Oops...my bad!!

Powell: Some Iraq testimony based on 'flawed' intelligence

Ah, what a tangled web we weave....

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has said some of his testimony to the U.N. Security Council weeks before the start of the war in Iraq was apparently based on "flawed sources" and appeared not to be "solid."

Powell's admission came in an off-camera discussion with reporters aboard his flight back to Washington from Brussels Friday evening.

Powell's appearance before the Security Council on February 5, 2003, was a major event in the United States' effort to win international support for the Bush administration contention that war against Iraq was justified because of evidence that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

"Now it appears to be the case that it's not solid," Powell said.

I wonder if the families of the more that 600 dead American soldiers are going to buy the "Oops! Sorry!" defense? Apparently, Powell has forgotten that his speech before the UN Security Council included what was presented as documented evidence of the Iraqi regime's perfidy:

• Recorded conversations
• Satellite images of "active chemical munitions bunkers"
• Scientists banned from interviews
• Mobile biological weapons labs
• Nerve gas unaccounted for
• Nuclear efforts continue
• Links to terrorism

Apparently, Americans have been brainwashed over the past year into thinking that the Bush Administration's war rationale was based on hunches, wings, and prayers- and remember, it turned out that the intelligence sources were apparently flawed. In reality, they made a very convincing case based on what they presented as clear and present evidence of a clear and present danger. For any member of the Bush Administration to now claim otherwise is a bald-faced lie, something I never would have expected of Colin Powell. Apparently, truth and integrity are the first casualties in the Bush War Room.

Here's what I don't understand, though: where is the anger? Bush's lies and deceptions have so far killed over 600 American soldiers. If this travesty had been committed by Bill Clinton, the hue and cry and weeping and gnashing of teeth would have been heard from coast to coast- and justifiably so. Bush commits the same crime, and there is nary a whimper from the American populace? I'm beginning to believe that Josef Goebbels was onto something, and the Bush Administration has clearly been paying attention. Lie big enough, often enough, and well enough. Wrap yourself in flag and faith. Voila!!; you're Golden.... THIS is the sort of leadership we expect and accept?