2001: Powell & Rice Declare Iraq Has No WMD and Is Not a Threat
Click here for the video(Windows Media Player format, 1 meg)
This clip from John Pilger's documentary, Breaking the Silence, contains 2001 footage of Powell and Rice declaring that Iraq is not a threat. Thanks for the video go to Information Clearinghouse and A-infos Radio Project
http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/powell-no-wmd.htm>>> During the run-up to the 2003 attack on Iraq, we were repeatedly told by US leaders that Iraq absolutely, positively had weapons of mass destruction
. The country was an immediate threat not only to its neighbors but to the entire world. It had the capability of launching WMDs within 45 minutes.
In August 2002, Cheney insisted: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."...In a March 2003 address to the nation, Bush said: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."...In April 2003, Fleischer claimed: "But make no mistake--as I said earlier--we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about."...In February 2003, Powell said: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
But two years earlier, Powell said just the opposite. The occasion was a press conference on 24 February 2001 during Powell's visit to Cairo, Egypt. Answering a question about the US-led sanctions against Iraq, the Secretary of State said:
snip.....
We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq...
...snip....
Secretary Powell: The sanctions, as they are called, have succeeded over the last 10 years, not in deterring him from moving in that direction, but from actually being able to move in that direction. The Iraqi regime militarily remains fairly weak. It doesn't have the capacity it had 10 or 12 years ago. It has been contained. And even though we have no doubt in our mind that the Iraqi regime is pursuing programs to develop weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- I think the best intelligence estimates suggest that they have not been terribly successful.
...snip...
But Powell wasn't the only senior administration official telling the truth before the truth became highly inconvenient. On 29 July 2001, Condoleezza Rice appeared on CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer (an anonymous reader sent me the full transcript from Lexis-Nexis). Guest host John King asked Rice about the fact that Iraq had recently fired on US planes enforcing the "no-fly zones" in Iraq. Rice craftily responds:Well, the president has made very clear that he considers Saddam Hussein to be a threat to his neighbors, a threat to security in the region, in fact a threat to international security more broadly.Notice that she makes it clear that Bush is the one who considers Hussein a threat. She doesn't say, "I consider..." or even, "We consider..."
Then King asks her about the sanctions against Iraq. She replies:
But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt. King doesn't think to ask Rice, if Hussein hasn't been getting arms and his forces weren't rebuilt after the 1991 Gulf War, why Bush considers him a threat.
There you have it. Four to seven months before 9/11--and just 15 to 18 months before the drive to attack Iraq seriously revved up--the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor trumpeted that Iraq had a decimated military, no "significant capabilities" regarding WMD, and was so feeble that it couldn't even threaten the countries around it with conventional military power.
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