RPT - Ex-Pakistani Foreign Minister Thinks Colin Powell Really Believed US Intel on Iraq in 2003

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th February, 2023) Late former US Secretary of State Colin Powell obviously regretted presenting false information about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to the United Nations Security Council and felt that he was deceived, Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri, a former Pakistani foreign minister, told Sputnik.

This Sunday is the 20th anniversary of the infamous meeting where Powell told the UNSC that he had first-hand information about the technologies for the production of biological weapons allegedly available to then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Powell's presentation failed to persuade the council to pass a resolution to back the US invasion of Iraq, but ended up undermining Washington's credibility, as no WMDs were later found in the country. For his part, Powell, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 84 from coronavirus-related complications, regretted his role in launching that campaign, calling it a "blot" on his record.

"As far as Secretary Colin Powell is concerned, the fact that he regretted it makes me feel that he did in fact believe the information he was given. But he obviously regretted it, and the meaning to me is clear that he felt he had been misled. I would say there must have been political pressures, and probably not the entire cabinet agreed," Kasuri, who represented Islamabad at that historic UNSC meeting, said.

Powell became the first African American chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1989 and served in that position for four years. In 2001, former US President George W. Bush tapped Powell to serve as secretary of state. Powell accepted the offer, becoming the first African American to hold that office, and left the post in 2005.