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Pilger claims he has video of Powell, and perhaps Rice, directly stating that Hussein was not a threat - in 2001:
Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively disarmed Saddam.
If this is true, then all the talk of imminent threat and WMDs was known to be incorrect be the very people who were saying it. I fail to see how someone could qualify that as anything but a lie.
No President should be able to deliberately provide the country with false information as a justification for war. If this is true (and the article does not mention whether or not they had seen the video, so I am assuming they did not), then there is no justification for keeping Bush. No one who believes in the ability of the people to govern themselves could possibly support a man who deliberately mislead the population on such a grave matter.
Link via Digby
UPDATE: The State Department Website has a link to the talk Pilger mentioned above. Here is the quote, per the State Department:
We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.
They knew in February of 2001 that Hussein had no WMDS and was no longer a threat. And they told us he did and he was anyway.
UPDATE 2: Ungodly Politics is also discussing this.
Wow. So much for the argument that the WND had to exist because they existed in 1991 and 1998.
Posted by: dwight meredithThey said those things alright. On camera! I saw Pilger's documentary.
Where was this dynamite before the war? Why did nobody dig it up in February?
The phrase "He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" should have been looped on video, over and over again, in the run-up to war.
Posted by: RyanIt is acknowledged that Saddam had used chemical weapons in the past - or do you disagree? He had them at one time, and there is no evidence that he did away with the weapons or the means to produce them. The fact that inspection teams had not/have not yet found them is not evidence that they don't exist. It is very difficult to prove the negative. He did not account for them as called for in the ceasefire for the first Gulf War. Have you read UN Resolution 687?
He continued to pursue the construction of WMDs. By the time anyone knows with absolute certainty that he has them, the evidence could be bodies dropping in the streets.
What does "significant capability" mean? Is one WMD significant? A single nuke or dirty bomb could wreak havoc in any major city. And Powell's statement was 2 years before Gulf War II.
The fact that "he is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" doesn't mean a lot. No one argued that his conventional forces were of concern.
Posted by:It is acknowledged that Saddam had used chemical weapons in the past - or do you disagree? He had them at one time, and there is no evidence that he did away with the weapons or the means to produce them. The fact that inspection teams had not/have not yet found them is not evidence that they don't exist. It is very difficult to prove the negative. He did not account for them as called for in the ceasefire for the first Gulf War. Have you read UN Resolution 687?
He continued to pursue the construction of WMDs. By the time anyone knows with absolute certainty that he has them, the evidence could be bodies dropping in the streets.
What does "significant capability" mean? Is one WMD significant? A single nuke or dirty bomb could wreak havoc in any major city. And Powell's statement was 2 years before Gulf War II.
The fact that "he is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors" doesn't mean a lot. No one argued that his conventional forces were of concern.
Posted by: dutchtrumpet
