Powell warned Iraq troops too few (secret video conferences with Blair)

[Barrett808]

Secretary of State Colin Powell told President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last month that there were too few troops in Iraq, according to people familiar with official records of the meeting.

Mr. Powell made his assertion during one in a series of intense discussions on Iraq between Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair this fall. Those sessions, which have largely been kept secret, indicate that there was a tough debate behind closed doors as the Bush administration re-examined its handling of Iraq in the wake of Mr. Bush's re-election victory.

Less than three weeks after the White House meeting, the Pentagon announced that it would boost the U.S. military presence in Iraq by 12,000 troops, to 150,000.

The discussions between the two leaders have taken place in recent months in a series of video-conferences that have been considered so sensitive that the transcripts are destroyed after other senior officials read them.

(more)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/122404dnintpowell.5d4b7.html

[mr_hat]

1. ...For which he got a dismissive pat on the head from the president.

[0007]

2. Did Colin ever tell junior he was lying at the UN Security Counsel

meeting? Wink wink. And has junior ever ask Rummy where all those WMD's were that that the Iraqis were hiding? Wink wink.

Who's blinking who off now?

[saltpoint]

3. I'm wondering how --

-- Blair responds to a conference with W and Powell. He must be wondering why someone with the alleged integrity of Powell would 1) lie through his teeth at the U.N. and 2) why Powell would even consider working for such a fool like Bush.

If Blair asked me those questions, I wouldn't know where to begin.

[mitchum]

4. A pity that Powell has more loyalty to his party than his country

[Career Prole]

5. Precisely...which makes him every bit the war criminal

the rest of 'em are.
I don't know how many times I've thought "Aw, he ain't so bad as the other ones..." but he's no dummy so it shouldn't have taken 4 years to figure out what they were up to, and he damned sure shouldn't have maintained silence in support of them.
He'll probably come clean somewhere down the road when it's much too late to do any good with another B.S. book in an attempt to get on the right side of history, but I won't ever forget.

[indepat]

9. Lest we never forget, loyalty is to the person, not to the Constitution,

not to the law, not to the principles upon which this nation was founded and later flourished, not to we the people, but loyalty solely to one exalted person.

[daleo]

6. What is the point of this disclosure?

Maybe to add to the justification for a draft next year - "Powell said we need more troops."

[still_one]

7. Powell is a lying scum bag

after his presentation before the UN anything he says now is mute

[Kimber Scott]

8. Isn't the people's business supposed to be preserved for posterity?

I understand classifying documents for supposed security reasons, but destroying them? Is this normal? What about history?

[NYC Liberal]

10. If he had ANY conviction,

he would have resigned a long time ago. Alas, he did not and decided to keep his nose in Bush's ass. So fuck Powell!

[BikeWriter]

12. ...and the horse he rode in on.

;-)

[Javaman]

11. Hey Tony, guess what???

colin: tony, we have a manpower problem in Iraq....

tony: oh?

colin:at last count of iraqi soldiers, we had, umm >sounds of shuffling papers<here it is...ten.

tony:ten???

colin:ten.

tony: one, zero...ten.

colin:ten

tony:>speachless< girgling noise is heard...

colin: it appears, that for some reason, there is a high fatality rate with them. We keep finding them dead.

tony:>sputters< ten???

colin:tony! pay attention!! some others seem to just vanish and others, well, others seems to be blowing up our lunch rooms...

tony:you did say ten, right???

colin:>ignores him< we have a crash program to train another 150,000 of them...

tony: ten...sorry, I'm just...150,000? but didn't rumsfeld say only earlier this year that they had that many already...ten????!!!

colin:well, rumy, sort of stretched it a bit. Anywhoooo, untill that time, we have to fill some gaps...

tony:>mumbles< ten...gaps?

colin:you know how we are stretched soooooooo thin, we, as in the US gov't, were thinking that perhaps you..

tony: no

colin: could throw in a few more warm bodies, err, boots on the ground....

tony: click! >hangs up<

colin:>muses< I'll put that down as a maybe....