These two Telegraph UK articles concerning this interview with Powell were both posted earlier separately. I am combining them and all the links to make it easier to review everything Powell talked about, as I think there is important info and quotes in both. One-Stop Shopping for getting P.O.ed at Powell. Hope this is deemed useful:
TELEGRAPH U.K. ARTICLE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/02/26/wpowell26.xmlDU DISCUSSION THREAD ON ARTICLE:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1267073Powell criticizes Iraq troop levels and rift with Europe
By Robin Gedye
(Filed: 26/02/2005)
Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, has for the first time publicly criticized troops levels in Iraq and spoken of the rifts between himself and Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, that undermined his role as architect of American foreign policy.
Mr Powell, in his first interview since resigning last November, also told The Telegraph of his "dismay" at the deterioration in relations between America and Europe and of his "disappointment" with France.
-snip-
Mr Powell said he had warned President George W Bush over dinner in August 2002 that the problem with Iraq was not going to be the invasion but what followed. He told him: "This place will crack like a goblet and it will be a problem to pick up the bits. It was on this basis that he decided to let me see if we could find a United Nations solution to this."
Mr Powell told Charles Moore, the former editor of The Telegraph who conducted the interview outside Washington, that he regretted the fall-out with Europe over the Iraq war. He also found Mr Rumsfeld's reference to "New Europe" and "Old Europe" unfortunate. "I never used the phrase," he said. "It just wasn't a useful construct. I don't think the president ever used it.
MORE
TELEGRAPH U.K. INTERVIEW:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;sessionid=33KQUNECHX3JRQFIQMFCM54AVCBQYJVC?xml=/news/2005/02/26/wpowell126.xml&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=63475DU DISCUSSION THREAD ON INTERVIEW:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3184979Colin Powell: 'I'm very sore'
(Filed: 26/02/2005)
Why did you make the mistake, I ask, of putting so much weight on weapons of mass destruction? Originally, the United States had happily advocated regime change. When it began to contemplate war, was it forced to abandon this line on legal and diplomatic advice, and use WMD as the casus belli?
Not really, says Powell, because the two were linked. President Clinton and Congress had a policy of regime change, but when Clinton's Operation Desert Fox bombed Iraq for four days in December 1998, it was because of WMD. "It was intelligence over those years, including your own secret intelligence service
, which said Saddam had WMD."
- snip -
Matter-of-factly, he adds: "I will forever be known as the one who made the case."
With five days' notice from the President, Powell worked it up: "Every single word in that presentation was screened and approved by the intelligence community." He cites the case of the aluminium tubes, which he presented to the world as being, probably, for centrifuges intended for nuclear weapons: "We sat down with a roomful, of analysts. The Director of Central Intelligence - he's essentially the referee on these occasions - sits down and says: 'We have concluded that they're not rocket bodies: it's our judgment that these are for centrifuges'.
"So that's what I said, though I mentioned signs of differences of opinion. To this day, the CIA has not said that they aren't for centrifuges."
Another example was the mobile laboratories, supposedly intended for biological weapons. "I did not qualify that because they were very sure of their four sources, but the sources fell like straw men in seven months, including the famous German source . I don't think the CIA has disposed definitively of that either."
MUCH MORE
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