Category Archives: The Puzzling Mr. Colin Powell

Daily Show – Colin Powell And Friends “Flooding The Zone”

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This clip is also from June 9th and provides a great recap of the fast talking going on by the Repubs all day Sunday on the various major news networks regarding their WMD lies. Stewart has edited in a little footage from one of Colin Powell’s WMD speeches, just so we can all refresh our memory about what was said.
I’m also about to post some footage of my own that I was able to dig up from the weeks before the Shrub War that should help to refresh our memories a bit 🙂

“The Republicans, for the first time in this Administration, are on the defensive. Their tactic can be best described as “flooding the zone.”

The Repubs Flood The Zone (Small – 7 MB)
The Repubs Flood The Zone (Hi-Res – 96 MB)






The Daily Show (the best news on television).

Powell Defends WMD Claims

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Colin Powell has spoken up about the onslaught of allegations that he (along with the rest of the Shrub Administration) lied to Congress and the U.N. and the American People and the rest of the world about having indisputable evidence of Sadaam’s WMDs.
He’s spoken up to say, in a nutshell, “Did not! You can take my word for it.”
We’re not taking your word for anything Colin. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Cough up with the evidence or forget it. Put up or shut up.
And this doesn’t count (shown within context below) “Iraq used these weapons against Iran in the late ’80s” — what does having weapons in the late 80’s have to do with having them last February? You told us that he had them THIS YEAR. Remember? That’s why we had to go in to protect ourselves and the rest of the world…remember?
And what’s this stuff about not using the information about buying uranium from Niger in his speech? I thought he absolutely used that evidence in one of his U.N. speeches.
You guys want to help me clarify this one way or the other? (Whether or not he used the Niger evidence in his U.N. speech.)
Update 11:13 am PST – Readers have refreshed my memory that it was the Shrub that used the Niger evidence in his January speech, not Colin who used it in one of his U.N. speeches.
So that means tha the “evidence” was credible enough for our Shrub of a “president” to use in one of his State of the Union addresses, but it wasn’t credible enough for the Secretary of State who works for him to use it in one of his own speeches to the U.N. (?)
Still putting together docs/video/anything I can find to clarify the facts.
Thanks for your help on this guys. — lisa
Powell Defends Intelligence on Suspected Iraq Arms
By Arshad Mohammed for FindLaw.

Speaking in Rome, Powell said he thought the evidence that Iraq had continued to develop such weapons was “overwhelming.”
“There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It wasn’t a figment of anyone’s imagination. Iraq used these weapons against Iran in the late ’80s,” Powell said. “There is no question, there is no debate here.”
“There was no doubt in my mind as I went through the intelligence and as I prepared myself for the (Feb. 5) briefing … that the evidence was overwhelming that they had continued to develop these programs,” he added…
Powell told reporters as he flew to Egypt he chose not to cite intelligence suggesting Iraq tried to buy “yellow cake” uranium from Niger — quoted by other U.S. officials but later found by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be based partly on forged documents — because he felt there was insufficient substantiation.
“Not that I thought it was untrue, it’s just that I didn’t think it was solid enough for the kind of presentation I had to give,” Powell said. “It turned out to be untrue. That happens a lot in the intelligence business.”

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We’re Taking Iraq And We’re Keeping It — Any Questions?

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In case you were wondering, “yes” the Shrub’s Administration has thrown diplomacy completely out the window.
U.S. Says Will Not Cede Control of Iraq to U.N.

“We didn’t take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have a significant dominating control over how it unfolds in the future,” Powell told a House of Representatives subcommittee.
“We would not support … essentially handing everything over to the U.N. for someone designated by the U.N. to suddenly become in charge of this whole operation,” he added.
“We have picked on a greater obligation — to make sure there is a functioning Iraqi government that is supported by the coalition, the center of gravity remaining with the coalition, military and civilian,” he said.
Powell said the United Nations should, however, have a role in a post-Saddam Iraq, if only because it makes it easier for other countries to contribute to reconstruction costs…
The coalition is the Bush administration’s term for the United States, Britain and the other minor contributors to the invasion of Iraq they launched last week.
The question of the U.N. role has come to the fore in the last few days because of debates in New York on the terms for releasing Iraqi oil money to pay for humanitarian relief.

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More On The Falsified Nuclear Evidence

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Mr. Powell, there is such a thing as making a mistake. It would appear that, if you can admit to this one mistake, innocent people don’t have to die. (The threat to the world is not what you thought, so we can give Iraq more time to disarm, etc.)
Is is really so hard to admit that someone else purposely misled you and the Shrub — causing you to unknowingly mislead the American people?
We understand that you were acting accordingly, taking what you believed to be the truth into account. But the charade is over. Please let the madness stop.
Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake
U.N. Nuclear Inspector Says Documents on Purchases Were Forged
By Joby Warrick for the Washington Post.

Documents that purportedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago were deemed “not authentic” after careful scrutiny by U.N. and independent experts, Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the U.N. Security Council.
ElBaradei also rejected a key Bush administration claim — made twice by the president in major speeches and repeated by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell yesterday — that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment. Also, ElBaradei reported finding no evidence of banned weapons or nuclear material in an extensive sweep of Iraq using advanced radiation detectors.
“There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities,” ElBaradei said…
ElBaradei’s report yesterday all but ruled out the use of the tubes in a nuclear program. The IAEA chief said investigators had unearthed extensive records that backed up Iraq’s explanation. The documents, which included blueprints, invoices and notes from meetings, detailed a 14-year struggle by Iraq to make 81mm conventional rockets that would perform well and resist corrosion. Successive failures led Iraqi officials to revise their standards and request increasingly higher and more expensive metals, ElBaradei said.
Moreover, further work by the IAEA’s team of centrifuge experts — two Americans, two Britons and a French citizen — has reinforced the IAEA’s conclusion that the tubes were ill suited for centrifuges. “It was highly unlikely that Iraq could have achieved the considerable redesign needed to use them in a revived centrifuge program,” ElBaradei said.

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Colin Powell’s Latest Speech To the U.N.

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Here is Colin Powell speaking to the U.N. last Friday, March 7, 2003.
More interesting than what Colin Powell is actually saying, which is the same thing he’s been saying — that almost everyone else in the U.N. disputes — that Saddam has nuclear capabilities and hasn’t lived up to the previous U.N. Resolutions, are the reactions of the diplomats surrounding him during his speech. They are frantically writing notes back and forth to each other and making faces in reaction to his words.
I’m working on putting up lower-resolutions of this stuff with iMovie…sorry for the large file sizes.
(Next comes a clip of Russian Foreign Minister, Igor Ivanov — disputing
Colin Powell’s latest allegations about the demands of the last U.N. resolution not being met.)

Audio – Colin Powell at the U.N. (MP3 – 4 MB)
Colin Powell at the U.N. (Hi-res 137 MB)
Colin Powell at the U.N. (Lo-res 21 MB)
Colin Powell at the U.N. (Lo-res 19 MB)
Colin Powell at the U.N. (Lo-res 13 MB)

Veteran Diplomat Resigns From The Administration With An Elegant Letter To Colin Powell

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Letter and link to Washington post story: U.S. Diplomat Resigns, Protesting ‘Our Fervent Pursuit of War’

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country…
…until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.
The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America

Colin Admits That This Will Be A Long War

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“Long War” is doublespeak for “thousands of our soldiers will die and we’ll keep sending more over.”
What happened to killing Saddam within 48 hours and leaving it at that? The story keeps changing and changing…
Even Colin Powell is trying to warn us about this war. As best he can, considering he works for the crazies that are in favor of this war.
Colin Powell. If you’re listening. I have a question for you:
Why don’t you stop this war right now by speaking out against it?
You could stop all the madness right now, by just picking up the telephone, resigning, and telling the world why.
Why not tell the truth you must know better than anyone else? Why show up to the U.N. with smoke and mirrors and a vial of anthrax and a dog and pony show?
(Video of this on the way, of course, courtesy of The Daily Show…of course.)
Powell: Commitment in Iraq Would Be Long

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news – web sites),
on the eve of another faceoff at the United Nations
(news – web sites) over disarming Saddam Hussein
(news – web sites), said Thursday the American
people should be “prepared for a fairly long-term
commitment” in Iraq…
Once those goals are achieved, Powell said, the
U.S. military leader in such a war would take
temporary charge of Iraq. But that person
would give way to a prominent American
or international figure, whose own term
would be limited with an eye toward turning
over the government to the Iraqis themselves,
the secretary of state said.
“We would try to build as much as we can
on the structure that is there,” Powell said.
“The challenge would be to put in place a
representative leadership.”
…His confrontation with officials of those
two countries is set for Friday in New York.
That’s when chief U.N. weapons inspectors
Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei report
on searches that have not turned up what
the Bush administration has characterized
as hundreds of concealed and illicit
biological and chemical weapons…
Meanwhile, a new audio recording by
Osama bin Laden (news – web sites) was
reported Wednesday

Powell Picks On Shrub’s Affirmative Action Policy

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Note: 4/2/03-Title placeholder – can’t find this article online anymore — lr

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday he disagrees with President Bush’s position on an affirmative action case before the Supreme Court, as the White House called for more money for historically black colleges.
Powell, one of two black members of Bush’s Cabinet, said he supports methods the University of Michigan uses to bolster minority enrollments in its undergraduate and law school programs. The policies offer points to minority applicants and set goals for minority admissions.
“Whereas I have expressed my support for the policies used by the University of Michigan, the president, in looking at it, came to the conclusion that it was constitutionally flawed based on the legal advice he received,” Powell said on the CBS program “Face the Nation.”

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