Colin Powell Quotes
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you is facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails. Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between one hundred and five hundred tons of chemical weapons agent...He remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.
Powell's Performance was a great boost for U. S. foreign policy because he was so respected for his integrity. Powell persuaded much of the diplomatic community that the United States was justified in invading Iraq. Tragically, what Powell said was not true. He had been given false and doctored information by the CIA, the Vice President, and others at the White House. Powell lost the great respect that much of the diplomatic world had for him, and the affect on him was personally devastating. He took no more public positions. The change in American public opinion about Powell that resulted was dramatic even though Powell himself was deceived.
Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State (Republican), U.S. Army General & National Security Advisor, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Speech to the U.N., February 2003, Quoted in Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco- The American Military Adventure in Iraq
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
It is with this certainty that the Vice President led the effort to invade Iraq in a preemptory war. After the invasion it was discovered that Iraq did not have any nuclear weapons or any other WMDs. Further, Iraq had no WMD development program of any kind. The rationale for the Iraq War was nill.
The claims of the President that Hussein even had weapons of mass destruction were untrue. Eagleburger’s criteria for war would have been even more stringent as is clear in this quotation. Foreign affairs experienced members of the President’s own party tried to dissuade him from this disastrous plan of invading Iraq but were unable to.
This information was proven false after the invasion of Iraq. The British were persuaded it was true because the US intelligence had reached the same conclusions. And the Americans were much more confident that Saddam was actively producing WMDs because British intelligence said so. In reality, both intelligence agencies relied on the same set of false information to reach this conclusion. There was no Iraq nuclear program and no chemical or biological weapons production either. The major British-American reason for initiating the Iraq war was without foundation. It is still debated whether it was a deliberate strategy on the part of the Bush administration and the American neo conservatives or just bad intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic.
The background of the statement was Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
As a member of NATO, the Prime Minister was given the same faulty intelligence that the Bush Administration gave to Congress, our allies and gave to Colin Powell to brief the United Nations. All were similarly misled. There were no WMDs in Iraq and Iraq did not even have an active program to develop them.
Colin Luther Powell is an American politician, diplomat and retired four-star general who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. Powell was the first African-American Secretary of State. Prior to the election of Barack Obama as president in 2008, Powell and his successor, Condoleezza Rice, were the highest-ranking African Americans in the history of the federal executive branch (by virtue of the Secretary of State standing fourth in the presidential line of succession). Powell served as the 16th United States National Security Advisor from 1987 to 1989 and as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.
