Powell refuses to answer questions about torture-Iraq war link.
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on May 27th, 2009 4:33 am by HL
Powell refuses to answer questions about torture-Iraq war link.
Earlier this month, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, revealed that the reason why detainee Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was waterboarded was not to prevent another terrorist attack, but to unearth “a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.” This false confession was later used by Powell in his infamous February 2003 U.N. speech making […]
Earlier this month, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff, Larry Wilkerson, revealed that the reason why detainee Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was waterboarded was not to prevent another terrorist attack, but to unearth “a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.” This false confession was later used by Powell in his infamous February 2003 U.N. speech making the case for the Iraq war. On Sunday, blogger Sam Husseini asked Powell about al-Libi. In a tense exchange, Powell refused to talk about the detainee, saying, “I don’t have any details on the al-Libi case:”
Q: Your chief of staff, Wilkerson, has written about this.
POWELL: So what? [inaudible]
Q: So you’d think you’d know about it.
POWELL: The information I presented to the UN was vetted by the CIA. Every word came from the CIA and they stood behind all that information. I don’t know that any of them believe that torture was involved. I don’t know that in fact. A lot of speculation, particularly by people who never attended any of these meetings, but I’m not aware of it.
Watch it:
A recent Senate Intelligence committee report concluded that al-Libi lied about the link “to avoid torture.” “They were killing me,” al-Libi told the FBI about his interrgators. “I had to tell them something.”
Kristol Ball fails: Predicted on Sunday that Granholm would be Supreme Court nominee.
Today, President Obama picked Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. On Fox News Sunday this past week, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol (ie “Kristol Ball”) confidently predicted that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) would be the next Supreme Court nominee: KRISTOL: I think he has made up his mind, and I think it’s going to […]
Today, President Obama picked Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. On Fox News Sunday this past week, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol (ie “Kristol Ball”) confidently predicted that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D) would be the next Supreme Court nominee:
KRISTOL: I think he has made up his mind, and I think it’s going to be Jennifer Granholm, the governor of Michigan, for this reason. Obama gave that interview Friday which we saw the snippet from. In that interview, he uses the term practical seven times — I want someone with a practical sense of how the world works, I want someone with practical experience. Obama knows what he’s doing, and I think he wants to say, I’m putting on someone who went to Harvard Law School, clerked at an appellate level, was attorney general of Michigan, has good quotes from Republicans and Democrats about their conduct of that legal office, but who really understands the effect on real-world decisions.
Watch it:
Bill Kristol has also wrongly predicted that Ted Stevens would “hang on” in Alaska, that McCain would conquer “the path to the presidency,” and that Colin Powell would endorse President Obama at the 2008 DNC.
