THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.
“I tried to avoid this war,” Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. “I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.”
So he spent a whole 2 1/2 hours trying to talk shrub out of the war? I'm sure the 3,600 or so dead soldiers appreciate that level of effort.
Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. “The civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,” he said. “It’s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don’t know any way to avoid it. It is happening now.”
He added: “It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States.” All the military could do, Powell suggested, was put “a heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew”.
Colin, it's not like you had some sort of public forum to oppose the war from or anything. I mean, like talking to the UN. I seem to recall a presentation that you made, but I don't recall it being in opposition to the war.
What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior. The facts on Iraq's behavior demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort -- no effort -- to disarm as required by the international community.
Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime
are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction.http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/
Not exactly a profile in courage.
4 comments:
count him as another promising light doused by GWB
Colin Powell lapsed into Uncle Tom irrelevance years ago in front of the U.N.
I don't even give him credit for "too little, too late." When I, an insignificant John Doe, knew beforehand that this would be a cluster-fuck that will keep the U.S. in Iraq for decades and erode U.S. standing in the world (not just amongst Muslims), then somebody with much better clearance and information should know a lot more than myself.
Hey Powell? They shit on you a couple of years ago; don't come out in public and give them a chance to use you as the rag to wipe their ass.
Sweaterman, please don't sugar-coat it! Post it! Dammit!
Remember the documents he used to "prove" part of his case were forged.
The International Atomic Energy Agency called them, "obvious forgeries", but like everything else La Cosa Bushtra played dumb;
"They are. Seriously? You mean Mickey Mouse isn't a real person? Why, his signature is right there. How were we supposed to know?"
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