WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 06th February, 2023) On February 5, 2003, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell sat before the UN Security Council and outlined in painstaking detail the Bush administration's case that Baghdad possessed weapons of mass destruction, which provided the crucial pretext for the US invasion of Iraq, a speech Powell later said left a "blot" on his record and experts say left a lasting stain on the credibility of Western intelligence.
At the outset of a presentation that lasted nearly 90 minutes, Powell underscored the veracity of the information he was about to unveil - intelligence that proved Saddam Hussein was hiding WMDs in violation of UNSC resolution 1441.
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources," the former general said during the globally televised briefing. "What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
Six weeks later, the US and a group of allies dubbed the "coalition of the willing," invaded Iraq with Powell's speech and powerpoint slides providing the basis and political cover for regime change in Baghdad. However, CIA findings submitted to Congress the following year concluded that Saddam Hussein in fact did not possess WMDs when the US invaded Iraq.
And now, twenty years later, Powell's presentation based on faulty intelligence estimates continues to haunt the US and its allies.
"Powell's deceitful presentation not only ended up trashing the reputation of Powell himself and US diplomacy generally, but it made it impossible going forward to believe any 'intelligence' whatsoever from any Western source," former UK Ambassador Peter Ford told Sputnik.
Powell, a well-respected figure who oversaw the first invasion of Iraq as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, employed slides and props including a vile with anthrax, as he warned that Iraq with WMDs was not an option in a post-9/11 world.
And Powell's performance apparently worked. After the speech a number of polls showed that around three-fourths of Americans supported military action against Iraq.
In addition to lawmakers, Century Foundation fellow Stephen Schlesinger observed that Powell's remarks had a sizeable impact on lawmakers as well, evidenced by the fact a majority of Democrats and Republicans in both parties in the Senate and House backed his claims and supported the war - initially.
Eventually, the sentiments flipped at home when it became clear there were no hidden WMDs and the US was embarrassed in front of the world, he added.
However, Schlesinger, author of "Act of Creation," a book on the UN's founding, said that while his performance worked at home, Powell failed to convince many skeptical foreign governments from the start - including close allies on the Security Council, like France, who refused to support the invasion.
Years later, although his presentation ended up being full of lies, Powell did not seem to receive the same level of criticism as others over the disaster, with some believing he was used by the Bush administration in their obsessive mission to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
University of Illinois Professor of Law Francis Boyle, however, disputes the notion that Powell was some innocent duped by neocons. The former secretary of state, he argued, knew there were no weapons of mass destruction and delivered the speech anyway.
"Powell aided and abetted and facilitated President Bush's war of aggression and genocide against Iraq that exterminated about 1.5 million Iraqis," Boyle told Sputnik. "For that atrocity, he should have been prosecuted by the International Criminal Court."
University of Louvain Professor of Political Philosophy Jean Bricmont emphasized that Powell's fabrications had to be understood in the context of generations of cynical false allegations to justify the ruthless application of US global hegemony.
"It is just one more lie in the empire of lies - one that had more tragic consequences than some other ones, but certainly not a unique incident," Bricmont told Sputnik.
Such lies had been used to justify the massive US military intervention in Vietnam in 1964-65, the destruction of the government of Libya, and now the supply of enormous western weapons to Ukraine, Bricmont said.
Ford, a former British envoy to Syria, said the "magic of intelligence" shamelessly lives on. In the end, he added, the only lesson the US and its allies learned was to up their information warfare skills.
"The lesson they drew from the Iraq debacle was not 'do not launch wars on the basis of false intelligence' but 'do it more cleverly,'" Ford said.
In Syria, Ford claimed, the United States again pushed dubious, "many say fabricated," evidence about chemical weapons allegedly used in Syria.
"The Western powers hastily bombed Syria just days before a team of UN investigators could arrive to put US claims to the test," Ford said.
Ford said the US and its allies have continued to manipulate intelligence to promote warfare to this day.
"During the current conflict over Ukraine barely a day passes without US or UK 'security sources' spoon-feeding some 'intelligence-based' scraps to a mainstream media transformed into stenographers and cheerleaders for war in Ukraine 'as long as it takes,'" he said.
Boyle warned that because of Powell's lies the world should be suspicious of all US intelligence claims.
"The states of the world must distrust anything the United States government is saying today at the (UN) Security Council over Ukraine," Boyle said. "Distrust and verify."
