Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Jonathon Schwartz (A Tiny Revolution) takes Colin Power to task.


May 10, 2012:  

Colin Powell Gets Mad at Me


In his new book, It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership, Colin Powell writes this about his 2003 presentation at the United Nations about Iraq's supposed WMD: "I get mad when bl*ggers accuse me of lying – of knowing the information was false. I didn’t."
Well, I'm a blugger, and I accuse Colin Powell of lying. The evidence is overwhelming that he knew much of what he said in front of the Security Council was false.
This may not seem plausible to people who know Powell only via the media image he's carefully constructed over decades – that of being Washington's last honorable man. As journalist Margaret Carlson said in 2003, "Whatever Colin does, I’ll go with."
But in fact Powell's image has about as much to do with reality as what he told the UN. Though his entire career Powell has eagerly bent the truth to please his superiors. He started his climb up the Army ladder by covering up the massacre of civilians by U.S. troops in Vietnam, even serving as a character witness for a general who apparently shot Vietnamese from helicopters for fun. During the 1980s, when Powell was assistant to then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, he also helped cover up the Iran-contra scandal, and almost certainly deceived congressional investigators. (If there were a Museum of Washington's Funniest Lies, it would have its own wing for Powell's statement that, "To my recollection, I don't have a recollection.")
So everyone's default assumption should have been that Powell would lie to Americans and the world at the UN. And – as anyone can see just by looking at what's in the public record – he did. Below is a look line by line through Powell's presentation to demonstrate the chasm between what he knew and what he said.
• • • • •
Powell's speech can be found via the archived State Department website. All other sources are linked below.
PUBLIC CERTAINTY, PRIVATE DOUBT
On that February 5 in front of the UN Security Council, was Colin Powell certain what he was saying was accurate? He certainly was:
POWELL: My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.
Later, regarding whether Iraq had reconstituted a nuclear weapons program, he said:
POWELL: [T]here is no doubt in my mind...
That's in public. What about in private? According to Larry Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff, here's what Powell was thinkingat the time:
WILKERSON: [Powell] had walked into my office musing and he said words to the effect of, I wonder how we'll all feel if we put half a million troops in Iraq and march from one end of the country to the other and find nothing.
UNAMBIGUOUS LIES
This is some of what Powell said about the infamous aluminum tubes purchased by Iraq, supposedly meant for their covert nuclear weapons program:
POWELL: [I]t strikes me as quite odd that these [aluminum] tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets. Maybe Iraqis just manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I don't think so.
Powell's own intelligence staff, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), prepared two memos commenting on drafts of the presentation. They were later quietly released as appendices to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on WMD intelligence.
The second INR memo, written on February 3, 2003, told Powell this:
Our key remaining concern is the claim that the tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that "far exceeds US requirements for comparable rockets." In fact, the most comparable US system is a tactical rocket--the US Mark 66 air-launched 70mm rocket--that uses the same, high-grade (7075-T6) aluminum, and that has specifications with similar tolerances. Note that the Mk 66 specifications are unclassified, and the Department is planning to share them with the IAEA.
FABRICATED EVIDENCE
Powell played an intercept of a conversation between Iraqi army officers about the UN inspections. However, when he translated what they were saying, he knowingly embellished it, turning it from evidence Iraq was complying with U.N. resolutions to evidence Iraq was violating them. This appears in Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack:
[Powell] had decided to add his personal interpretation of the intercepts to the rehearsed script, taking them substantially further and casting them in the most negative light...Concerning the intercept about inspecting for the possibility of "forbidden ammo," Powell took the interpretation further: "Clean out all of the areas... Make sure there is nothing there." None of this was in the intercept.
Here's the conversation as Powell presented it at the UN. As Woodward reported, the underlined sentences were simply added by Powell:
POWELL: "They're inspecting the ammunition you have, yes.''
"Yes."
"For the possibility there are forbidden ammo."
"For the possibility there is by chance forbidden ammo?''
"Yes."
"And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of the areas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there.''

Powell then explained:
This is all part of a system of hiding things and moving things out of the way and making sure they have left nothing behind.
According to the official State Department translation (and confirmed for me by Iraqi Imad Khadduri), the Iraqi soldier merely said:
"And we sent you a message to inspect the scrap areas and the abandoned areas."
And it's no surprise the Iraqi said this. Here's what the Duelfer report found about what was going on within the Iraqi government just before the January 30th intercepted conversation:
The NMD director met with Republican Guard military leaders on 25 January 2003 and advised them they were to sign documents saying that there was no WMD in their units, according to a former Iraqi senior officer. Husam Amin told them that the government would hold them responsible if UNMOVIC found any WMD in their units or areas, or if there was anything that cast doubt on Iraq’s cooperation with UNMOVIC. Commanders established committees to ensure their units retained no evidence of old WMD.
Again: Powell took evidence of the Iraqis doing what they were supposed to do—i.e., searching their gigantic ammunition dumps to make sure they weren't accidentally holding onto banned chemical weapons—and doctored it to make it look as if Iraq were hiding banned weapons.
Since the State Department was questioned about this by journalist Gilbert Cranberg, the translation at variance with Powell's version has disappeared from its site. It's now available only via archive.org.
DECEPTION BY OMISSION
Powell's presentation left out extremely important information, as here:
POWELL: Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons.
The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamal, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law.

As far as this went, this was accurate. However, Kamel, the head of Iraq's WMD programs, defected in 1995. Iraq had produced this VX before the Gulf War, in 1991—and according to Kamel, Iraq had secretly destroyed it soon after the war.Then they lied about ever producing it (until his defection). But according to Kamel, they weren't lying when they said they no longer had it.
Indeed, in the UN's notes from Kamel's debriefing, he says Iraq had no remaining WMD of any kind:
KAMEL: All chemical weapons were destroyed. I ordered destruction of all chemical weapons. All weapons -- biological, chemical, missiles, nuclear were destroyed.
And if that weren't enough, Kamel also said this in an interview on CNN:
SADLER: Can you state here and now -- does Iraq still to this day hold weapons of mass destruction?
KAMEL: No. Iraq does not possess any weapons of mass destruction. I am being completely honest about this.

But in 1996 Kamel returned to Iraq, where he was killed by Saddam's regime. Thus the U.S. could safely take a witness who truthfully had said Iraq had no remaining banned weapons, and pretend his testimony indicated the exact opposite.
Did Powell know what he was doing at the time? It's unclear. Here's a transcript of an exchange between Powell and Sam Husseini in Washington in December, 2006, with video below:
HUSSEINI: You cited Hussein Kamel in your U.N. testimony. Did you know he said there were no WMDs?
POWELL: I only knew what the intelligence community told me.
HUSSEINI: But did you know that fact?
POWELL: Of course not!
HUSSEINI: You didn't know that, even though it was reported?
POWELL: I've answered your question!

As you can see in the video, Powell was not happy to explore this line of questioning. (He's also never shown any inclination to find out who purportedly steered him wrong; when asked by Barbara Walters asked who was responsible for the mistakes in the overall presentation, Powell stated "I don't have the names.")
IGNORED WARNINGS
As mentioned above, the State Department's intelligence staff, called the INR, prepared two memos on the presentation. They directly contradicted Powell on the aluminum tubes issue, but also warned him many of his claims were "weak," "not credible" or "highly questionable." Here are some (amazingly enough, not all) of the examples the memos give.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: We know that Saddam's son, Qusay, ordered the removal of all prohibited weapons from Saddam's numerous palace complexes.
The first INR memo, from January 29, 2003, flagged this claim as "WEAK":
second bullet. WEAK. Qusay order to remove prohibited items from palaces.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: [K]ey files from military and scientific establishments have been placed in cars that are being driven around the countryside by Iraqi intelligence agents to avoid detection.
last bullet. WEAK. Sensitive files being driven around in cars, in apparent shell game. Plausibility open to question.
This claim was again flagged in the second INR memo, from February 3, 2003:
Page 4, last bullet, re key files being driven around in cars to avoid inspectors. This claim is highly questionable and promises to be targeted by critics and possibly UN inspection officials as well.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: [W]e know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing [sic] rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq.
last bullet. WEAK. Missiles with biological warheads reportedly dispersed. This would be somewhat true in terms of short-range missiles with conventional warheads, but is questionable in terms of longer-range missiles or biological warheads.
Page 5. first para, claim re missile brigade dispersing rocket launchers and BW warheads. This claim too is highly questionable and might be subjected to criticism by UN inspection officials.
At the UN, Powell described a satellite picture this way:
The two arrows indicate the presence of sure signs that the bunkers are storing chemical munitions...
The truck you [...] see is a signature item. It's a decontamination vehicle in case something goes wrong.

***/WEAK. We support much of this discussion, but we note that decontamination vehicles--cited several times in the text--are water trucks that can have legitimate uses...
...Iraq has given UNMOVIC what may be a plausible account for this activity--that this was an exercise involving the movement of conventional explosives; presence of a fire safety truck (water truck, which could also be used as a decontamination vehicle) is common in such an event.

Powell at the UN:
POWELL: These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.
Numerous references to humint as fact. (E.g., "We know that...) We have been told that some are being adjusted, but we gather some others--such as information involving multiple-corroboration--will stay...In the Iraq context, "multiple corroboration" hardly guarantees authenticity of information.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: [I]n mid-December weapons experts at one facility were replaced by Iraqi intelligence agents who were to deceive inspectors about the work that was being done there.
last bullet. **/WEAK. Iraqi intelligence officials posing as WMD scientists. Such claims are not credible and are open to criticism, particularly by the UN inspectorates.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: A dozen [WMD] experts have been placed under house arrest, not in their own houses, but as a group at one of Saddam Hussein's guest houses.
second bullet. WEAK. 12 experts reportedly under house arrest... Highly questionable.
Powell at the UN:
POWELL: UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons.
...the claim that experts agree UAVs fitted with spray tanks are "an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons" is WEAK.
• • •
Now, with that for context, it's useful to look back at what Powell said in a November, 2005 interview with Barbara Walters:
There was some people in the intelligence community who knew at that time that some of these sources were not good and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up. That devastated me.
That can be contrasted with this October, 2003 exchange from 60 Minutes II with Greg Thielmann, who headed the office of Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs in the INR until September 2002:
PELLEY: If the secretary took the information that his own intelligence bureau had developed and turned it on its head, which is what you're saying, to what end?
Mr. THIELMANN: I can only assume that he was doing it to loyally support the president of the United States and build the strongest possible case for arguing that there was no alternative to the use of military force.

So yes, Colin Powell lied. If any journalists interviewing him about his new book want to ask him about this, but don't want to seem like you're accusing him directly, feel free to blame it on "bloggers." We're used to him being mad at us.
—Jon Schwarz
Posted at May 10, 2012 12:28 PM 
Comments
this is the problem with not prosecuting war crimes- in this context, both powell and Schwarz would agree on the moral: Lying- It Worked For Me: In Life And Leadership
Posted by: frankenduf at May 10, 2012 01:27 PM
I would find all of this evidence very convincing if it came from someone who wasn't a blogger.
Posted by: Portmanteur at May 10, 2012 03:10 PM
He HAD to kill his conscience ( if he had any to start with ) to start the obscene war ( thanks to his so called alleged credibility ) with his lies, which continue today.......
As told to Mainichi of Japan...
"It was the intelligence that was wrong. I did not make up this information; I did not invent it; I did not pull it out of the air. It was information that our intelligence community stood behind," he stated.
Sept. 4, 2010
HOW COULD he say with a straight face, he did not know or that he was not lying? No wonder, he is mad at the bloggers because THEY KNOW, it has always been lies and lies and lies from the so called "American statesman" and a retired four-star general in the United States Army... for sure, we can do without such "Statesmen".
@Portmanteur
Should I hold my breath for someone from the MSM to give this evidence? I will die of hypoxia.
Posted by: Rupa Shah at May 10, 2012 03:18 PM
Outstanding. Thanks for taking the time to put all of this together.
Posted by: John Caruso at May 11, 2012 12:18 AM
Thanks for bringing this up yet again. It makes such a fine contrast with the keen observations of Richard Cohen at the time:
This is where Colin Powell brought us all yesterday. The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.
Posted by: Batocchio at May 11, 2012 12:32 AM
He, like Bush, will not admit his own agency. This brings me to wonder: should we regret Powell had not gone into animating the dead and/or pagan idolatry?
"I avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed mad, and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue." -- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
"Then they gave me the gold, and I threw it into the fire, and out came this calf!” Exodus 32:24
Posted by: Lewis at May 11, 2012 07:12 AM
Powell would be a good running mate for Romney.
Posted by: mistah 'MICFiC' charley, ph.d. at May 11, 2012 10:22 AM
You know what I hate about bloggers? They're so unserious. Unlike General Colin Powell. Here are the 13 rules he lays out in his oh-so-serious book. (Cut-and-pasted from Amazon.com)
CLP's Thirteen Rules:
It ain't as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.
Get mad, then get over it.
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
It can be done!
Be careful what you choose. You may get it.
Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision.
You can't make someone else's choices. You shouldn't let someone else make yours.
Check small things.
Share credit.
Remain calm. Be kind.
Have a vision. Be demanding.
Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers.
Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.
-------------------------------------
Our lesson for today, kids?
"Don't let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision." + "Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." + "Don't take counsel of your fears or naysayers" = SUCCESS IN IRAQ!
Posted by: tom allen at May 11, 2012 12:08 PM
Its been almost 10 years of war there. I believe WE have a greater systemic problem than Colin Powell's lies. (suckers for anything IMHO)
Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 11, 2012 01:23 PM
anyone who said in 2002 or 2003 that there were WMDs in Iraq were either TOOLS OR FOOLS..... or both.
Posted by: Susan at May 11, 2012 06:29 PM
Saddam gave them the opening for this lie, when the Babylon project was discovered. Remember, he'd had gun segments manufactured to appear as components of pipeline pressure vessels. It wasn't hard for war hawks to make the logical leap, that he was at it again. Powell might have been just a duped follower, but I don't believe it. He'd earned a name, as someone who could be trusted to keep secrets - and his involvement in Iran/Contra was much larger, overseeing the transfer of TOW missile spare parts, from US National Guard armories, to Iraq.
Posted by: heubler at May 12, 2012 09:50 AM
Oops. Make that Iran.
Posted by: heubler at May 12, 2012 09:52 AM
Powell also orchestrated the coverup of U.S. crimes during the invasion of Panama.
Posted by: Edward at May 12, 2012 10:08 AM
Wow. And now McChrystal is out getting $60,000 per speech and teaching a class at Yale that is closed door, no journalists allowed, when he should be standing for court martial. Eisenhower had the right idea...the military takeover of our government, our budget, the lies, the coverups, the fight to keep us fighting with bulging DOD budgets going mostly to Haliburton for a privatized 55% of military operations...the horror stories of people representing us buying teenage and pre-teen girls to use as sex slaves, using citizens for target practice...when will we have enough of the ugliness we have become?
Posted by: whattashame at May 12, 2012 10:51 AM
Who the hell is Colon Powell?
This is just another example of you constructing an elaborate scheme just to avoid giving me my (large) CASH.
Pay up professor!
... Or I'll squeal about the dirty weekend you spent with those newborn puppies and kittens in a Motel 6 in Cranston.

HAPPY MOtHERs DAYy!
Posted by: Figarini Pushterinkostonsonbergdon at May 13, 2012 11:38 AM
Kudos. Allow me to add the missing lie in this story which, back then, made me gasp at its audacity. Surely, I thought, journalists will jump on this one. It didn't even make sense and certainly could never have been taken seriously by a military man like Powell. (NYT and LAT did indeed report on it, but that was drowned out by their own columnists like Maureen Dowd gushing that now she was convinced by the evidence.)
It was the accusation about the WMD-producing terrorist camp of Ansar al Islam in Khurmal - or Sargat, as was later said - well in Kurdish territory and near the no fly zone.
Why on earth would terrorists under Saddam's protection establish themselves in Kurdistan, that is, hostile and largely autonomous territory? Wouldn't it have made more sense to be in some place firmly under Saddam's control, where his anti-aircraft guns and military could protect them?
By the way, when war broke out, the US didn't even bother to send any military to that area.
Posted by: Hans B at May 13, 2012 01:39 PM
Colin Powell is a great example of just how impermeable "Reputation" is a presented in the corporate media. Once the facade has been built and broadly accepted it endures no matter what evidence that he's a lying sack of shit may be presented.
Posted by: Bill Jones at May 13, 2012 06:47 PM
Completely ignored at the time, and forgotten by nearly everyone today, is the fact that before the war, Saddam issued a detailed statement to the U.N. about his WMD programs and how they had been dismantled and the weapons destroyed. It was dismissed out of hand by the Bush Administration at the time, and probably sits in a file somewhere as the most accurate statement ever made about Iraq and WMN circa 2003 at the time we went to war against Iraq and Saddam for his WMD.
Posted by: Lucian K. Truscott IV at May 13, 2012 08:14 PM
The odd thing about Powell is he could have been president. Well that may be a stretch because he could not have won a GOP nomination and changing parties would have been problematical but if somehow he would have been on the ballot in 2000 for either party he could have won. Instead he got Bush elected. (note he bravely said his wife urged him not to run for the GOP nomination out of fear for his safety. Do you recall Obama chickening out(
Make no mistake, if Powell had not been one of the 'good advisers' millions of Bush voters took comfort in to settle their qualms about Bush's vast obvious weaknesses then Bush never would have had a chance to get selected by the SC.
Subsequently Chaney tried to dump him but Bush insisted he be SOS and then Cheney et al shit on Colin for 4 years, treating him with total contempt and otherwise running their own foreign policy. One wonders what sort of man still, now, after all that, serving others as showpiece/errand boy, still serves them.
I can think of no historic analog for Powell.
Posted by: rapier at May 13, 2012 09:38 PM
Well I've always said either Colon Powell was lying or he is too stupid to be a general or anything else.
When Colon was in front of the UN I was yelling at the TV especially when he talked about the aluminum tubes since there had been at least 2 articles (at least 1 in the NYT) on the fact that they had the wrong dimension to be used for uranium enrichment and they had a coating on them needed if they were for their stated purpose but making them totally useless in centrifuges.
My husband was so mad at me he yelled how could I know more than Colon and if Colon was wrong and there weren't any WMD's he would vote for the democrat in the next election.
Needless to say several moons later he sheepishly came and said I was right and Colon was wrong and voted for John Kerry. You have no idea what an amzing thing that is, my husband voting for the democratic candidate for president.
Posted by: Bornagaindem at May 14, 2012 07:23 PM
Posted by at