WTF? Powell overdosing on Ambien?

Powell, Back After Surgery, Defends His Call for Iraq War

By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

Published: January 8, 2004

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 ? Secretary of State Colin L. Powell today offered a vigorous defense of his United Nations presentation last year on the need to wage war against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, even as new criticism emerged and some American weapons inspectors have left Iraq empty-handed.

In a rare, wide-ranging news conference, Mr. Powell voiced some optimism on several other issues that have bedeviled the Bush administration, including North Korea, Sudan and Brazil. There are indications from allies that six-way talks aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear program may resume, he said.

The secretary, appearing vigorous and in good spirits just three weeks after undergoing surgery for prostate cancer, did not yield an inch in defense of his justification for the war in Iraq. He was fully aware that "the world would be watching," as he painstakingly made the case that Mr. Hussein's regime presented a threat to the United States and its interests.

But, a central tenet of his argument ? that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction ? has, in the absence of evidence, stirred criticism that the administration may have exaggerated its case in order to win support for military action.

A report released today by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-partisan Washington research center, concluded that Iraq's weapons programs constituted a long-term threat that should not be ignored, but that they did not "pose an immediate threat to the United States, to the region, or to global security."

The imminence of the risk presented by Iraq was at the core of debates in the United Nations last winter over how to proceed against Mr. Hussein, who by all accounts had flouted the international community by failing to cooperate with weapons inspectors and come clean about his programs. The Security Council ultimately balked at authorizing war, agreeing to give negotiations more time to work.

Mr. Powell's presentation -- complete with audiotapes and satellite photographs -- made the administration's strongest case for urgent action. Link

See entry below and link to Powell's declaration that Iraq is WMD free/not athreat to its neighbors/not a threat to the U.S./sanctions effective. I guess that the truth is a moving tartget for Colin 'Mai Lai" Powell.

The U.S. Secretary of State recommends: Ambien For those difficult out wash memories.