That the Bush administration was determined to go to war with Iraq even before Colin Powell made his 2003 weapons of mass destruction pitch to the United Nations is probably the biggest revelation in the former US secretary of state's new book “It Worked For Me: In Life and Leadership”. In discussing what he calls his “infamous” UN speech, Powell notes that by that time, war “was approaching.” “By then, the President did not think war could be avoided,” Powell writes. “He had crossed the line in his own mind.” Indeed, the book reveals that Bush's National Security Council never met in the lead up to the Iraq war, and never would meet. Powell's presentation lent considerable credibility to Bush's case for going to war with Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein; Washington believed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. As it turned out, it never had WMDs. In the book, Powell notes the WMDs case “was a disaster” and points a finger at Dick Cheney and then chief of staff Scooter Libby as being responsible for providing the gross misinformation about Iraq's possession of such weapons. Powell's speech manufactured evidence, confected audio tapes and doctored pictures, all for the singular purpose of realizing Bush's long sought goal to strike out at Saddam while using 9/11 - within a day of the terrorist attacks – as the pretext. This is an unconscionable record against the US and Powell as its symbol in particular. As the man in charge of US foreign policy, it was his specific responsibility to uphold the laws of his country, and to make sure that the enforcement of human rights and the promotion of freedom, the proclaimed central planks in US foreign policy, are applied uniformly without exception or condition. How he, his bosses and co-workers could stand up before the world and righteously sermonize against Iraq while at the same time completely ignoring the ongoing American involvement in human rights abuses elsewhere defied credibility. What was so monumentally hypocritical about the official US position was that literally everything Powell accused Iraq of was and continues to be the stock in trade of every Israeli government since 1948: Torture, assassination, mass killings, annexation of territory, house demolitions, and assaults against civilians with missiles, helicopters and jet fighters, to name only the most outrageous abuses. All carried out with the total, unconditional support of the United States which continues to supply Israel with the weapons for such practices and every kind of intelligence aid. Powell lectured the world on Saddam's flouting of UN resolutions even as he supported a country, Israel, which has flouted hundreds of them on a daily basis for more than 60 years. Powell acknowledges that his UN speech was a momentous failure, and refers to the address as a “blot” for it provided what may be the most authoritative confirmation yet that there was never a considered debate in the Bush White House about whether Iraq could be contained without the US going to war. __
