Nice try, Colin.

[khaosworks]

So a few hours ago, like everyone else (well, you should have been watching, anyway - take a little interest in the world around you, won'tcha?) I was watching Colin Powell give his impassioned plea to the UN Security Council. Impressive as it was, sadly, it was nearly all circumstantial and based on informants rather than hard evidence - and truth to tell, from the really quick way China had a reply all planned, the members of the Security Council had pretty much made up their minds and their positions from the get-go, so Powell could have saved his breath as far as convincing that lot went. The outcome was obvious - the inspections would go forward and be given more time. The question is, now, will Bush & Co. go ahead without UN sanction?

A more immediate question though, I suppose, is how convincing Powell's presentation would be to the viewer. I mean, this is as much as the US is prepared to show its hand on, so I pretty much guess they've shot their bolt. If this was the case for the Prosecution, how would it fare?

To be continued when I get to the airport and go on-line from there. (Ooo! Suspense!)

Comments

[almeda.livejournal.com]

(caveat - I heard it live on the radio, instead of watching the pictures)

The most interesting thing he said, IMHO, was the shots of hurried evacs of sites two days before inspection. He implied they had lots of footage showing this in multiple sites. If so, that's the closest to a smoking gun I've seen so far in this whole thing, and certainly does prove intent to deceive (as well as serious leakage in the inspector group).

[sdelmonte]

I chose to read the accounts of the speech in the NY Times online. I have to say that a lot of the evidence about the intent to deceive is rather convincing. (Ironic that without the inspections, there would be a lot less to use for this event.) But I've never doubted that Iraq has such weapons. So this speech made a case for war that is in some ways logical.

But it doesn't answer a lot of other questions that I don't even hear being asked. Why attack now, after all this time? How do you wage a war meant to disarm someone when he can use those weapons against you? How can we put Iraq so far ahead of North Korea in the grand scheme when North Korea is so much closer to having the bomb and also has the same arsenal? How can we ensure that in the chaos of war, those hideous WMDs don't find their way to worse hands? What happens if the war is not another easy Afghanistan-style victory? How do we protect ourselves against terror attacks likely to occur with the war? Can we chase after Al Qaeda agents and fight Iraq at once? Does this war run the risk of pushing Al Qaeda and Iraq closer together?

Saddam deserves to be driven from power. His weapons should be dismantled. The world would be a better place. And a war to disarm him, under international sanction, would be just. But I can't shake the fear that it's not the best idea, or that no one has thought it through.

And I keep wondering what any other president or potential president would do. What would Gore have done, or Clinton, or Nixon?