looks like those on whom the task fell to make the legal and political case for war knew thier credibility was going to get sacrificed by the White House:
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A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.
"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."
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no doubt good soldiers, he and Powell, and they tried to make the best of a bad situation:
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"(Powell) came through the door ... and he had in his hands a sheaf of papers, and he said, 'This is what I've got to present at the United Nations according to the White House, and you need to look at it,'" Wilkerson says in the program. "It was anything but an intelligence document. It was, as some people characterized it later, sort of a Chinese menu from which you could pick and choose."
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apparently the White House was hoping that if they threw enough shit on the wall, something would stick. sounds like Powell knew he could get fucked, bent over backwards to vet everything, and got fucked anyway. while he knew the White House could fuck him, he apparently didn't see George Tenet coming. big mistake:
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"George actually did call the Secretary, and said, 'I'm really sorry to have to tell you. We don't believe there were any mobile labs for making biological weapons,'" Wilkerson says in the documentary. "This was the third or fourth telephone call. And I think it's fair to say the Secretary and Mr. Tenet, at that point, ceased being close. I mean, you can be sincere and you can be honest and you can believe what you're telling the Secretary. But three or four times on substantive issues like that? It's difficult to maintain any warm feelings."
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Wilkerson doesn't quite come out and say Tenet was lying, but the inference is clear.
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