LoyaltyisaCurse

(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 who 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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Absolute Zero

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/....un/index.html

No real surprise here. I like the part about Tenet calling Powell to tell him the information was wrong. What a setup by the Whitehouse! Should make for an interesting show.

"(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."

LoyaltyisaCurse

You and I are on the same page Zero...http://www.arizonasportsfans.com/vb/...ad.php?t=58818

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vince56

Did you just throw up a link to the same thread you were posting in?

Kolo

Like I've said before in this forum, W should simply have said we're taking Saddam out because it's the right thing to do, and because we can, and left it at that. Then, the Left would have only his foresight to criticize, and not his integrity.

nidan

But he didn't did he and as a result he demonstrated he has no integrity

Kolo

To me, as far as the war in Iraq is concerned, whether W has integrity is beside the point. I wish those criticizing the war (and, vicariously, our armed forces) felt the same way.

And as far as "vicariously," I've heard it all before, on this board. I don't know how one can say "I support the soldiers in this immoral war" and really mean it. But I'm sure LIAC and others will disagree.

LoyaltyisaCurse

No, we posted this article witin in 30 seconds of eachother and Mods merged it...

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UncleChris

You are right.... I, for one, disagree.... and just as you suggest that you don't "get it" that we can be anti-war yet support our troops, I don't "get it" why you can't "get it."






HUH?

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Here's to the Army and Navy and the battles they have won; here's to America's colors, the colors that never run. May the wings of liberty never lose a feather. ....

LoyaltyisaCurse

You are entitled to your opinion, but it is possible to protest the war and still support the troops. When I protest the war I protest W's decision to go there and his horrible planning.

Soldiers follow orders and I in no way fault them for W's idiocy.

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ajcardfan

I think it that was the "lowest point of his life" he's had a darn good life. Maybe his meaning was lowest point of his career?

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Kolo

And I don't "get" why you don't "get" why I don't "get it."



Liac, at this point, of what significance is "W's idiocy"? I just now typed (and then erased) a diatribe on how liberals could so vocally and (apparently) stridently stand for human rights, and then decry the greatest human rights movement in history--driving democracy square into a hellhole of Islamic Fascism. I think it's so easy to cry "Bush Lied" that true liberals are missing what really is occurring in Iraq, the formation (hopefully) of a free and democratic nation in the the middle of that Islamofascist swamp. And that should be that upon which we focus--not whether W = Hitler, but whether Iraqis and Muslims generally (and therefore us) will be better served by a free and democratic Iraq. All the bitching about how incompetent and evil W is just seems (at this point) frivolous and pointless to me.

Just my 2 cents. And the diatribe I erased was shorter than that which I posted.

On a more important point--Cards game in one hour on ABC 15....

UncleChris

Awwwwwwww,,,, forget it!!!! You just don't get it!!!

__________________
Here's to the Army and Navy and the battles they have won; here's to America's colors, the colors that never run. May the wings of liberty never lose a feather. ....

Kolo

On that point--at least--we agree.

UncleChris

__________________
Here's to the Army and Navy and the battles they have won; here's to America's colors, the colors that never run. May the wings of liberty never lose a feather. ....