Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda

[zimv20]

link (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09POWE.html?pagewanted=print&position)


"I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection," Mr. Powell said, in response to a question at a news conference. "But I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did."


weak.

i maintain there's a gap between "considering" and "launching a full-fledged invasion".

[IJ Reilly]

I'm rapidly losing respect for Colin Powell. The administration seems to be living in a bizarre parallel universe where nobody ever argued that the inspectors should have been given more time to do their jobs. Powell is now simply towing this line like a good soldier.

[toontra]

Originally posted by IJ Reilly
I'm rapidly losing respect for Colin Powell. The administration seems to be living in a bizarre parallel universe where nobody ever argued that the inspectors should have been given more time to do their jobs. Powell is now simply towing this line like a good soldier.

While Powell is seen by some as a more acceptable face of US foreign policy, who can forget his performance at the UN meeting prior to war. His presentation was derisory, peddling all manner of inaccuracies and innuendoes as fact. He was doing the nice guy routine, whilst behind the scene the diplomats were issuing all sorts of threats to the smaller members of the security council if they didn't tow the line. In hindsight, every single claim he made about WMD and terrorist links turned out to be false - surprise, surprise!

Powell may be a nice guy, but in my book he's as complicit as the rest in this singularly despicable regime.

[IJ Reilly]

My best understanding of Powell's personality is that he isn't the kind of person to continue fighting for what he perceives to be a lost cause. His comments in response to the Carnegie reports suggest to me that the neo-cons are now firmly in control of foreign policy, and he's now into job retention mode. I suspect this will hurt him politically later.

[mactastic]

[Onion style]
Powell ended the interview by exclaiming "D'oh!" several times.[/Onion style]

No hard evidence huh? Go figure. And much of what has been trumpeted as evidence has been flimsy, or outright refuted. And yet enough Americans think we did the right thing that Dubya's approval rating is hovering around 50%. D'oh indeed.