Friday, August 19, 2005

Conscience check-in

Maggie says:
How very interesting. According to CNN, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell calls Powell's presentation to the UN regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq "the lowest point" of his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."
According to the article, Powell walked into Wilkerson's office and handed him a stack of papers from the White House, saying "This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it." Wilkerson recalls "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."

Wilkerson goes on to describe the breakdown between Powell and then-CIA director George Tenet after much of the "Chinese menu" was found to be fabricated.

The Wilkerson interview was leaked from an upcoming CNN documentary called "Dead Wrong -- Inside an Intelligence Meltdown." According to CNN, the documentary "will piece together the events leading up to the mistaken WMD intelligence that was presented to the public. A presidential commission that investigated the pre-war WMD intelligence found much of it to be 'dead wrong.'"

Wish I had cable for that one. I also wish I could see a window into Colin Powell's conscience.