Denounced by 79-year-old former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell as a “national disgrace,” GOP nominee Donald Trump shrugged, knowing Powell shows no shame for his part in what Trump calls the biggest foreign policy disaster in U.S. history: The Iraq War. Costing nearly $5 trillion, 5,000 U.S. lives, and bankrupting the U.S. economy, Powell sold the war Feb. 5, 2003 to the U.N. Security Council but, more importantly, the American public. Giving a methodical presentation offering proof of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Powell delivered the fraudulent intel supplied by former Vice President Dick Cheney and his boys at the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans. Controlled by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and led by Douglas Feith Jr., Richard Perle and other Neocons, the OSP supplied Powell all his phony intel.
Powell ripped Trump because he stood up before the South Carolina Primary Feb. 20, telling a CBS News GOP debate that former President Bush lied about the reasons for the March 20, 2003 Iraq War. Swarmed with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s family and backers, Trump was loudly booed by the audience, telling the truth about the costly Iraq War. Trump never blamed Powell but the former Secretary of State sacrificed his reputation and integrity making the fraudulent pitch to the Security Council. Showing pictures of Ice Cream Trucks from high altitude, Powell insisted that they were Saddam’s mobile germ laboratories, hyping Saddam’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction Bush’s team led by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and National Security Advisor Condolleeza Rice hyped the threat on national TV shows for a year before hitting Baghdad with Cruise Missiles.
When you consider how the Iraq War brought death, destruction and terrorism to the Middle East, Bush’s plan to democratize the region created only chaos and anarchy. Powell was intimately involved in selling the war, despite loud objections from the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission lead by Dr. Hans Blix. Blix begged the Bush White House for more time to verify allegations about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Powell delivered a carefully packed report to the Security Council prepared with fake intel directed by Rumsfeld and Wolfowits and supplied by the OSP. Calling Trump an “international pariah” and “national disgrace,” Powell needs to look no further that his shameful presentation to the U.S. Security Council. Powell attacked Trump because he embodies today’s national voice opposing the Iraq War.
Powell’s pitch for the Iraq War was especially egregious since he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first Gulf War [Aug. 2, 1990 to Feb. 28, 1991]. Powell, Secretary of State James Baker, Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft all advised former President George H.W. Bush against toppling Saddam. Powell was well aware that ousting Saddam would create the dreaded power vacuum, turning Iraq into a terrorist cauldron. Since retiring Jan. 26, 2005, Powell has never admitted his role in selling the Iraq War, let alone his advanced knowledge that the intel he presented to the Security Council was fake. Powell has harsh words for Trump, repeating Hillary campaign talking points that Trump’s a racist. “Yup, the whole birther movement was racist,” Powell wrote in an email reported by BuzzFeed, blaming Trump.
Dealing with rumors and innuendo are the ammo of campaign operatives not former four-star generals and Secretaries of State. Powell can’t fathom, like so many other conservatives and mainstream Republicans, that Trump appeals to a growing number of voters disgusted with both parties. Spelling out his plans for six-months of family leave, Trump received nothing but flack from the GOP and Democrats. Trump’s followers like the fact that he’s despised by Democrats and Republicans, signaling to independents that he must be doing something right. “You guys [the press] are playing his game, you are his oxygen,” insisted Powell, not admitting that Trump has received the worst press coverage of any presidential candidate in modern history. Overwhelming articles on the Internet, broadcast and print media condemn Trump as a danger to the White House.
Hurling stones at Trump, Powell finds himself exploited by the Hillary campaign for anything possible, especially for her email scandal. Hillary likes to excuse her misbehavior by saying that’s what others did, citing an old email from Powell giving advice about using a private email account. Powell has much to lose calling his Party’s nominee an “international pariah” and “national disgrace.” When Colin owns his role in selling the U.N. Security Council and American public a bill of goods on Iraq, he’ll start facing his own historical record. When you consider the costs to the Iraq War, including the ongoing battle against ISIS and Islamic extremism, Powell must look in the mirror before hurling insults at Trump. Trump isn’t responsible for nearly 5,000 U.S. deaths and breaking the U.S. economy. Powell knows better than most the consequences of the Iraq War today and in the future.
