# Could Colin Powell have stopped the Iraq war? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535 "2013-03-21T14:36:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/101 "2013-03-26T01:01:56Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I will concede that there were countless Iraqi officials offering up such a statement about the lack of WMDs, including SH himself. Now, can we confine ourselves to people not in the employ of SH? I thought it was a given that we were looking for people not aligned with SH, but going forward, let’s keep that in mind. OK? I am not presenting the fact that Amir al Saadi made a statement about the lack of WMD’s in Iraq although he is one that would have known. I am presenting the more powerful event that Amir al Saadi’s offer itself represents. That is the CIA and the Bush Administration had an opportunity to know the truth first hand of what was there without war and better than war, and not through UN intermediaries, or Curveball type highly questionable Iraqi exile sources, and they turned it down. Amir Saadi did not just make a statement, he made an OFFER that makes whatever knowledge anyone had on the Iraq side or on the Bush/Blair side pale in importance. Do you have an ‘plausible’ explanation as to why the Bush Administration could justify not taking up that offer from Al Saadi, or for not even trying to check it out or test it, to see if it was serious or not? By the way, where is Amir al Saadi now? Last known in CIA custody up until January 2005 is all we know. Saadi was big news in the run up to the war, and his wife was very outspoken and critical of the US invasion until 2005. Just curious. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/102 "2013-03-26T01:17:47Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > I am not presenting the fact that Amir al Saadi made a statement about the lack of WMD’s in Iraq although he is one that would have known. > > I am presenting the more powerful event that Amir al Saadi’s offer itself represents. > > That is the CIA and the Bush Administration had an opportunity to know the truth first hand of what was there without war and better than war, and not through UN intermediaries, or Curveball type highly questionable Iraqi exile sources, and they turned it down. > > Amir Saadi did not just make a statement, he made an OFFER that makes whatever knowledge anyone had on the Iraq side or on the Bush/Blair side pale in importance. > > Do you have an ‘plausible’ explanation as to why the Bush Administration could justify not taking up that offer from Al Saadi, or for not even trying to check it out or test it, to see if it was serious or not? > > By the way, where is Amir al Saadi now? Last known in CIA custody up until January 2005 is all we know. Saadi was big news in the run up to the war, and his wife was very outspoken and critical of the US invasion until 2005. > > Just curious. Sure, the plausible explanation is that they had already made up their minds and weren’t curious about an offer. But just because some crony of SH makes an offer doesn’t mean it’s something worth considering. After the big to-do SH made about the inspectors really being US spies, one might go :dubious: to an offer to invite actual spies in. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/103 "2013-03-26T01:47:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Sure, the plausible explanation is that they had already made up their minds and weren’t curious about an offer. But just because some crony of SH makes an offer doesn’t mean it’s something worth considering. After the big to-do SH made about the inspectors really being US spies, one might go :dubious: to an offer to invite actual spies in. It is your opinion that the CIA Director and the President of the United States in preparing the nation and the Armed Forces to start a preemptive war when there is no immediate threat to our security… should not have been ‘curious’ about an offer to inspect the ‘to be invaded nation’ directly over some action that was taken four years prior to the present moment in time. That is a very low standard of what you expect from our intelligence agencies and any administration that is contemplating pre-emptive war. Yes it is duly noted. If I have misintepreted you response, please advise. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/104 "2013-03-26T01:53:34Z")
> [@NotfooledbyW](#): > > It is your opinion that the CIA Director and the President of the United States in preparing the nation and the Armed Forces to start a preemptive war when there is no immediate threat to our security… should not have been ‘curious’ about an offer to inspect the ‘to be invaded nation’ directly over some action that was taken four years prior to the present moment in time. No, that is not my opinion. Why would you think that? Don’t confuse the act of explaining something with the act of agreeing with that something. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/105 "2013-03-26T01:57:25Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Are you serious? You can look up the current holder of the Stanley cup on their web site, or wikipedia or any number of places and get a definitive, factual answer. Where, in Feb of 2003, could you “look up” the status of SH’s WMD programs and get a definitive, factual answer? We’re not talking about now. We’re talking about prior to the invasion. In Iraq obviously. Where else would you look for Iraqi weapons? Oh, right, Syria. In case you haven’t heard, there were organizations looking for Iraqi WMD’s in 2003; the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. They had conducted 750 inspections in Iraq in the four months before the invasion and said they found no conclusive evidence of current WMD programs. And the Bush administration’s response was essentially “We know they’re there. They just hid them where you guys couldn’t find them.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/106 "2013-03-26T01:59:59Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In Iraq obviously. Where else would you look for Iraqi weapons? Oh, right, Syria. > > In case you haven’t heard, there were organizations looking for Iraqi WMD’s in 2003; the United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency. They had conducted 750 inspections in Iraq in the four months before the invasion and said they found no conclusive evidence of current WMD programs. > > And the Bush administration’s response was essentially “We know they’re there. They just hid them where you guys couldn’t find them.” Is this an admission, at last, that you cannot name any people who, as you claimed earlier, knew there were no WMDs? If so, it’s a rather odd admission, but I’ll accept it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/107 "2013-03-26T04:16:34Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Is this an admission, at last, that you cannot name any people who, as you claimed earlier, knew there were no WMDs? If so, it’s a rather odd admission, but I’ll accept it. No, that would be me answering your question. I’m not sure what it is you found unclear. Was it because I named the organizations rather than list the individual investigators by name? Was it because they said they found no evidence of WMD’s rather than say there were no WMD’s? In either event, I find objections like that to be pointless weaseling. If your position is based on nothing more than arguing about the precise meanings of words then it’s obviously too weak to stand. So what is your position? Are you one of the hold-outs who still believes that there were WMD’s in Iraq in 2003? If so, I guessed we’ve reached an impasse. I’m limited to reality-based arguments. Or do you concede that there were no current WMD programs in Iraq in 2003? If this is the case, I see four possible scenarios. 1. UNMVIC and IAEA investigated and looked at the evidence and found no evidence that Iraq had any current WMD programs. The CIA didn’t really investigate and just decided that Iraq had WMD programs. UNMVIC and IAEA had done their job correctly and their conclusion was correct. The CIA didn’t do its job and its guess was wrong. 2. UNMVIC and IAEA investigated and looked at the evidence and found no evidence that Iraq had any current WMD programs. The CIA also investigated and looked at the same evidence but decided that Iraq did have current WMD programs. UNMVIC and IAEA analyzed the evidence correctly and their conclusion was correct. The CIA’s analysis of the evidence was faulty and their conclusion was wrong. 3. UNMVIC and IAEA investigated and looked at the evidence and found no evidence that Iraq had any current WMD programs. The CIA also investigated but looked at different evidence than what UNMVIC and IAEA did and on the basis of that decided that Iraq had current WMD programs. The evidence that UNMVIC and IAEA looked at was true and their conclusion was correct. The evidence that the CIA looked at was false and its conclusion was wrong. 4. UNMVIC and IAEA investigated and looked at the evidence and found no evidence that Iraq had any current WMD programs. The CIA also investigated and looked at the same evidence and reached the same conclusion that Iraq did not have current WMD programs. But then the CIA lied and said Iraq did have WMD programs. I feel that covers the four possibilities of what happened. Under which of these scenarios do you think the CIA was more credible than UNMVIC and IAEA? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/108 "2013-03-26T04:29:29Z")
**Nemo** : If you have no cites and no quotes to back up your claim, I have nothing else to discuss with you. There are “plenty” of people who were saying there were no WMDs, and yet you can’t cite even one. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/109 "2013-03-26T05:19:08Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Is this an admission, at last, that you cannot name any people who, as you claimed earlier, knew there were no WMDs? If so, it’s a rather odd admission, but I’ll accept it. > [@John\_Mace](#): > > **Nemo** : If you have no cites and no quotes to back up your claim, I have nothing else to discuss with you. There are “plenty” of people who were saying there were no WMDs, and yet you can’t cite even one. It isn’t any sort of admission. I’ve pointed out Powell, Wilkerson and Scrocroft already. Why are you so anxious to at attribute an position to Little Nemo when you won’t attribute an actual position to Powell, Wilkerson and Scrowcroft when they said as much? Shifting burden of proof much? You won’t address Nemo’s citations because they utterly refute your point. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/110 "2013-03-26T05:58:07Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > **Nemo** : If you have no cites and no quotes to back up your claim, I have nothing else to discuss with you. There are “plenty” of people who were saying there were no WMDs, and yet you can’t cite even one. Go ahead and read [it](http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7682.doc.htm) > [@](#): > > The Director-General of the IAEA, Mr. ElBaradei, reported that, after three months of intrusive inspections, the Agency had found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. There was also no indication that Iraq had attempted to import uranium since 1990 or that it had attempted to import aluminium tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment. What will be your next objection? That this report is in English and you wanted one written in Esperanto? ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/111 "2013-03-26T07:58:06Z")
> [@](#): > > Do you have an\*\* ‘plausible’ \*\*explanation as to why the Bush Administration could justify not taking up that offer from Al Saadi, or for not even trying to check it out or test it, to see if it was serious or not? \*\*-NtfldbW \*\*#101 03-25-2013 09:01 PM 084p0901. The definition of ‘plausible’ I prefer is the first defininition. “believable and appearing likely to be true, usually in the absence of proof” > [@](#): > > Sure, the **plausible** explanation is that they had already made up their minds and weren’t curious about an offer. But just because some crony of SH makes an offer doesn’t mean it’s something worth considering. After the big to-do SH made about the inspectors really being US spies, one might go (dubious emoticon) to an offer to invite actual spies in. -John Mace #104 03-25-2013 09:17 PM 084p0917 I see the first sentence in John Mace’s response (#104) to my question in Post #101 which was “whether \*\*John Mace himself \*\* had a plausible explanation” for why Bush and CIA refused Al Saadi’s offer. And that response was identified, by John Mace as a plausible, and believable and appearing likely to be true, that the Bush Administration, “had already made up their minds and weren’t curious about an offer.” Then John Mace follows the first sentence with “But just because some crony of SH makes an offer doesn’t mean it’s something worth considering” so I was not certain that this was part of the plausible explanation or if this was in fact John Mace’s own opinion. And then John Mace brings up in the third sentence the history of the 1998 inspections gone bad and perhaps that could cause Tenet and Bush to be dubious about an offer that could lead to the avoidance of warand the CIA obtaining full first hand knowledge of Iraq’s WMD status if it worked out. So I asked for clarity upon expressing what I thought John Mace meant by offering this ‘plausible’ explanation fpr the obvious Bush rejection of Al Saadi’s offer. > [@](#): > > If I have misinterpreted you response, please advise. -Ntfldbw #103 03-25-2013 09:47 PM 084p0947 To which John Mace politely replied and explained that he personally does not believe or agree with this explanation to be plausible or believable, which is why I asked for clarification in the first place. > [@](#): > > No, that is not my opinion. Why would you think that? Don’t confuse the act of explaining something with the act of agreeing with that something. -John Mace 03-25-2013 09:53 PM 084p0953. So I take this to mean that John Mace agrees with me that there is no plausible or believeable explanation that could come from the White House or CIA that explains why this offer from Iraq was not considered to avert war and to positively get verification of Iraq’s WMD disarmament while doing so. That is why I believe that Al Saadi’s highly visible offer which came in mid-December 2002 at the early stages of renewed inspections is a landmark pivitol point between pre-Saadi and post-Saadi offer actionable intelligence in achieving an understanding with what went wrong in the US and UK intelligence gathering and how the leaders of both nations misused their nation’s intelligence gathering apparatus. I am glad to see that John Mace’s ‘opinion’ about the lack of a ‘plausible’ explanation by the White House for refusing to attempt to avert war, pretty much matches mine. Perhaps we can come to some agreement that the Journalists and the Congress should pursue an explanation of this lack of interest in avoiding war from the members of the Bush Administration before they pass away. At least for our own edification to understanding what happened and to get them on record for the historians to better do what we know they will be doing over then next fifty years. I’d hate to see an historian wondering, why none of our time bothered to figure out why al Saadi was not given a proper hearing and then why al Saadi dissappeared from the limelight and ceased to exist in public. ---
**Author:** ![NotfooledbyW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f475e1/32.png) [@NotfooledbyW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotfooledbyW)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2013, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535/112 "2013-03-26T08:16:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Go ahead and read [it](http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2003/sc7682.doc.htm) > What will be your next objection? That this report is in English and you wanted one written in Esperanto? I was looking this up earlier last evening when I got side-tracked. Glad to see you pointed out what Dr. ElBaradei had to say prior to the decision to invade by the Bush White House. > [@](#): > > Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief inspector for nuclear weapons, > > We have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons program since the elimination of the program in the 1990’s. > > However, our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course. **With our verification system now in place** , barring exceptional circumstances, and provided there is **sustained proactive cooperation by Iraq,** we should be able within the next few months to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons program. > Background > > To understand the approach of the I.A.E.A.'s inspection over the past two months, it is important first to **recall what was accomplished during our inspections from 1991 to 1998** , in fulfillment of our Security Council mandate to eliminate Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. In September 1991, the I.A.E.A. seized documents in Iraq that demonstrated the extent of its nuclear weapons program. > > \*\*By the end of 1992, we had largely destroyed, removed or rendered harmless all Iraqi facilities and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons production. We confiscated Iraq’s nuclear-weapons-usable material – highly enriched uranium and plutonium – and by early 1994 we had removed it from the country. By December 1998 – when the inspections were brought to a halt with a military strike imminent – we were confident that we had not missed any significant component of Iraq’s nuclear program. \*\* > While we did not claim absolute certainty, \*\*our conclusion at that time was that we had neutralized Iraq’s nuclear weapons program and that there were no indications that Iraq retained any physical capability to produce weapon-usable nuclear material. \*\* > During the intervening four years of our absence from Iraq, we continued our analytical work to the best of our ability, using satellite imagery and other information. But no remote analysis can replace on-site inspection, and we were therefore not able to reach any conclusions about Iraq’s compliance with its Security Council obligations in the nuclear field after December 1998. > -Excerpts from NYTimes January 28, 2003 [http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/28/world/....ohamedelbaradei](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/28/world/....ohamedelbaradei) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-colin-powell-have-stopped-the-iraq-war/653535.md?page=5)