Powell: I Participated in hoax on American People

NOW

Colin Powell’s Former Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson Calls Pre-War Intelligence a "Hoax on the American People"

In an interview airing tonight on the PBS weekly newsmagazine NOW, Colin  Powell’s former Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson states that much of  Powell’s landmark speech to the United Nations laying out the Bush Administration’s case for the Iraq war was false.

"I participated in a hoax on the American people, the international
community, and the United Nations Security Council," says Wilkerson, who
helped prepare the address.

The NOW report, which airs days before the third anniversary of Powell’s
speech, examines the serious doubts that existed about the key evidence
being used by the American government at the very time Powell’s speech was
being planned and delivered.

"I recall vividly the Secretary of State walking into my office." He said:
‘I wonder what will happen if we put half a million troops on the ground in
Iraq and comb the country from one end to the other and don’t find a single
weapon of mass destruction?’" In fact, no weapons of mass destruction were
found in Iraq.

The transcript of Lawrence B. Wilkerson’s conversation with NOW’s host David Brancaccio.