Fisk: How the world was duped

[Barrett808]

How the world was duped: the race to invade Iraq.
When Colin Powell made his notorious final pitch for war at the UN Security Council, Robert Fisk was there. In the latest extract from his explosive new book, he recalls a tragi-comic occasion
By Robert Fisk

10/03/05 "The Independent" -- -- The 5th of February 2003 was a snow-blasted day in New York, the steam whirling out of the road covers, the US secret servicemen - helpfully wearing jackets with "Secret Service" printed on them - hugging themselves outside the fustian, asbestos-packed UN headquarters on the East River. Exhausted though I was after travelling thousands of miles around the United States, the idea of watching Secretary of State Colin Powell - or General Powell, as he was now being reverently redubbed in some American newspapers - make his last pitch for war before the Security Council was an experience not to be missed.

In a few days, I would be in Baghdad to watch the start of this frivolous, demented conflict. Powell's appearance at the Security Council was the essential prologue to the tragedy - or tragicomedy if one could contain one's anger - the appearance of the Attendant Lord who would explain the story of the drama, the Horatio to the increasingly unstable Hamlet in the White House.

There was an almost macabre opening to the play when General Powell arrived at the Security Council, cheek-kissing the delegates and winding his great arms around them. CIA director George Tenet stood behind Powell, chunky, aggressive but obedient, just a little bit lip-biting, an Edward G Robinson who must have convinced himself that the more dubious of his information was buried beneath an adequate depth of moral fury and fear to be safely concealed. Just like Bush's appearance at the General Assembly the previous September, you needed to be in the Security Council to see what the television cameras missed. There was a wonderful moment when the little British home secretary Jack Straw entered the chamber through the far right-hand door in a massive power suit, his double-breasted jacket apparently wrapping itself twice around Britain's most famous ex-Trot. He stood for a moment with a kind of semi-benign smile on his uplifted face, his nose in the air as if sniffing for power. Then he saw Powell and his smile opened like an umbrella as his small feet, scuttling beneath him, propelled him across the stage and into the arms of Powell for his big American hug.

You might have thought that the whole chamber, with its toothy smiles and constant handshakes, contained a room full of men celebrating peace rather than war. Alas, not so. These elegantly dressed statesmen were constructing the framework that would allow them to kill quite a lot of people - some of them Saddam's little monsters no doubt, but most of them innocent. When Powell rose to give his terror-talk, he did so with a slow athleticism, the world-weary warrior whose patience had at last reached its end.

But it was an old movie. I should have guessed. Sources, foreign intelligence sources, "our sources", defectors, sources, sources, sources. Ah, to be so well-sourced when you have already taken the decision to go to war. The Powell presentation sounded like one of those government-inspired reports on the front page of The New York Times - where it was, of course, treated with due reverence next day. It was a bit like heating up old soup. Hadn't we heard most of this stuff before? Should one trust the man? General Powell, I mean, not Saddam. Certainly we didn't trust Saddam, but Powell's speech was a mixture of awesomely funny recordings of Iraqi Republican Guard telephone intercepts à la Samuel Beckett that just might have been some terrifying proof that Saddam really was conning the UN inspectors again, and ancient material on the Monster of Baghdad's all too well known record of beastliness.

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[Skittles]

1. G.D. IT THE WORLD WAS NOT DUPED

THERE WERE PLENTY OF US WHO HAVE NEVER, *EVER* BEEN FOOLED BY THE LIES

[baby_bear]

3. The press and many politicians in the U.S., but not all the people

I am proud to have participated in several anti-Iraq-War marches here in Seattle.

Our media and Congress were by and large shameful lemmings, but that didn't prevent a lot of us from seeing the scam.

In other countries, even more citizens and politicians and reporters were seeing and telling the truth.

Many of us even knew that Judith Miller's reports were way too suck-up to Cheney and Bush to be even minimally credible.

I admire Fisk, but he should give credit where credit is due. Even though we did fail to make a difference (there is that).

b_b

[EuroObserver]

2. I didn't see a majority of the demos anywhere in the world duped,

except in the USA, maybe Israel, perhaps UK, duped.

Here in Spain (the various Spains) a good 85%+ were against, and took to the streets in protest by the several millions, all over this large and diverse country, in spite of the (legally-speaking) third member of the warmongering triumvirate (the Trio of the Azores, we call them here) being the then (now ex-) president of the Spanish state government, el Sr. José Maria Aznar López.

Nevertheless, Fisk, within limits, is, as always, right on here.

ed: sorry, duped the 'duped' (de doop).

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