# Colin Powell called prewar intelligence reports "Bullshit." **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [June 2, 2003, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069 "2003-06-02T04:35:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/201 "2003-06-09T15:02:26Z")
Indeed, **Desmostylus** , it’s hard to grasp the unimaginable horror of a village after it’s been gassed with hydrogen. There would be people everywhere - hundreds, even thousands of them, some holding on to their babies - just wandering around like nothing had happened! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/202 "2003-06-09T15:21:56Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > Lovely …and will now have to soak the American public for untold billions of dollars for the foreseeable future… Based on the data I got from the Coalition Provisional Government in Iraq (CPA-I) economic team last week, $20 billion a year is the current baseline for needed funding, for a decade, probably somewhat more. Some portion to come from private sector, but given at present there is no security and no clarity on investments, that is going to take a while. Nor were they willing to commit to guarantees for early investors. They have, however, delcared a tax holiday. Tax cuts being the solution to all ills… (a cheap joke in fact). Post-chaos, present estimates for getting Iraqi industrial capacity back to 1980 levels is 3 years, at which time they may be ready for privatization on a non-fire sale basis. Estimates for repairs to oil infrastructure exceed estimated revenues for next five years, and do not cover current degradation due to sabotage. It gets better, I will have something on this after I finish it for work. ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/203 "2003-06-09T16:19:30Z")
You’ve mentioned that once or twice before, **Col**. Consider my curiousity piqued. (And wasn’t the first-year estimate something on the order of $45 billion?) ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/204 "2003-06-09T16:32:58Z")
You just _know_ that whatever it costs to rebuild Iraq, Alex Rodriguez is going to want to have his contract re-negotiated. He’s only getting $25 mil this year. Iraq will get _well_ over a billion! How many homers did Iraq hit last year? I thought so. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/205 "2003-06-09T16:37:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Desmostylus \* > \*\*Hello? Earth to **elucidator**. :rolleyes: > > Hydrogen’s a chemical. “Artillery balloons”? Sure sounds like weapons to me. \*\* My God! Those fiends! They were obviously planning on building a whole herd of Rovers!\* [sub]\*The big white balloon thing from _The Prisoner_[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/206 "2003-06-09T17:57:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jr8 \* > My God! Those fiends! They were obviously planning on building a whole herd of Rovers! No, you fools! It’s _obvious_ Saddam wanted an entire fleet of Hindenbergs! Just think, Iraq quickly builds a new line of luxurious, hydrogen-filled dirgibles. Saddam then invites all of his enemies – the Kurds, the Iranians, the Syrians, the Americans, etc. etc. – for **free blimp rides.** Everyone enthusiastically agrees, since blimp rides are so cool, but once they’re airborne… \*_BABOOM!_ Good thing we nipped _that_ plan in the bud! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/207 "2003-06-09T23:42:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Desmostylus \* > \*\*Hello? Earth to **elucidator**. :rolleyes: > > Hydrogen’s a chemical. “Artillery balloons”? Sure sounds like weapons to me. Chemical weapons. \*\* Here’s something even more frightening: I hear the Iraqis were planning on filling balloons with 79% nitrogen, 20& oxygen, and traces of argon, carbon dioxide, and water vapor! ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2003, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/208 "2003-06-09T23:56:56Z")
Omigod! Now they’ve apparently discovered that substantial quantities of **dihydrous oxide** are being brought into Iraq from Kuwait! Something should be done! ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/209 "2003-06-10T09:36:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by minty green \* > \*\*You’ve mentioned that once or twice before, **Col**. Consider my curiousity piqued. (And wasn’t the first-year estimate something on the order of $45 billion?) \*\* I should have been clearer, the figure $20 billion is economic reconstruction **only**. Does not cover other costs. Estimate, potentially low end, for basic refurbishment and repairs to return Iraq to 1980 levels, per the benchmarks CPA-I consultants are using. Something of a rough average from estimates with a rather large margin of error. In any case, the basic take away is the Admin. seriously underestimated (deliberately?) the costs involved. The tax thing by the way is actual present policy, my cheap shot was the joke, just to clarify. Obv. there is no real infrastructure to collect any kind of duties or taxes, to the rest of the year is written off. Tax holiday, of course that came with the caveat that it’s “at your own risk.” Now Minty just imagine trying to do business in an environment with effectively no laws. None. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/210 "2003-06-10T12:30:40Z")
Damn, **Coll** , haven’t you figured it out yet? Laws is bad. Taxes is bad. Gummint is _evil_. It’s just a matter of time before a country lacking all of the above is filled with happy, industrious people and industries, if they don’t all kill each other first. But that would be OK too, since that would just be the free market in action. All you liberals keep going on about how we need laws, and gummint, and taxes, but you’re really just trying to take away all our freedoms. But we’re on to the likes of you! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/211 "2003-06-10T12:32:25Z")
And I suppose none of you anti-war wombats ever heard of a _hydrogen bomb_!! Well, what else could they want it for? ---
**Author:** ![Desmostylus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c57346/32.png) [@Desmostylus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desmostylus)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/212 "2003-06-10T12:39:27Z")
Holy crap! It’s worse than I thought! ---
**Author:** ![elf6c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/213 "2003-06-10T13:15:08Z")
GWB’s latest spin- freshly from Karl Rove’s mind to Jr’s mouth: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36910-2003Jun9.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36910-2003Jun9.html) > [@](#): > > Bush’s words came amid questions from Capitol Hill about the quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraq’s weapons and whether the administration distorted that intelligence. The administration had used as its primary rationale for the war against Iraq the accusation that Hussein possessed chemical, biological or nuclear weapons that represented a direct threat to the United States. No such weapons have been discovered to date. > > “Iraq had a weapons program,” Bush said yesterday after a meeting of his Cabinet, the first time the body had met since the war started. “Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we’ll find out that they did have a weapons program.” **Annonated GWB:** Dick Cheney said they had them, and he is a friend of my Daddy, so it has to be true. They are hiding in a big underground bunker with Osama, Saddam and the economic recovery from big tax cuts for the rich-- that’s why I can’t find them. He he- “weapons programs”-- that should be vague enough. NOBODY will remember that my administration repeatedly claimed before Congress and the American people that he had _tons_ of actual WMD’s not just some “programs.” Rupert at Fox told me he wouldn’t remind anyone as long as we gave him anything he wants. > [@](#): > > But Bush spoke of Iraq’s weapons program, rather than its weaponry, and referred to it in the past tense. Asked to clarify Bush’s remarks, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush did not intend to make a distinction between weapons and weapons programs. “The president, in saying programs, also applies that to weapons,” the spokesman said. Fleischer also said Bush believed Iraq had weapons when the war began. > > “The president had repeatedly said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that includes everything knowable up to the opening shots of the war,” he said. “We still have confidence in that information. You could say Iraq continues to have weapons of mass destruction. We have confidence we’re going to find them. They’re still there.” **Annonated GWB:** Karl Rove told me that by constantly contradicting myself that it will confuse enough people to keep them from actually using that nasty “Impeachment” word. Damn those filthy hippies! The economy was not recovering, the deficit was soaring, state budgets crumbling, and the War on Terror wasn’t meeting my promises- what was I supposed to do? > [@](#): > > Bush’s remarks were significantly more circumscribed than his statement two weeks ago that “we found the weapons of mass destruction,” based on the discovery of two trailers that the CIA has said could have been used to produce biological warfare agents. Although no actual pathogens had been recovered, Bush asserted then that “we’ll find more weapons as time goes on.” > > A week later, Bush dropped the assertion that weapons had been found, saying instead that “we’re on the look” for the weapons and that Hussein had “a big country in which to hide them.” and > [@](#): > > Bush aides have given somewhat conflicting accounts of how intelligence about Iraq’s weapons was used. Fleischer, asked yesterday about an inaccurate claim in Bush’s State of the Union address in January that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa, said intelligence officials declared the charge incorrect “as the information was received.” > > But national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday that “somebody may have known” the information was false 11 months before Bush’s speech. Rice also asserted Sunday of Iraq’s weapons: “No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored.” But on March 30, Rumsfeld had said: “We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.” **Annonated GWB:** Look I didn’t think you would remember all that. Bushman says lots of things-- oh yeah! [thrusts hips vigorously]. Just because we knew they were not true, and we repeated them without telling you that- that’s not lying is it? > [@](#): > > Yesterday, Bush also expressed irritation about a New York Times article yesterday reporting that two of the highest-ranking al Qaeda leaders in custody have told the CIA that the Iraqi government did not work with the terrorist group. Bush pointed to the involvement of “al Zarqawi’s network” in the killing of a U.S. diplomat. > > Although the Bush administration painted Abu Musab Zarqawi, head of a terrorist group called al Tawhid, as a central al Qaeda figure, the CIA viewed him as “affiliated with al Qaeda,” meaning he had associated with some al Qaeda members but had his own agenda. > > The CIA "always said, ‘We can’t make the connection, we can’t take you there,’ " said a senior administration official. As for an “operational connection” between al Qaeda and Iraq, the CIA “didn’t ever tell [the administration] there was one before the war.” > > More broadly, some intelligence officials said they were surprised at how definitive the Bush administration was in public about the links between al Qaeda and Iraq. Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured shortly before the war began, told his interrogators that al Qaeda did not work with Iraq. “The people I worked with were flabbergasted by statements coming out of the White House about the links to terrorism,” said an intelligence expert on Capitol Hill. **Annonated GWB:** Damn, caught me with my hand in the cookie jar again! Stupid NY Times Hippies! I am going to have Rupert have his mouthpieces start bad mouthing Adminstration critics as terrorists and child molesters. I may have to give him a monopoly or two, and another tax cut- but it will be worth it. Look, I don’t understand the problem. Dick and Donnie explained to me that because they dress the same, come from the same part of the globe, and dislike America that they **had** to be connected. Listen, if you pissants keep complaining I will have to invade another oil rich Muslim country to distract you. **Me:** _Look out Iran_ :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/214 "2003-06-10T13:22:32Z")
Who you calling a liberal? > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RTFirefly \* > \*\*Damn, **Coll** , haven’t you figured it out yet? Laws is bad. Taxes is bad. Gummint is _evil_. It’s just a matter of time before a country lacking all of the above is filled with happy, industrious people and industries, if they don’t all kill each other first. But that would be OK too, since that would just be the free market in action. > > All you liberals keep going on about how we need laws, and gummint, and taxes, but you’re really just trying to take away all our freedoms. But we’re on to the likes of you! \*\* ---
**Author:** ![elf6c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c57346/32.png) [@elf6c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elf6c)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/215 "2003-06-10T13:28:32Z")
The following is from a column, not a story. I will not try to pass it off as a legitimate Cite. :dubious: [cough, cough] > [@](#): > > But the president’s defenders have it exactly backward. The people who should worry most about the credibility gap are those who support Bush’s foreign policy. > > If no weapons are found, and if the administration does not come clean about why it said what it said before the war, America’s ability to rally the rest of the world against future threats will be greatly weakened. So will the president’s ability to rally his own nation. > > Citizens in a democracy accept deceiving an enemy during war. What is not acceptable is for a free government to mislead its own people to bring them around to supporting a war. > > Whether the administration likes it or not, that is the suspicion it now confronts. And while the Bush team rarely listens to its opponents, it might consider paying attention to rumblings in Congress and the warnings coming even from those who supported the president on Iraq. > > Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, still thinks the United States was right to fight the war. Under U.N. resolutions and the peace agreement after the 1991 Gulf War, he says, the burden was on Saddam Hussein “to prove that he had destroyed what the U.N. Security Council acknowledged he possessed, as certified by the U.N. weapons inspectors.” [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21731-2003Jun5.html](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21731-2003Jun5.html) > [@](#): > > “There’s no question,” adds Sen. Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, “that the government’s credibility is at issue on weapons of mass destruction, given the very strong statements of the president and the vice president” and members of the Cabinet. “Where are they?” > > Hagel, like Biden, does not rule out the possibility that the weapons will be found. But both senators dismissed the president’s claim that the discovery of two trailers allegedly used for weapons production proves that, as the president put it, “we have found the weapons of mass destruction.” Interesting thoughts, especially from Hagel a Republican. Not too many people are going to mourn Saddam or his regime. But that’s not really the issue, as much as the Bushies wish it was. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/216 "2003-06-10T13:32:07Z")
And may I add a told you so in re the al-Qaeda issue that so many of the usual idiots were squeeling like little piglets about? ---
**Author:** ![minty\_green](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@minty\_green](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minty_green)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/217 "2003-06-10T14:04:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Collounsbury \* > Who you calling a liberal? Relax, Col. It’s just a word party-line Republicans use to mean “somebody who doesn’t believe everything Karl Rove says.” Quite a compliment, really. Incidentally, I was watching CNN while ironing a shirt this morning and some Republican party hack came on to talk WMD’s. Not only did he parrot the White House’s latest spin about how even Clinton thought Iraq had WMD’s back in the '90s, he even went all the way back to the Israelis bombing that nuclear facility as proof of Saddam’s nuclear weapons program. That was what, 1982? Pathetic. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/218 "2003-06-10T14:04:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, still thinks the United States was right to fight the war. Under U.N. resolutions and the peace agreement after the 1991 Gulf War, he says, the burden was on Saddam Hussein “to prove that he had destroyed what the U.N. Security Council acknowledged he possessed, as certified by the U.N. weapons inspectors.” Isn’t this a textbook case of the impossibility of proving a negative? Even if the inspectors had been able to search every square inch of Iraq, you still couldn’t be sure that the WMDs hadn’t been moved around during the process. ---
**Author:** ![Aro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Aro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aro)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/219 "2003-06-10T14:37:45Z")
Question: Are there any politicians in the US publicly speaking out on this issue (WMDs) at all? Any there any elected officials who are willing to express discontent with the current administration? Is there anyone in America in the same position as, say, Robin Cook or Claire short? Did anyone resign over this, or is that not done in the US? ---
**Author:** ![cheddarsnax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a587f6/32.png) [@cheddarsnax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cheddarsnax)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2003, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069/220 "2003-06-10T15:58:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Aro \* > **Are there any politicians in the US publicly speaking out on this issue (WMDs) at all?** Sen. Robert Byrd has spoken out about this… [The Preception of Deception: Where Are the Iraqi Weapons?](http://byrd.senate.gov/byrd_speeches/byrd_speeches_2003june/byrd_speeches_2003june_list/byrd_speeches_2003june_list_0.html) > [@](#): > > Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction remain a mystery and a conundrum. What are they, where are they, how dangerous are they? Or were they a manufactured excuse by an Administration eager to seize a country? It is time to answer these questions. It is time– past time – for the Administration to level with the American people, and it is time for the President to demand an accounting from his own Administration as to exactly how our nation was led down such a twisted path to war. But other than him, I can’t off the top of my head think of anyone else who has been very vocal about this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/colin-powell-called-prewar-intelligence-reports-bullshit/179069.md?page=12)