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   From: lootin.loothor@splcenter.org   
      
   On 03 Dec 2021, Rudy Canoza  posted some   
   news:CCvqJ.83130$SR4.76790@fx43.iad:   
      
   > Bill Clinton said there were.   
      
   This is part of a special series where NPR looks back at our coverage of   
   major news stories in the past. Listen to the full audio story to hear   
   excerpts from Colin Powell's U.N. speech and more of NPR's archival audio.   
      
   There wasn't just one moment that led to the Iraq War. But one speech,   
   delivered 20 years ago at the United Nations, would come to define and   
   undermine the conflict.   
      
   On Feb. 5, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell sat in front of   
   members of the U.N. Security Council. He'd been a staunch critic of U.S.   
   intervention against Iraq's authoritarian leader, Saddam Hussein.   
      
   But with the world watching, Powell made a case for war.   
      
   "My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources —   
   solid sources," he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you   
   are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."   
      
   Powell used information that intelligence officials assured him was   
   credible. There were reconnaissance photos, elaborate maps and charts, and   
   even taped phone conversations between senior members of Iraq's military.   
      
   "Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons," Powell said. "Saddam Hussein has   
   used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them   
   again — against his neighbors, and against his own people."   
      
   Powell repeatedly used one phrase during his hour-long speech: "weapons of   
   mass destruction." He said those words a total of 17 times. It was the   
   phrase the Bush administration kept publicly using to help justify   
   invading Iraq.   
      
   A month and a half after the U.N. speech, President Bush ordered air   
   strikes over Baghdad. It marked the beginning of a military operation "to   
   disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave   
   danger," Bush said in a televised address to the nation.   
      
   U.S. forces toppled Hussein's regime in a matter of weeks, and the search   
   intensified for evidence of Iraq's so-called "weapons of mass   
   destruction." But the weapons were nowhere to be found.   
      
   Americans started asking questions.   
      
   "It's kind of embarrassing they haven't found anything," said Allen   
   Hunley, a Tennessee dentist who spoke to NPR in July 2003 while attending   
   the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. "It's almost like they were salesmen   
   and they had a thing to sell."   
      
   National security analyst Joseph Cirincione also criticized Powell's   
   speech in comments to NPR. Particularly, Powell's assurances that there   
   was solid evidence behind his claims of sophisticated and illicit Iraqi   
   weapons programs.   
      
   https://www.npr.org/2023/02/03/1151160567/colin-powell-iraq-un-weapons-   
   mass-destruction   
      
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