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Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'


CNN

Programming Note: " 'Dead Wrong' -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown" airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET on CNN.

(CNN) -- A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

Wilkerson is one of several insiders interviewed for the CNN Presents documentary "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." The program, which airs Sunday at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET, pieces together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be "dead wrong."

Powell's speech, delivered on February 14, 2003, made the case for the war by presenting U.S. intelligence that purported to prove that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Wilkerson says the information in Powell's presentation initially came from a document he described as "sort of a Chinese menu" that was provided by the White House.

"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Wilkerson and Powell spent four days and nights in a CIA conference room with then-Director George Tenet and other top officials trying to ensure the accuracy of the presentation, Wilkerson says.

"There was no way the Secretary of State was going to read off a script about serious matters of intelligence that could lead to war when the script was basically un-sourced," Wilkerson says.

In one dramatic accusation in his speech, Powell showed slides alleging that Saddam had bioweapons labs mounted on trucks that would be almost impossible to find.

"In fact, Secretary Powell was not told that one of the sources he was given as a source of this information had indeed been flagged by the Defense Intelligence Agency as a liar, a fabricator," says David Kay, who served as the CIA's chief weapons inspector in Iraq after the fall of Saddam. That source, an Iraqi defector had never been debriefed by the CIA, was known within the intelligence community as "Curveball."

After searching Iraq for several months across the summer of 2003, Kay began e-mailing Tenet to tell him the WMD evidence was falling apart. At one point, Wilkerson says, Tenet called Powell to tell him the claims about mobile bioweapons labs were apparently not true.

"George actually did call the Secretary, and said, 'I'm really sorry to have to tell you. We don't believe there were any mobile labs for making biological weapons,'" Wilkerson says in the documentary. "This was the third or fourth telephone call. And I think it's fair to say the Secretary and Mr. Tenet, at that point, ceased being close. I mean, you can be sincere and you can be honest and you can believe what you're telling the Secretary. But three or four times on substantive issues like that? It's difficult to maintain any warm feelings."

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I'm not sure what Col. Wilkerson is trying to say here, but if he's trying to diminish Powell's culpability in the lies that led us into Iraq, then his words are falling on deaf ears. If Powell doesn't publicly admit that he was played for a stooge by Bush and company, then he remains part of that company. Powell probably did more to add credibility to the lies that were foisted on the American people than any of the scoundrels involved.He has squandered a reputation of honorable service to our nation for that of a scurrilous traitor who sought the praises of his master Bush, rather than the American people. In my eyes, he has elevated himself to scum. Now all he needs is a Freedom Medal.

Powell was one of the few people in the Bush administration that had a reputation for honesty and integrity; his UN speach certaintly changed all that AS HE SOLD HIS SOUL TO THE DEVIL. Evidently Powell valued his career more than the lives of 1800 servicemen and 100,000 Iraqis. I hope what you got in exchange for your soul, General, was worth it!

When the war crimes trials start you will be in the docket right along with Bush, Cheney, Runsfeld, Rice, Rove et all; or are you going to plea bargain and turn states witness? But that wouldn't be the soldierly thing to do, would it?

Little yet known what has been told...
But I believe Powell did OUT the Truth to the Grand Jury;
he really did seem reluctant in his speech to the UN.
We know so little about the skullduggery of the regime (publically that is)except that it rewards the failures and punishes the truthsayers...
Powell probably had his life on the line...
Noting he did leave at the end of the first term...
And I saw a blurb from him outing the stolen 04 election.
So he may have done the most honorable thing in the end...
Amidst the lying deceit of the take-over regime...
We will soon know when the Grand Jury and Special Prosecution
Reports or cleans house.

Our Secretary of State, Collin (the Puppet) Powell resigned his post. I wonder aloud how many American lives would have been saved, how many innocent Iraqi's would still be alive if our brave general would have told the truth as to why he resigned. If he would have been a true soldier, a true American and not George W's stooge and told the American people why he was resigning, George W. Bush would not be the Presidnent of the United States today. You, Mr. Powell are just as repsonsible for the death and destruction of Iraq as the Bush administration is. Maybe more so, because if the truth had been told, many would still be alive and GWB could have stopped playing cowboy in Crawford. Collin Powell is the ultimate traitor, the ultimate coward. Senator John McCain is not far behind. I still gag when I see this Vietnam Veteran, prisoner of war hug George W. during the last campaign.

Powell thinks his loyalty is to the Bushies. His loyalty should be to the American people. Powell is a coward to his convictions. He thought we should not go to war with Iraq. He chose the coward’s way out. My country right or wrong, when it is right keep it right, when it is wrong make it right.

My take on it is, he's giving us a peek into the lies and saying investigate. The truth is there it just has to come out. Seems to me like someone from the press should be looking into all these "little" discrepancies that are going to add up to one great, big collassal lie.

Yeah, he gives a peek into the lies, but the fact is, HE STILL DID SOMETHING HE KNEW WAS WRONG!!!

UNACCEPTABLE EXCUSES -
Just following orders.
Just doing my job.
I've got bills to pay.
This is business.
This is politics.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005."

Yeah, well there are about 100,000 dead Iraqis and 1870 US troops who wish you hadn't either.

In the 4 minute advert of the CNN Special Report the narrator mentions an e-mail sent by a top-level CIA official in response to a lower level CIA employee in which the official reportedly says that the powers that be have already made up their minds on the war and thus the veracity of Powell's claims are neither here nor there to them. Is this yet another Downing-Street-Memo?

No. This email has been known about for quite some time (old news).

The whole bunch of them from the white house down should be tarred and feathered and dropped off in the desert beside an oil well.Then send our precision planes over them and let them do what should have been done years ago.

THIS ADMINISTRATION , IS THE WORSE EVER THIS COUNTRY HAD,
THEY DID SO MUCH DAMAGE TO US, TO OUR COUNTRY, AND THE WHOLE WORLD.,
IS HARD TO UNDERSTAND HOW BUSH / CHENEY .WITH KARL ROVE ,DID DESTROY OUR COUNTRY, WE DON'T NEED BIN LADIN TO DO SO, BUSH AND CHENEY THEY DID IT FOR HIM, BIN LADIN MUST BE VERY HAPPY NOW.
THE IMPEACHMENT IS IN ORDER NOW, TO IMPEACH THEM FOR TREASON, AND PUT IN PRISON AS A TRAITORS.THEY DESTROY OUR NATION FOR OIL.,AND LOOK THE PRICE OF THE OIL NOW,? WHEN CLINTON LEFT, THE BARREL OF PETRO WAS $ 22,00 AND NOW IS $ 60,00 AND WILL BE MORE SOON., AND CLINTON LEFT IN THE TREASURE CASH FREE OF DEBS, $8,000,000,000,000,000,000,
TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS,AND WHEN THIS CROOKS COME TO POWER, BY STEALING THE ELECTION OF 2000 IN FLORIDA IN YEAR 2000, WITH HELP OF HIS BROTHER JEB BUSH, AND CATHERINE HARRIS, AND THE EVIL MASTER BRAIN OF KARL ROVE. THIS $ 8,000,,,,,TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS DESAPAIR,IN THE POCKET OF RICH PEOPLE, WICH BUSH GIVE THEM AS A TAX CUT GIFT,AND NOW WE ARE IN DEBS COMBINED,$12, TRILLIONS,IS FROM HERE ,TO THE REACH MOON AT $ 1,000 DOLLARS BILLS.THAT WHAT BUSH DID TO US,AND THE WORLD.
SO LET IMPEACH THEM NOW. AND SEND THEM TO PRISON.

I REMEMBER BEFORE POWEL JOIN BUSH REGIME, WAS ADMIRED MAN, EVERY BODY WAS TALKING ABOUT HIS HONESTY, DECENCY.AND CONTENDED TO BECOME A PRESIDENT, VERY WELL RESPECTED, BY WHITE AND BLACK PEOPLE.
AND NOW HE IS NOTHING THEN A BUFFON, AND BUSH ASS KISSER, HE BETRAID THE COUNTRY AND HIS UNIFORM FOR THE SOUL OF BUSH, THIS GENERAL SHOULD SURRENDER HIS 4 STARS GENERAL,HE DON'T DESERVED, HE TURN TO BE SHIT,THE COUNTRY LOST THE RESPECTS.HE LIES LIKE A HELL ,AND REPEATING THE LIES WHAT BUSH WAS TELLING THE NATION , REPEATING LIKE A PARROT,WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION,,W,M,D, AND IN THE END HE GET FIRED BY BUSH, REPLACED BY ONE WORSE THEN HIM, ,,THE BLACK QUEEN OF SHEBA CANDI RICE,ANOTHER BUSH CLONE,THIS BITCH IS HUNDRED TIME WORSE,,BECAUSE HAVE A BIG, BIG MOUTH,FULL OF LIES,AND GOING AROUND THE WORLD SPREDING MORE HATE, BY DEFENDING BUSH.
BUSH / CHENEY MUST BE IMPEACH NOW. THEY ARE DANGEROUS PEOPLE ,AND WE CAN'T TAKE 3 MORE YEAR OF THIS DICTATORS.

There certainly seems no need to add insult to injury. Mr. Powell seems to know his career has been totally destroyed by his contact with Bush. The only remaining question is, will the country be similarly destroyed by our contact with Bush?

Hello. And Bye.

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