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FLASHBACK: "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bullshit."

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KaliTracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-28-05 10:06 PM
Original message
FLASHBACK: "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bullshit."
Amazing how easily the MSM forgets that Colin Powell called some of

the "found" intellengence "Bullshit" -- and how no one asks him about it anymore (like when John Stewart had him on a couple of weeks or so ago)

http://posaz.mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/bullshit.html

News and World Report
Title: Truth and Consequences
Highlight: New questions about U.S. intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass terror
Author(s): Bruce B. Auster, Mark Mazzetti and Edward T. Pound
Citation: June 9, 2003 p 14-18

Article Text: On the evening of February 1, two dozen American officials gathered in a spacious conference room at the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va. The time had come to make the public case for war against Iraq. For six hours that Saturday, the men and women of the Bush administration argued about what Secretary of State Colin Powell should--and should not--say at the United Nations Security Council four days later. Not all the secret intelligence about Saddam Hussein's misdeeds, they found, stood up to close scrutiny. At one point during the rehearsal, Powell tossed several pages in the air. "I'm not reading this," he declared. "This is bulls- - -."

<snip>

Vice President Cheney's office played a major role in the secret debates and pressed for the toughest critique of Saddam's regime, administration officials say. The first draft of Powell's speech was written by Cheney's staff and the National Security Council. Days before the team first gathered at the CIA, a group of officials assembled in the White House Situation Room to hear Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, lay out an indictment of the Iraqi regime--"a Chinese menu" of charges, one participant recalls, that Powell might use in his U.N. speech. Not everyone in the administration was impressed, however. "It was over the top and ran the gamut from al Qaeda to human rights to weapons of mass destruction," says a senior official. "They were unsubstantiated assertions, in my view."

<snip>

One example, included in the script, focused on intelligence indicating that an Iraqi official had approved the acquisition of sensitive software from an Australian company. The concern was that the software would allow the regime to understand the topography of the United States. That knowledge, coupled with unmanned aerial vehicles, might one day enable Iraq to attack America with biological or chemical weapons. That was the allegation. Tenet had briefed Cheney and others. Cheney, says a senior official, embraced the intelligence.

The White House instructed Powell to include the charge in his presentation. When the Powell team at the CIA examined the matter, however, it became clear that the information was not ironclad. CIA analysts, it turns out, couldn't determine after further review whether the software had, in fact, been delivered to Iraq or whether the Iraqis intended to use it for nefarious purposes. One senior official, briefed on the allegation, says the software wasn't sophisticated enough to pose a threat to the United States. Powell omitted the allegation from his U.N. speech.

More....
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Dinger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-28-05 10:16 PM
Response to Original message
1. I Remember It Well
Why in the hell doesn't Powell just spill it????
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oblivious Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-28-05 10:21 PM
Response to Original message
2. And he read it. And now he travels the world making huge sums for speeches
The power of a propagandist media.
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OKDem08 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-28-05 10:33 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. I don't get it
I used to think Colin Powell was an individual of integrity...sadly mistaken, though.
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oblivious Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-29-05 02:05 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. Yes, I used to think the same until I came to DU and learned the truth.
When you look at his background you see that his actions were predictable. Definitely not a man of integrity.
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gee double you bee Donating Member (160 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-29-05 02:14 AM
Response to Original message
5. Wonderful post
Even the most informed citizens need to be reminded of stories like this! We're all victims of the memory hole even if we don't realize it.
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KaliTracy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jun-29-05 05:59 AM
Response to Reply #5
6. yes....every six months or so we should reflect on what we've heard
and read and then proceed to remind people far and wide.
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