How could anyone believe them? How could those in the press and the academia in America all fail to see the lie 11 million in the world were able to see?

I will become a patissier, God willing.

Someone shows you a satellite picture of a truck and tells you there are chemical weapons stored in it.

Why on earth do you believe him?

The chief liar always was Cheney though. What is really good about him is that he says an absolute lie (eg., the presumed link between Saddam and al quaeda), and then 6 months later he denies he ever said it.

The other amazing think is why did Powell took the responsibility of delivering that speech while he probably had doubts about WMD. Why did he make such a favour to the fascists in Washington?  He was the only respectable figure in that administration, this is so sad.

'La fin désastreuse a répondu aux moyens indignes' Germain Tillion

Bliar had two sexed-up dossiers; the first in September 2002 with the '45-minutes' claim, which led to the death of Dr. Kelly and the Hutton whitewash investigation. The other was released prior to Powell's speech, and quickly exposed as not intel but the plagiarisation of a years old student's thesis - for this one, Bliar 'apologised', then made sure it's quickly forgotten by attacking the BBC over its reporting on the other dossier.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

In fact, he kick-started his military career by suppressing the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam when it happened. (Sy Hersch digged it up years later.)

Of the spin and lies preceding Gulf War I, it is well known that the Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter posed as a nurse who witnessed Iraqi soldiers throwing out babies from incubators. However, another significant lie was delivered by Powell: the USA claimed to foreign governments including Saudi Arabia that they have spy satellite photographs of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi soldiers marching up at the Kuwaiti-Saudi border, i.e. another invasion is imminent. This persuased the Saudis to allow the then Coalition military on its land. However, a journalist at the St. Petersburg Times (the Floridian, not Russian!) had the idea to check this claim by ordering a photo of the area from a Russian high-res photography satellite available for private customers - and there was nothing there. (IIRC the lie was then even admitted in some form, yet the story of Saddam just short of attacking the Saudis resurfaces ever since.)

Powell defends a carefully built reputation that is undeserved.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

More than a year after the US declared there was no WMD, Powell appeared on Tim Russert's Meet The Press in October of 2004, and he repeated his lies, and even some of the most galling comments that he made a year earlier.

So, what has changed since October of 2004?

Some members of the US intelligence community "knew at that time that some of these sources were not good, and shouldn't be relied upon, and they didn't speak up," Mr Powell said.

There's the lie. People did speak up but the intel was being fixed through Cheney's office. Perhaps they didn't speak up because they wanted to keep their jobs, albeit in a highly compromised environment.

He should still hang with the rest of them.

As I mentioned on Bootrib if someone like myself could read all kinds of news articles by serious reporters/investigative journalists(for at least a year) that so much of what bushco was trying to peddle was unsubstantiated if not downright lies then I'd say that Powell was willfully ignorant no matter what he's trying to say now.

And if he was truly serious about this mea culpa he'd now be out there leading anti-war demonstrations, peace marches and speaking out in lectures all over the country..until he does I don't buy to much of his worrying about the 'blot' on his record.

I'm trying to remember if he presented actual real satellite photo's of bioweapons trucks..suppose he did but what I do remember is he put up drawings of trucks that he said were mobile labs..drawings for god's sake.

I also remember being absolutely disgusted by his so called ironclad proof and presentation and the resulting news coverage by news media here practically having orgasms of how masterful he was and no one could doubt the case for war..yeah excuse me but lots of people did. Any little shred of respect I had for him was killed off completely that day.

"People never do evil so throughly and happily as when they do it from moral conviction."-Blaise Pascal