History Forum / General / British History / June 2007

When Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton win the Presidency then would it
be out of place to see Colin Powell as the Ambassador to the UN?

   Please.

<snip>

In the modern era, it is *much much more complex* than that. He
probably couldn't have just resigned. Remember too that the chain of
command exists and that Powell is practiced in its art.

I would suspect he knew that when he signed on. It is,
after all, a Cabinet post. The POTUS is the top dawg.

--
Les Cargill

<snip>

Tenet was not an "insider". He was of an Inner Circle ( see also
Solzhenitsyn  ) but not Inside. He was politically expendable.

Really, read about Beria, Stalin and the corresponding guys. Sheesh.
I don't know how they slept at all.

--
Les Cargill

In alt.history.british Hal <SpamThis1@gmail.com> wrote:

Here's a nice quote from

  http://mediamatters.org/items/200510270014

about the NYTimes' role in getting Powell off the hook:

  Perhaps most important, the Times ignored evidence that Powell knew
  some of the claims he made before the U.N. were suspect. As Woodward
  also reported in his book, Powell sought and won from the Bush
  administration the "agreement that the length and content [of the
  U.N. speech] would be his decision" (p. 292). An August 19
  CNN.com report noted that according to retired Col. Lawrence
  Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff at the State Department,
  Wilkerson and Powell "spent four days and nights in a CIA
  conference room with then-Director George Tenet and other top
  officials trying to ensure the accuracy of the presentation."
  The Boston Globe noted in a September 14 article that Powell
  has insisted that "some US intelligence officials already knew
  many of the claims [in his speech] about weapons and terrorist
  ties were suspect, but they had not informed him or other senior
  policy makers about their doubts." However, there is evidence
  that Powell included claims in his speech that he knew conflicted
  with available intelligence and even, at times, with the assessments
  of his own State Department.

  In his speech to the U.N., Powell declared that "Saddam Hussein is
  determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so determined
  that he has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification
  aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections
  resumed." Powell then told the U.N.: "Most U.S. experts think they
  are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges used to enrich uranium.
  Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that they are really
  to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a multiple
  rocket launcher." What he did not say, however, was that the State
  Department's own Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) was one
  of the two intelligence agencies that dissented from the views of
  "most experts." Indeed, Greg Thielmann, who was in charge of assessing
  Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs for INR, later
  told CBS News that in 2001, he had "reported to Secretary Powell's
  office that they [INR] were confident the tubes were not for a
  nuclear program."

I can add to that.  Every single US expert in the nuclear field who
knew anything about centrifuges not only KNEW that the aluminum
tubes were totally unsuitable for such use, but the very few who
were asked by intelligence agencies TOLD those agencies that they
were daft to think the tubes had anything to do with a nuclear
effort.