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February 5, 2003

Colin Powell addresses the UN in an attempt to sway world opinion in favor of war in Iraq. Powell makes a series of inaccurate statements that will badly tarnish his reputation.

Powell says, "I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to al-Qaida." This is al-Libi, who provided information under torture and will recant everything. Powell highlights Curveball's "eyewitness" account when he warns that Iraq's mobile labs can brew enough weapons-grade microbes "in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people." Curveball has been doubted for some time by intelligence agencies at home and abroad. In fact, the senior German intelligence officer who supervised Curveball's case later tells the Los Angeles Times that when his colleagues hear Powell cite Curveball, "We were shocked. Mein Gott! We had always told them it was not proven."

Powell also says that Saddam’s son Qusay has ordered WMD removed from palace complexes; that key WMD files are being driven around Iraq by intelligence agents; that bioweapons warheads have been distributed to the Iraqi military; that a water truck at an Iraqi military installation is a “decontamination vehicle” for chemical weapons; that Iraq has drones it can use for bioweapons attacks; and that WMD experts have been corralled into one of Saddam’s guest houses. Every one of those claims has been flagged by an congressional intelligence assessment of the speech as “WEAK.”

Posted on 02/05/03 at 8:41 AM

Tags: Al Libi, Curveball, Powell, WMD

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