An account of the untruths Colin Powell laid before the U.N. Security Council in arguing for war against Saddam. Money quote:
My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources.
It was almost all crap, as we now know. Any self-respecting public official would have resigned as soon as that became clear – or at least apologized, as Blair has done. But Powell was in the Bush administration.
“NOT DESPERATE”: But “tense.” That’s the view of an American general in Mosul. Reassured about the situation? A large Kurdish contingent is being deployed to try and restore order in a critical Iraqi city with a very delicate ethnic mix. The barbarians keeping the over-stretched coalition forces on their toes also dismembered the body of a Mosul police officer and then displayed the limbs in the public square. Saddam Redux.
IT GETS WORSE: The amount of money siphoned from the U.N.’s “oil-for-food” program in Iraq may be double what we originally feared. No surprise. Just the usual sickening feeling when it comes to the U.N.’s treatment of developing world thugs.
VAN GOGH BLEG: Can anyone point me to a single liberal American columnist who has written about the Theo van Gogh murder? Hitch doesn’t count. I’ve been a bit stunned by the silence. But maybe I’ve missed some.
The Dish 