19 Feb 2011

Colin Powell was ‘manipulated’ by Cheney into justifying Iraq war

Colin Powell's ex-chief of staff said Thursday the former Secretary of State was lied to and manipulated by Vice President Dick Cheney into justifying the US invasion of Iraq.

The primary justifications offered by the Bush administration for invading Iraq were that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had possible links to Al-Qaeda. Both turned out to be false.

Iraqi defector "Curveball," ostensibly a source corroborating Hussein's biological and chemical weapons program, this week admitted he knowingly concocted the story in an effort to get rid of the dictator.

Lawrence Wilkerson, a retired Army Colonel who ran Powell's staff at the time, was asked by MSNBC's Cenk Uygur if he believes he and Powell were "flat-out lied to."

"I cannot come to any other conclusion," he responded, saying that some intelligence sources had warned Curveball may not be reliable. "I think there was some manipulation of the material and there was some outright lying."

Full article on The Raw Story