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Which WMD?
Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state who told the United Nations that Saddam Hussein was concealing weapons of mass destruction, has conceded the assertion will always be a "painful blot" on his record.
Asked whether the statement about WMD tarnished his reputation, the former general responded: "Of course it will. It's a blot. I'm the one who presented it on behalf of the United States to the world and [it] will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It's painful now." The soldier-statesman made a dramatic and detailed presentation to the UN Security Council a month before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It relied on the extensive use of intelligence material, which later turned out to be inaccurate.
That fuelled allegations from Europeans and American liberals that, as the moderate face of a hardline administration, he had allowed himself to be misused.
But during the interview Mr Powell was unwilling to apologise or blame other senior figures. In particular, he refused to attack George Tenet, the former CIA director whose agency provided him with poor information during a week-long briefing before his Security Council speech. "He didn't sit there for five days with me, misleading me," Mr Powell said. "He believed what he was giving me was accurate . . . the intelligence system did not work well."
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"There were some people in the intelligence community who knew at the time that some of these sources were not good and shouldn't be relied upon and didn't speak out," he said. "That devastated me."
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When Mrs Walters tried to tease from him an admission that the Iraq war had been a bad idea, he said: "Who knew what the whole mess was going to be like?"
"I'm always a reluctant warrior and I don't resent the term, I admire the term," he said. "But when the President decided that it was not tolerable for this regime to remain in violation of all these UN resolutions, I'm right there with him on the use of force."
Asked whether he had put loyalty to the President above his own judgment, Mr Powell said he had not: "Loyalty is a trait that I value and yes, I am loyal. And there are some who say, 'Well, you shouldn't have supported it. You should have resigned'. But I'm glad that Saddam is gone. I'm glad that that regime is gone."
Posted on September 11, 2005
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