Colin Powell was on Meet the Press again yesterday, and this time, no “over eager” aides tried to cut off the interview prematurely. Nevertheless, there were a couple of unintentionally amusing moments.
First, I had to laugh when Powell tried to defend the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
“Even though we haven’t found actual stockpiles, we now don’t have to worry about that intention or capability anymore. It’s gone.”
That’s a comical spin, to be sure. We were worried before about Saddam Hussein having dangerous weapons, and now Powell wants us to sleep easy knowing that Hussein — who really didn’t have the weapons in the first place — won’t get his hands on WMD in the future. That’s true, I suppose, but wildly irrelevant to the problem of going to war under false pretenses.
Powell gave it another shot a few minutes later.
“…[W]e were all looking at was a body of evidence that gave you every reason to believe that he did have weapons of mass destruction. He had the intention. He used them. He stiffed the U.N. for 12 years. He had the infrastructure. He had the capability. The only thing we haven’t been able to find are actual current stockpiles of such weapons. Everything else was there. (emphasis added)
Classic stuff. Bush administration officials swore up and down that we faced an imminent threat because of Hussein’s WMD. Now Powell is arguing, with a straight face, that we found important clues about Hussein’s “intentions.” I particularly loved the phrase “the only thing.” It’s as if the actual WMD were but one small piece to a larger puzzle, instead of the primary rationale for the war in the first place.
It was also entertaining watching Powell try and explain how the State Department was wildly off-the-mark in its annual report on international terrorism.
Powell: “It was just data that was incorrect, or it wasn’t properly measured compared to the way it was measured in previous years. And so what we have to do is normalize the data this past year, 2003, in the same way that we normalized data in previous years, and we will be putting out that corrected information as fast as we can.”
Russert: “But it is embarrassing.”
Powell: “Very embarrassing. I am not a happy camper over this. We were wrong.”
I’m glad Powell is unhappy about this, and it’s encouraging to hear Powell admit that the State Department was wrong, but it’s a little disconcerting the way in which Powell offers detached apologies every time there’s a massive screw up.
When Powell is caught telling the United Nations bogus information about Iraq, he’s tells us later how frustrated he is. When the cabinet agency Powell leads is caught releasing faulty data about international terrorism, he again tells us he’s unhappy.
At what point, exactly, does Powell expect us to give up faith in his credibility? Russert at one point asked, “Why shouldn’t the American people lose all confidence in the information their government is giving them from the CIA about weapons of mass destruction, about terrorism, and who knows what else?”
Powell didn’t really have a response, other than to say, “We’re going to get it fixed. We’re going to get it corrected. And that’s the best I can do.”
No, the best he can do is to get it right the first time.