Sidney Blumenthal: Will The Real Colin Powell Please Stand Up?

[Hissyspit]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/09/white-house-worried-about-powells-iraq-skepticism

White House worried about Powell’s Iraq skepticism.

Syndey Blumenthal reports that Steven Hadley and other White House officials “are taking Powell’s early skepticism toward the surge and willingness to express it as a potential sign that he will swoop down on them” just after Gen. Petraeus “asks for more forbearance for the president’s policy” in September. Blumenthal adds that the “release of a documentary on the administration’s failures in Iraq, ‘No End in Sight‘… has the White House spooked” because “it might augur to upset their September rollout.”


http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/08/09/iraq_powell/

Will the real Colin Powell stand up?
The White House fears that the former secretary of state will finally tell the truth about planning for the Iraq war.

By Sidney Blumenthal

http://www.imgred.com/

Screen shots from the documentary "No End in Sight." Top right: Colin Powell. Bottom, from left: Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Aug. 9, 2007 | Every movement, gesture and tic of the Bush administration is shadowed by its past. When National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell was deployed politically to overawe timorous legislators into approving unlimited and warrantless domestic surveillance, he was acting in the shadow of former CIA Director George Tenet, whose presence was used to lend credibility to intelligence being fixed to suit arguments for the invasion of Iraq. As Gen. David Petraeus prepares to deliver his report in September on the "surge" in Iraq, he is elevated into the ultimate reliable source, just as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's sterling reputation was exploited for his delivery of the case for invasion before the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003, a date that will live in mendacity, for every statement he made was later revealed to be false; Powell regretted publicly that it was an everlasting "blot" on his good name. Meanwhile, during the dog days of August, the president's aides are preparing the fall public relations campaign to envelop Petraeus' report. On cue, neoconservative organs spew out good news of "progress on the ground" and thrash critics as "defeatist." "Defeatists in Retreat" trumpets William Kristol's latest screed in the Weekly Standard, repackaging old themes once again.

Behind the display of bravado, the West Wing is seized with anxiety. Any rustle in the brush, any sudden noise, upsets the president's aides. As they try to regain their composure and confidence, recalling the glory days when they constituted themselves as the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, a P.R. juggernaut before the invasion, they know who and what they have buried along the way and fear their return.

The release of a documentary on the administration's failures in Iraq, "No End in Sight," directed by Charles Ferguson, has the White House spooked. Bush's aides are not worried because the film is brilliantly shot and edited, or because it is compelling, but because of what -- or whose appearance -- it might augur to upset their September rollout.

The film features three former administration officials speaking on camera as unreserved critics of prewar and postwar planning: Powell's former chief of staff, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson; Powell's former deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage; and former U.S. ambassador Barbara Bodine, a senior member of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, closely aligned with Powell.

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[yorgatron]

1. the real Colin Powell stood up at the U.N.

and declared himself a whore for war.

[NNN0LHI]

7. Yes he did n/t

[NoodleBoy]

2. looks like the loyal Soldier might finally understand that he can have his own opinion, not just

what his boss tells him it is, and he'll still be patriotic.

[orleans]

3. why is powell donating $2300 to the mccain campaign?

no shit will the real powell stand up.

(he can't. he's a snake)

[Virginia Dare]

4. They bought Powell off years ago..

he'll keep his trap shut. He's a loyal Poppy minion.

[Rageneau]

5. Who is Colin Powell again?

Somebody important?

[librechik]

6. When he wants to reveal his own massive complicity in this crime

Pwell will step forward.

Don't hold your breath.