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That must be why they put "just kidding" under the letter.
After Downing Street insists this letter is real....
Dear David,
This letter is not for publication, and my motivation is not political. I'm writing to you not out of concern for establishing the best policy in Iraq but out of personal concern for your well being. So, please accept my unsolicited advice as it is intended: purely for your sake. But I would ask you not to share this correspondence with anyone.
The presentation I made at the United Nations making the case for an invasion of Iraq was the worst mistake I have ever made. I don't, of course, mean that my beliefs about weapons in Iraq proved false or that the occupation of Iraq proved problematic. I mean that I did not heed the warnings of my staff. They urged me on point after point that the UN inspectors and those informed of the facts would not find my claims to be even plausible, much less convincing. And in my heart, David, I can tell you that I knew they were right, and that the claims I made were not plausible. It may have taken some time for Americans to realize that, but let me assure you: they have realized it. I am no longer respected by the average American. Do you know what that means?
I've been a good soldier and worked within the system to get ahead, but my goal was to do good and to be respected. I tossed out doing good in favor of being respected, and I ended up being despised. And nothing I can say or do will ever change that. I will forever be known as a man who lied, and who lied on behalf of someone else's agenda. Were that not so, I would very likely have been given the assignment that you now have.
These are one-time assignments. You can only throw away your reputation once. After that, you can never build it back in order to throw it away again. I know that you think otherwise. I know that the deception you perpetrated last September has not destroyed you. But this one will, David. I tell you this for your own good. And in the histories of this period to be written not so many years from now, your two presentations will be merged and blurred, and what you said in selling the surge will be remembered as having destroyed you.
And that's if we're lucky. That's if your push for an attack on Iran doesn't pull the pin on a grenade that takes us all out. It will take you out first. If you argue for an attack on Iran, you will witness the transformation of spineless senators and congress members into vertebrates, and you will be humiliated then and there by their grilling. Are you prepared for that? And if you merely try to claim, in opposition to the well-known facts, that the surge has succeeded and that therefore we should behave as if it has not and keep the occupation going, you will in the end be ruined.
You have not yet adapted to the adulation of fame. Let me tell you this: you will never adapt to the scorn and contempt that your face will elicit from random members of the public. I know that I never will. I am warning you for your own good. Please heed my advice as one who has made the wrong decision and paid a price worse than death for it. Do not promote the continued occupation of Iraq and do not argue for an attack on Iran.
Instead, I think you should consider the possibility of telling the truth about the current situation in Iraq. If you did that, your name and the words "White House" would be in the same sentence within hours. I urge you to give the matter deep private thought. Look back on what you will have done as if from your death bed. Consider the decades of admiration or humiliation that lie in the balance. Do the right thing for yourself and for all of us. Speak for yourself. Speak the truth.
Your friend, Colin Powell.
After Downing Street
Historic letter....
That must be why they put "just kidding" under the letter.
Yes, AfterDowningStreet really put "just kidding" under the letter on their web page.
As for Powell, I wouldn't be surprised if he's got something in the works -- but it won't be much that Armitage hasn't already said in several reports and do entaries. No End in Sight and the latest Frontline about Iraq are prime examples.
My point is that the letter summarizes what Powell feels, but who's pride has come before a sense of honor to his country, sentiments expressed in the Salon article quite articulately...
I didn't think the letter passed the smell test. I wonder how many other kooks out there got fooled by it.
And Dan just swallowed it. Didn't even check it for accuracy. Didn't see if the news outlets were reporting it. Didn't match the vocabulary and style from known letters of Powell to determine if it might be inauthentic. Nope ... he just accepted it.
I wish these people would be as accepting of the orthodox account of 9-11. Or Pres. Bush (at least once in awhile).
The letter is a fake and the article is from last August.Didn't scroll down to see "just kidding."And Dan just swallowed it. Didn't even check it for accuracy. Didn't see if the news outlets were reporting it. Didn't match the vocabulary and style from known letters of Powell to determine if it might be inauthentic.
....what's to swallow? certainly not anything in the letter....now if you were arguing that Powell was somehow misrepresented perhaps you would have a point...
The letter was fake. That's the point. Powell was misrepresented because he didn't write the damn letter.
...but he has expressed the sentiment....on more than one occasion....as has his former staff...
....but the letter is a fake....that you tried to pass off as true....
Can you provide some (legit) news stories, or preferably, actual quotes from Powell that would support your contention that this fake letter accurately represents his views?
Or that "the case for an invasion of Iraq was the worst mistake I have ever made"
"I am no longer respected by the average American"
"I tossed out doing good in favor of being respected, and I ended up being despised. And nothing I can say or do will ever change that. I will forever be known as a man who lied, and who lied on behalf of someone else's agenda."
The Left's appeal to Gen. Powell as a "legit" voice for some of their kookery will leave them disappointed.
bogus
bad letter for fact finding.
just accept powell's statement when he acknowledged that "much of the evidence that led to the war was deliberately misleading".
Just recently Powell confessed on Meet the Press that Bush and had lots of warnings and they knew well in advance what was likely to occur. Powell said he, Bush and Rice even discussed it all together....
Meanwhile, the media continues perpetuates the myth that Iraq was a miscalculation. That's another in the long list of lies America has been told about Iraq.
MSNBCMR. RUSSERT: Prior to the war, Walter Pincus wrote that you were provided, the president was provided some information from the CIA. Let me read it here. “On August 13th, 2003, the CIA completed a classified, six-page intelligence analysis that described the worst scenarios that could arise after a U.S.-led removal of Saddam Hussein: anarchy and territorial breakup in Iraq, a surge of global terrorism,” “a deepening of Islamic antipathy toward the United States.
“According to then-CIA director George Tenet, it was relegated to the back of a thick briefing book handed out to President Bush’s national security team for a meeting on September 7th, 2002, at Camp David where the Iraq war was topic A.” Do you remember that?
GEN. POWELL: I don’t remember specifically that book, but I’m sure it exists. But a week earlier, the 5th of August 2002, the president and I, with Dr. Rice present, had a conversation that touched on many of the likely outcomes and the realization that it would probably tie up a significant percentage of our armed forces for a long period of time, it would cost a great deal, we’re getting inside of a sectarian conflict that we would have to keep a lid on, and we would have to get Iraqis up and moving as quickly as possible in order to hand the responsibility off to them. And so I don’t think any of us were unaware of the kinds of problems that we might face. I certainly was not unaware, and I was informed by my own thinking, as well as CIA do entation, not just the one Mr. Pincus makes reference to. But all along the way, those who had experience in this part of the world and those that had experience in war understood that we were taking on something that was going to be a major burden to us for many years, and I think the president was well aware of that. And my, my judgment is that we didn’t prepare ourselves well enough for the kinds of challenges that occurred in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad.
No where in his response to Russert does Powell say invading Iraq was a mistake, wrong, or unwarranted.
didn't prepare for the challenges ahead.
bad and stupid judgement, based on evidence that was deliberately misleading.
Hmm. Certainly Powell has had some professional disagreements with how the Pentagon handled aspects of the war. Everyone already knew that. Heck, conservatives were split on whether the course needed to be changed before Rumsfeld resigned, Petraeus took over in the field, and the surge was initiated.
But don't let his grumblings over policy deter you from knowing that Powell is generally in favor of an aggressive approach on terror. And he is certainly not to be looked upon as some kind of heroic dissenter.
I'm still aghast that some nutty lefty decided to put those words into his mouth. The substance of the letter goes totally against his character and convictions. Does this happen often on lefty blogs?
Okay, does not equal mistaken, wrong, or unwarranted.
With the possible exception of "bad judgement" (vis-a-vis strategy in Iraq), Powell never said this.
fail!
Powell's dog and pony show at the U.N. forever blotted is otherwise distinguished career. Too bad he was the loyal soldier to the worst president evah.
evidence that was deliberately misleading.
he did acknowledge it, in fact, he said it out loud.
I think he said he should have never made that speech ...
sometimes, when the truth falls out, it's bad for the image.
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