Saturday, April 03, 2004
Hello, I must be going
I've moved. You can find me at www.pogge.ca. Please change your bookmarks. If you want to, that is.
And by all means drop by for a visit. Take your shoes off. Stay a while.
Department of the blindingly obvious
Powell admits his Iraq intelligence flawed
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has acknowledged that the "most dramatic" part of his presentation to the United Nations making the case for war on Iraq was based on flawed intelligence.Shaky? I can think of a few other terms. And I like the careful phrasing: how did the CIA end up depending on unreliable sources. Paging Ahmed Chalabi.
Powell also said he hoped a commission investigating the U.S. intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction would reveal how the CIA ended up depending on unreliable sources for key evidence he used to argue for war.
The acknowledgement about alleged mobile chemical arms laboratories could further hurt the credibility of the Bush administration, also under fire in an election year for failing to stop the September 11 attacks.
The United States justified its first preemptive war by accusing Iraq of amassing illegal arms and invaded last year without explicit U.N. approval and over the objections of many allies.
In February, 2003, Powell made a major presentation of the U.S. case against Iraq at a special session of the U.N. Security Council, where he said the United States had several sources showing mobile chemical weapons laboratories.
But on Friday, the top American diplomat said the evidence on the trailers has been shown to be shaky.
"Now it appears not to be the case that it was that solid. But at the time I was preparing that presentation it was presented to me as solid," Powell told reporters on a flight home from a trip to Europe.
The article describes this as "the most straightforward acknowledgement from the Bush administration that the information was probably wrong." Powell has shown a tendency to stray just a little bit off the reservation recently. Of all the major White House administration figures, he may have been the one with the most credibility on the international stage. Those days are gone but if the rumours of his departure from the administration even if Bush wins a second term are true, I look forward to his memoirs. I won't take anything he says at face value but I'll bet it'll be an interesting read.
Updated to add the link on Ahmed Chalabi, courtesy of The Agonist.
Thursday, April 01, 2004
Checking out briefly
I'm off on a quick trip. There will be nothing new here until later on tomorrow, but I'd like to leave you with a question about something that's puzzling me.
Why is the Liberal party so intent on building a cult of personality around someone who appears not to have that much personality in the first place? Or is that just me?
OK, that's two questions. See ya.
