Was Colin Powell damaged too much?

[zork]

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[mia1994]

Sgt. Longhorn, granted, that said "Curveball's" information was considered suspect at best by the German's. When that information was passed along it was prefaced as such. The Niger/Uranium story had been discreditted by the Nigerians, the Italians (the original source), the British AND the US prior to Powell's arguements. That pretty much leaves the aluminum tubes, which was open to interpretation at best.

The reason why intelligence agencies insulate their sources from the president is to guarantee that the information is properly vetted or at least offered as suspect. When the Bush administration began to bypass the normal proceedure and began "stovepiping" information, they put themselves in a place to cherrypick intellegence without having to address credibility. Whether they believed the threat was credible or not was immaterial, as the information they were looking at was considered flawed even by the nations which originated it.

Powell by taking the administration's word that the information was valid, set himself up for a fall. As such, yeah, I think he is too damaged to have a political future going forward. He can still be viewed as an American Statesman, but what he did in front of the UN was political suicide.

 

[wildcat09]

"Curveball" failed a ******* polygraph and the CIA had branded him a liar, yet the administration still sent Powell to the UN to sell the info gained from Curveball as truth.

There was a captured Al Qaeda operative who was the source for their claims for connections between Saddam and Al Qaeda who was believed to be telling them stories they wanted to hear, and the administration still ran with it.

They didn't care whether the information they used was accurate or not. Their decision to go to war wasn't based on any intelligence information, they had decided long before. Hell, they had even considered skipping Afghanistan and going right into Iraq after 9/11 because Afghanistan didn't present many "good targets". The only role the evidence played was in helping to sell the war. The only people who don't see it are the people who don't want to see it. It doesn't get any clearer than: "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."


I would love to know how this war will make the whole region better off. That sounds like a bunch of ******** to me.

 

[Lone Star]

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[Summerof79]

The sad thing is that I honestly believe in my heart of hearts that the Domestic election cycle was as big a factor as any in Bush's push to war in Iraq. Now the fact the administration nearly universally thought we could have a quick victory in Iraq and that it wasn't going to even be that expensive probably allowed for the Domestic political election to have much greater weight than it would have had for most Presidents.

In the end Powell simply trusted George W. Bush. Probably because for Powell the idea that a sitting U.S. President would push troops toward war for Domestic political gain was somethng that he would have never anticipated.

His appearance on Bush's behalf will be viewed as the lowpoint of his entire life...