had them.

Furthermore, if the US was intent on lying, one has to wonder why it didn't prepare WMD material to plant in Iraq.

Assuming you are talking about WMDs, it looks like a cock-up rather than a conspiracy, with a bit of wish-fulfilment thrown in.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Gorque]

Hi Gorque,

What was the alleged lie?

If it related to WMDs, it should be remembered that the British, French and Russian intelligence services all thought Iraq still had them.

Furthermore, if the US was intent on lying, one has to wonder why it didn't prepare WMD material to plant in Iraq.

Assuming you are talking about WMDs, it looks like a cock-up rather than a conspiracy, with a bit of wish-fulfilment thrown in.

Cheers,

Sid.

Hi Sid:

Yes. My understanding is, he did perform an intensive review of the evidence presented to him by the various intelligence agencies and rejected what was unsupported.

In regards to planting evidence, IMHO, the place was crawling with journalists as well as inspectors (1,000+) from the ISG.

Cock-up or more likely a misrepresentation of the "evidence"? e.g: Yellowcake from Niger, aluminum tubes purported for use in a centrifuges despite their length being wrong for such use.

My personal opinion, intense pressure from the Chickenhawks and falsified, and/or hyped-up reports, i.e., no intentional lying on his part.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Gorque,

I agree, "no intentional lying on his part". I would extend this to the government generally. Saddam was keeping up the impression he still had WMDs as an insurance policy and all the major foreign intelligence services believed it. Add to this wish-fulfillment in the US and UK Governments looking for every bit of leverage they could get and they grasped at any straw proffered, however, weak.

Cheers,

Sid.

[ljadw]

The decision to attack Iraq was taken before and independent of what the intelligence services were saying about WMD .
US could have attacked Iraq before 9/11 ,it did not although it had justified reasons to do it .

[ljadw]

Colin Powell always struck me as a decent and honorable man. He was sounded out as a possible VP to run alongside George Bush in the 2000 election campaign, but wouldn't compromise on his principles. He was a moderate who couldn't endorse some of Bush's right wing social policies.

Bush was more to the left than people think .