Nbadan
05-28-2008, 05:04 PM
Many Americans are not willing to accept that Powell let himself be used by the Washington war machine. Powell admitted that the information he was being supplied look 'cartoonish', but yet he went along anyway....now almost 5000 American troops are dead (that's 5000 moms dads, cousins, brothers, sisters, and friends that won't be coming home) and Powell still hasn't admitted that he let himself be deceived and used...is that a real American hero?
Powell speech draws anti-war protesters
By Evan Goodenow
of The News-Sentinel
It was perhaps the most important motivational speech of the 21st century, but four protesters outside Memorial Coliseum said he never should have made it.
Not the speech former Secretary of State Colin Powell gave Tuesday at the Get Motivated seminar. The one on Feb. 5, 2003, where he made the case before the United Nations for the United States' invasion of Iraq. The one where he held up a fake vial of anthrax and spoke of a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida network.” The one where he showed drawings of mobile biological weapons labs and a picture of an aluminum tube said to be used for building nuclear weapons.
“These are not assertions,” Powell told the U.N. “What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”
The protesters argued that the U.N. speech allowed Powell to have it both ways: If Iraqis had chemical and nuclear weapons, Powell was the guy who had made the case for disarming them. And if they didn't, Powell was the good soldier who despite deep misgivings made the case out of a sense of duty and loyalty to President Bush.
“He told a number of lies that resulted in our going to war. Since then, he has not acknowledged or apologized for it,” said protester Dave Lambert, a U.S. Army veteran and grandfather of two Army soldiers. “As a result of that, my grandson is back in Iraq right now. And the other one is scheduled to go back in the fall.”
Polls said the speech convinced Americans skeptical of the war that it was justified because of Powell's credibility, but Powell has since admitted he had grave doubts about the case he made.Powell, who was unavailable for a personal interview, according to a speech organizer, did not discuss his U.N. address during his 45-minute speech on leadership. In 2005, he told ABC news that the speech was a “blot” on his record and the aftermath has been “painful.” Powell said he had been given bad information by the CIA.
However, the 2006 biography “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell,” describes a man well aware that he was making a shaky case. Powell told author Karen DeYoung that the drawings of mobile labs looked like cartoons. And Powell - who was under pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby who wrote much of the draft of the U.N. speech - was aware that the aluminum tube reference was not believed to be credible. It had been removed from a Bush speech in Cincinnati before being re-inserted into Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech.
Protester Tim Tiernon said Powell was too smart to have believed what he was told.
“No one could say for sure there (were) absolutely no weapons at that time, but there was no way that the quantities of chemical weapons would be in existence at that time,” Tiernon said. “He (Powell) knew they had no nuclear program. … There was no clear and present danger. We had time to let the (U.N.) inspectors work.”
Link (http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080528/NEWS/805280320)
Powell speech draws anti-war protesters
By Evan Goodenow
of The News-Sentinel
It was perhaps the most important motivational speech of the 21st century, but four protesters outside Memorial Coliseum said he never should have made it.
Not the speech former Secretary of State Colin Powell gave Tuesday at the Get Motivated seminar. The one on Feb. 5, 2003, where he made the case before the United Nations for the United States' invasion of Iraq. The one where he held up a fake vial of anthrax and spoke of a “sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida network.” The one where he showed drawings of mobile biological weapons labs and a picture of an aluminum tube said to be used for building nuclear weapons.
“These are not assertions,” Powell told the U.N. “What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.”
The protesters argued that the U.N. speech allowed Powell to have it both ways: If Iraqis had chemical and nuclear weapons, Powell was the guy who had made the case for disarming them. And if they didn't, Powell was the good soldier who despite deep misgivings made the case out of a sense of duty and loyalty to President Bush.
“He told a number of lies that resulted in our going to war. Since then, he has not acknowledged or apologized for it,” said protester Dave Lambert, a U.S. Army veteran and grandfather of two Army soldiers. “As a result of that, my grandson is back in Iraq right now. And the other one is scheduled to go back in the fall.”
Polls said the speech convinced Americans skeptical of the war that it was justified because of Powell's credibility, but Powell has since admitted he had grave doubts about the case he made.Powell, who was unavailable for a personal interview, according to a speech organizer, did not discuss his U.N. address during his 45-minute speech on leadership. In 2005, he told ABC news that the speech was a “blot” on his record and the aftermath has been “painful.” Powell said he had been given bad information by the CIA.
However, the 2006 biography “Soldier: The Life of Colin Powell,” describes a man well aware that he was making a shaky case. Powell told author Karen DeYoung that the drawings of mobile labs looked like cartoons. And Powell - who was under pressure from Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby who wrote much of the draft of the U.N. speech - was aware that the aluminum tube reference was not believed to be credible. It had been removed from a Bush speech in Cincinnati before being re-inserted into Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech.
Protester Tim Tiernon said Powell was too smart to have believed what he was told.
“No one could say for sure there (were) absolutely no weapons at that time, but there was no way that the quantities of chemical weapons would be in existence at that time,” Tiernon said. “He (Powell) knew they had no nuclear program. … There was no clear and present danger. We had time to let the (U.N.) inspectors work.”
Link (http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080528/NEWS/805280320)