Monday, to the Washington Post, he said that the absence of weapons stockpiles "changes the political calculus" about whether to go to war.
Tuesday, after a briefing with the White House, he said, "The bottom line is this: The president made the right decision."
But even without his flip-flop, one would certainly have to question the man's integrity and/or intelligence. Either he was given false information from the intelligence community--and as a result he should demand a thorough investigation--or he was an accomplice in the cooking of the data. As regards the former, you'd think that with his background as a 4-star General that he would've been savvy enough to smell something fishy--many others without his first-hand knowledge of intelligence gathering sure did. As regards the latter, if indeed he was an accomplice to sending Americans to war under false pretences, I ask that he fall on his sword. Literally.
Colin Powell Sucks Dick
Colin Powell Sucks Dick
Dr. Ron 
TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester
TM "Do it 'till you're sick of it. Do it 'till you can't do it no more." Jesse Winchester-
Rspaight
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Meanwhile, Rummy still holds out hope and insists that skeptics must prove a negative:
PIC: Rumsfeld attempted to use his mind control powers on Ted Kennedy
Rumsfeld: Iraq WMDs may still be found
Kennedy reminds Rumsfeld he said 'we know' whereabouts of WMD
Wednesday, February 4, 2004 Posted: 1:10 PM EST (1810 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday he is not ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose Saddam Hussein last year.
Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. weapons inspectors need more time to reach final conclusions about whether chemical and biological weapons existed in Iraq before the war, as the Bush administration had asserted before sending American troops into battle.
In a prepared statement, Rumsfeld said he was confident that prewar intelligence, while possibly flawed in some respects, was not manipulated by the administration to justify its war aims.
In his first public comments on the subject since David Kay told Congress last week that he believed it was now clear that U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs was fundamentally flawed, Rumsfeld praised the efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies and stressed the difficulty of penetrating secretive societies like Iraq.
Rumsfeld offered several examples of what he called "alternative views" about why no weapons have been discovered in Iraq, starting with the possibility that banned arms never existed.
"I suppose that's possible, but not likely," he said.
Other possibilities cited by Rumsfeld:
• Weapons may have been transferred to a third country before U.S. troops arrived in March.
• Weapons may have been dispersed throughout Iraq and hidden.
• Weapons existed but were destroyed by the Iraqis before the war started.
Or, Rumsfeld postulated, "small quantities" of chemical or biological agents may have existed, along with a "surge capability" that would allow Iraq to rapidly build an arsenal of banned weapons. Commenting on that possibility, Rumsfeld said, "We may eventually find it in the months ahead."
Lastly, he offered the possibility that the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction "may have been a charade" orchestrated by the Iraqi government. It is even possible, he said, that Saddam was "tricked" by his own people into believing he had banned weapons that did not exist.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, and other Democrats on the committee reminded Rumsfeld that in September 2002 he said "we know" where weapons of mass destruction are stored in Iraq.
Explaining that remark, Rumsfeld told the panel that he was referring to suspected weapons sites, but he acknowledged that he had made it sound like he was talking about actual weapons.
The remark "probably turned out not to be what one would have preferred, in retrospect," he said.
The Kay team, known as the Iraqi Survey Group, did confirm one thing, Rumsfeld said: "The intelligence community got it essentially right" with regard to Iraq's ballistic missile programs. It found that Iraq was working on missiles of longer range than was permitted under U.N. sanctions.
Rumsfeld also said he saw a possibility that Iraq managed to hide some banned weapons of mass destruction. He said that it took 10 months to find Saddam Hussein and that the hole in which he was found on December 13 "was big enough to hold biological weapons to kill thousands" of people.
"Such objects, once buried, can stay buried," Rumsfeld said.
The findings of the Kay group, he added, so far have "not proven Saddam Hussein had what intelligence indicated he had and what we believed he had. But it also has not proven the opposite."
PIC: Rumsfeld attempted to use his mind control powers on Ted Kennedy
Rumsfeld: Iraq WMDs may still be found
Kennedy reminds Rumsfeld he said 'we know' whereabouts of WMD
Wednesday, February 4, 2004 Posted: 1:10 PM EST (1810 GMT)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Wednesday he is not ready to conclude that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before U.S. troops invaded to depose Saddam Hussein last year.
Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that U.S. weapons inspectors need more time to reach final conclusions about whether chemical and biological weapons existed in Iraq before the war, as the Bush administration had asserted before sending American troops into battle.
In a prepared statement, Rumsfeld said he was confident that prewar intelligence, while possibly flawed in some respects, was not manipulated by the administration to justify its war aims.
In his first public comments on the subject since David Kay told Congress last week that he believed it was now clear that U.S. intelligence on Iraq's weapons programs was fundamentally flawed, Rumsfeld praised the efforts of U.S. intelligence agencies and stressed the difficulty of penetrating secretive societies like Iraq.
Rumsfeld offered several examples of what he called "alternative views" about why no weapons have been discovered in Iraq, starting with the possibility that banned arms never existed.
"I suppose that's possible, but not likely," he said.
Other possibilities cited by Rumsfeld:
• Weapons may have been transferred to a third country before U.S. troops arrived in March.
• Weapons may have been dispersed throughout Iraq and hidden.
• Weapons existed but were destroyed by the Iraqis before the war started.
Or, Rumsfeld postulated, "small quantities" of chemical or biological agents may have existed, along with a "surge capability" that would allow Iraq to rapidly build an arsenal of banned weapons. Commenting on that possibility, Rumsfeld said, "We may eventually find it in the months ahead."
Lastly, he offered the possibility that the issue of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction "may have been a charade" orchestrated by the Iraqi government. It is even possible, he said, that Saddam was "tricked" by his own people into believing he had banned weapons that did not exist.
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, and other Democrats on the committee reminded Rumsfeld that in September 2002 he said "we know" where weapons of mass destruction are stored in Iraq.
Explaining that remark, Rumsfeld told the panel that he was referring to suspected weapons sites, but he acknowledged that he had made it sound like he was talking about actual weapons.
The remark "probably turned out not to be what one would have preferred, in retrospect," he said.
The Kay team, known as the Iraqi Survey Group, did confirm one thing, Rumsfeld said: "The intelligence community got it essentially right" with regard to Iraq's ballistic missile programs. It found that Iraq was working on missiles of longer range than was permitted under U.N. sanctions.
Rumsfeld also said he saw a possibility that Iraq managed to hide some banned weapons of mass destruction. He said that it took 10 months to find Saddam Hussein and that the hole in which he was found on December 13 "was big enough to hold biological weapons to kill thousands" of people.
"Such objects, once buried, can stay buried," Rumsfeld said.
The findings of the Kay group, he added, so far have "not proven Saddam Hussein had what intelligence indicated he had and what we believed he had. But it also has not proven the opposite."
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
You guys are getting on Colin's nerves.
Powell Says Iraq Arms Furor Getting on His Nerves
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell Friday accused critics of politicizing the United States' failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and said it is getting on his nerves.
"Yeah, it does get on your nerves when you see people trying to use this for straightforward political purposes," Powell said in a television interview.
"But, you know, that's the nature of this town in an election season," he said about the controversy over prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons capability.
"But the President was absolutely right in what he did. And we were all standing behind him on this one," Powell told Fox Television's "The Sean Hannity Show."
Claims that Iraq had stocks of chemical and biological weapons were the main reason Bush cited for taking America to war in Iraq, in which more than 500 U.S. troops have died.
Bush is scrambling to limit the political fallout after the former chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay concluded that almost all the prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected unconventional weapons was wrong.
Powell also defended President Bush against what he called "scurrilous attacks" on Bush's military service.
The White House on the defensive this week over Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard, far from the battlefields of Vietnam, after Democrats accused him of going "AWOL."
It denied charges that Bush had shirked his military duties in the early 1970s unlike Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran.
"It's very disturbing, and I wish this kind of attack wouldn't take place," said Powell, a retired general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Let's get on to the issues of the day and not reach back for these kinds of scurrilous attacks, especially against a commander-in-chief who is fighting wars right now in active theaters in Afghanistan and in Iraq and on the global war against terrorism."
Powell Says Iraq Arms Furor Getting on His Nerves
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell Friday accused critics of politicizing the United States' failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and said it is getting on his nerves.
"Yeah, it does get on your nerves when you see people trying to use this for straightforward political purposes," Powell said in a television interview.
"But, you know, that's the nature of this town in an election season," he said about the controversy over prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons capability.
"But the President was absolutely right in what he did. And we were all standing behind him on this one," Powell told Fox Television's "The Sean Hannity Show."
Claims that Iraq had stocks of chemical and biological weapons were the main reason Bush cited for taking America to war in Iraq, in which more than 500 U.S. troops have died.
Bush is scrambling to limit the political fallout after the former chief U.S. weapons hunter David Kay concluded that almost all the prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected unconventional weapons was wrong.
Powell also defended President Bush against what he called "scurrilous attacks" on Bush's military service.
The White House on the defensive this week over Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard, far from the battlefields of Vietnam, after Democrats accused him of going "AWOL."
It denied charges that Bush had shirked his military duties in the early 1970s unlike Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran.
"It's very disturbing, and I wish this kind of attack wouldn't take place," said Powell, a retired general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Let's get on to the issues of the day and not reach back for these kinds of scurrilous attacks, especially against a commander-in-chief who is fighting wars right now in active theaters in Afghanistan and in Iraq and on the global war against terrorism."
"I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegience to their country."
--Colin Powell, "My American Journey," p. 148
-
Rspaight
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The White House on the defensive this week over Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard, far from the battlefields of Vietnam, after Democrats accused him of going "AWOL."
I'm seeing this everywhere -- the White House is trying to make the Guard the issue rather than the fact that Bush blew off his Guard duty. It's a classic Rove tactic -- instead of answering the question, change the question.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if "Meet The Press" interview just ends up with Bush defending the Guard, rather than addressing his attendance record, and Russert lets him do it.
Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney
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Rspaight
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Wow, can I call 'em or what?
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/ ... index.html
Ryan
Bush also implied that complaints that he avoided active military service by gaining a spot in the Air National Guard did a disservice to the Guard.
"There are a lot of really fine people who served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/ ... index.html
Ryan
RQOTW: "I'll make sure that our future is defined not by the letters ACLU, but by the letters USA." -- Mitt Romney