Powell and Rice on "weapons of mass destruction"

For better or worse, the rest of the English-speaking world gets a different kind of international news than we typically do here in America. At least it's presented quite differently.

This Australian report (via Juan Cole's blog) on a documentary that aired on British TV (ITV1, not the embattled BBC) is focused on the implications for the Austrialian Prime Minister John Howard's diplomatic support for the Iraq War, but it's certainly of interest to Americans:

[Investigative journalist John] Pilger uncovered video footage of [Secretary of State Colin] Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

Two months later, [National Security Adviser Condoleeza] Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively disarmed Saddam.

A brief review in the British Guardian gives you the idea that, gosh, maybe not everyone else in the world thinks America is always the Greatest Country in the World, as our politicians of both parties are so fond of saying:

The film's high points came when Pilger confronted the beady-eyed apologists of the Washington regime. One Douglas Feith, an undersecretary of defence [and a leading Iraq hawk], denied Pilger's evidence of civilian casualties, denied the fact that the US and the UK had supplied arms to Iraq, and seemed ready to deny that fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly until he was stopped by a sinister, unseen military minder. Others squirmed under the lash of Pilger's research, but were unshakeable in their faith in America's divine right to be right.

Maybe Fox News will pick upPilger's documentary and run it in the US. :) :)

Tags: iraq war