February 1, 2004
The New York Times

Powell's Case, a Year Later: Gaps in Picture of Iraq Arms

by Douglas Jehl and David E. Sanger

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31--A year ago this weekend, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell holed up in a conference room next to George J. Tenet's office at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters, applying a critical eye to the satellite photos, communications intercepts and reports that would form the basis for the Bush administration's most comprehensive - and carefully worded - public case about the urgent threat Iraq posed to the world.

After several lengthy sessions, he appeared in New York on Feb. 5, with Mr. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, seated behind him, to tell the United Nations Security Council that the evidence added up to "facts" and "not assertions" that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and that it was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program and building a fleet of advanced missiles.

Mr. Powell's testimony, delivered at a moment of high suspense as American forces gathered in the Persian Gulf region, was widely seen as the most powerful and persuasive presentation of the Bush administration's case that Iraq was bristling with horrific weapons. His reputation for caution and care gave it added credibility.

A year later, some of the statements made by Mr. Powell have been confirmed, but many of his gravest findings have been upended by David A. Kay, who until Jan. 23 was Washington's chief weapons inspector. . . .

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Enver Masud, "Deadly Deception, Pretexts for War," The Wisdom Fund, July 30, 2001

Enver Masud, "Why Iraq May be Next," The Wisdom Fund, November 19, 2001

Enver Masud, "A Clash Between Justice and Greed Not Islam and the West," The Wisdom Fund, September 2, 2002

"Plans For Iraq Attack Began On 9/11," CBSNews.com, September 4, 2002

Glenn Kessler, "U.S. Decision On Iraq Has Puzzling Past, The Washington Post, January 12, 2003

Andrew Gumbel, "Growing Evidence of Deception by Washington," The Independent (UK), April 20, 2003

Julian Borger, "White House 'Lied About Saddam Threat'," The Guardian (UK), July 10, 2003

Julian Borger, "The Spies Who Pushed for War, The Guardian (UK), July 17, 2003

Neil McKay, "Former Bush Aide: US Plotted Iraq Invasion Long Before 9/11," The Sunday Herald (Scotland), January 11, 2004

"Neglecting Intelligence, Ignoring Warnings," Center for American Progress, January 28, 2004

Peter Beaumont, Gaby Hinsliff, and Paul Harris, "WMD: How it went wrong," The Guardian (UK), February 1, 2004

Dana Milbank, "For Bush, a Tactical Retreat on Iraq, The Washington Post, February 2, 2004

"FACTBOX - What Blair said about Iraq's banned weapons," Reuters, February 3, 2004

Peter S. Canellos, "Bush, Powell Made Leaps in Logic in Rush to War," The Boston Globe, February 3, 2004

Paul Waugh, " Intelligence chief's bombshell: 'We were overruled on dossier'," The Independent, February 4, 2004

[The Iraq on the Record database contains staements by the five officials that were misleading at the time they were made.--Prepared for Rep. Henry A. Waxman, "Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration's Public Statements on Iraq," U.S. House of Representatives, March 16, 2004]

[CIA reports, Pentagon briefings, and other materials clearly show, Bush and his spokespeople were playing a crude game of three-card monte, claiming Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda, weapons of mass destruction, and imminent threats, which are here exposed as half-truths, exaggerations, and outright fabrications of a war-mongering administration.--John Prados, "Hoodwinked: The Documents that Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War," New Press (May 2004)]

Paul Waldman, "Fraud: The Strategy Behind the Bush Lies and Why the Media Didn't Tell You," Sourcebooks Trade (2004)

Howard Kurtz, "Prewar Articles Questioning Threat Often Didn't Make Front Page," Washington Post, August 12, 2004

VIDEO: "Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear And The Selling Of American Empire," Interlink (September 15, 2004)

Katherine Pfleger Schrader, "U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMD," Associated Press, September 17, 2004

David Barstow, "How the White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence," New York Times, October 3, 2004

[The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, . . . provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi's credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi's information as "credible" evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.--Douglas Jehl, "Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts," New York Times, November 6, 2005]

VIDEO: "Orwell Rolls in His Grave," TLA Entertainment Group, Inc. / Philadelphia Film Society (2004)