Another GOP Rationale For War Was Bullshit...

Add this to the ever-increasing list of garbage claims used to justify Bush's war...

US military intelligence warned the Bush administration as early as February 2002 that its key source on Al-Qaeda's relationship with Iraq had provided "intentionally misleading" data, according to a declassified report.

Nevertheless, eight months later, President George W. Bush went public with charges that the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein had trained members of Osama bin Laden's terror network in manufacturing deadly poisons and gases.

These same accusations had found their way into then-secretary of state Colin Powell's February 2003 speech before the UN Security Council, in which he outlined the US rationale for military action against Iraq.

It gets better. As John at AmericaBlog points out, Colin Powell worked this little beauty into his presentation at the United Nations:

"I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al-Qaeda," insisted the secretary of state, who now says he regrets voicing many of the charges contained in that speech.

Powell can regret making these statements all he wants, he didn't have to pay for those false statements with his life...
- posted by Brian @ 9:15 AM