In an important interview granted to ABC, General Colin Powell publicly confessed that his speech delivered at the UN, in which he had denounced the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was regrettable and that it “would put a stain on his file”. The former Secretary of State acknowledged that his report to the Security Council was only intended to give credit to the accusations from the administration and that the intelligence services had not “worked properly”.

He also added that he never found any connection between Iraq and the September 11th attacks as neither was there a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.

“I’m always a reluctant warrior. And I don’t resent the term, I admire the term, but when the president decided that it was not tolerable for this regime to remain in violation of all these U.N. resolutions, I’m right there with him with the use of force", he said.
General Powell’s statements are an elegant way to declare himself unfit for the new and desperate work that President George W. Bush has wanted to entrust him with: taking care of New Orleans’ survivors and draining a territory as large as Great Britain invaded by the ocean.