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

[phk]

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

Friday, August 19, 2005; Posted: 5:44 p.m. EDT (21:44 GMT)

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

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell presents the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

(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 5, 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."

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

There was no intelligence failure, the right-wingers were doing everything they could to get their war on, facts be damned.

[dazzleman]

There was no intelligence failure, the right-wingers were doing everything they could to get their war on, facts be damned.

Of course, those right wingers include John Kerry and Bill Clinton, since they all believed that Iraq had these weapons.  Clinton called for regime change in Iraq when he was president, and nobody, right or left, doubted the possession of WMDs by Iraq.  It wasn't something made up by George W. Bush.  But you already knew that.

[Smash255]

There was no intelligence failure, the right-wingers were doing everything they could to get their war on, facts be damned.

Of course, those right wingers include John Kerry and Bill Clinton, since they all believed that Iraq had these weapons.  Clinton called for regime change in Iraq when he was president, and nobody, right or left, doubted the possession of WMDs by Iraq.  It wasn't something made up by George W. Bush.  But you already knew that.

Well their is a difference in thinking someone has weapons & going off to the UN using intelligence to spout off reasons to go to war when you know that intelligence in part is coming from someone who is a known liar

[Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home.]

There was no intelligence failure, the right-wingers were doing everything they could to get their war on, facts be damned.

Of course, those right wingers include John Kerry and Bill Clinton, since they all believed that Iraq had these weapons.  Clinton called for regime change in Iraq when he was president, and nobody, right or left, doubted the possession of WMDs by Iraq.  It wasn't something made up by George W. Bush.  But you already knew that.

Well their is a difference in thinking someone has weapons & going off to the UN using intelligence to spout off reasons to go to war when you know that intelligence in part is coming from someone who is a known liar

So, are you saying Kerry and Clinton had better sources to base their beliefs on?  If so, why were they just as wrong as Bush?

[Smash255]

There was no intelligence failure, the right-wingers were doing everything they could to get their war on, facts be damned.

Of course, those right wingers include John Kerry and Bill Clinton, since they all believed that Iraq had these weapons.  Clinton called for regime change in Iraq when he was president, and nobody, right or left, doubted the possession of WMDs by Iraq.  It wasn't something made up by George W. Bush.  But you already knew that.

Well their is a difference in thinking someone has weapons & going off to the UN using intelligence to spout off reasons to go to war when you know that intelligence in part is coming from someone who is a known liar

So, are you saying Kerry and Clinton had better sources to base their beliefs on?  If so, why were they just as wrong as Bush?

What I am saying is some of the analysis that was gien by Bush went above & beyond what others such as Kerry & Clinton thought.  The prevailing thought was that he had some of his old weapons & it was possible that he was trying to build new ones (although that was very mixed).  Bush's views (& the ones in Powell's speech) was basically about chemical labs & other things that it was a stone cold fact that he was building various weapons.  Those sources were at the time KNOWN to be from people who often lied.  Everyone was wrong, but the information Bush & the administration were saying were above & beyond what was origially thought (& that what others thought was a possible, was a fact) however the sources they used to get this information were known liars

[opebo]

I think the understanding that Clinton and Kerry are also right-wingers is a major step forward for many of you. 

Of course the elected Democrats are, for the most part, not very different from Republicans on the main issues of 1) Empire, and 2) protection of Capital.