‘He lied’: Iraqis still blame Powell for role in Iraq war By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and ZEINA KARAM
BAGHDAD (AP) — For many Iraqis, the name Colin Powell conjures up one image: the man who as U.S. secretary of state went before the U.N. Security Council in 2003 to make the case for war against their country.
Word of his death Monday at age 84 dredged up feelings of anger in Iraq toward the former general and diplomat, one of several Bush administration officials whom they hold responsible for a disastrous U.S.-led invasion that led to decades of death, chaos and violence in Iraq.
His U.N. testimony was a key part of events that they say had a heavy cost for Iraqis and others in the Middle East.
“He lied, lied and lied,” said Maryam, a 51-year-old Iraqi writer and mother of two in northern Iraq who spoke on condition her last name not be used because one of her children is studying in the United States.
“He lied, and we are the ones who got stuck with never-ending wars,” she added.As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell oversaw the Persian Gulf war to oust the Iraqi army in 1991 after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
But Iraqis remember Powell more for his U.N. presentation justifying the invasion of their country more than a decade later by casting Saddam as a major global threat who possessed weapons of mass destruction, even displaying a vial of what he said could have been a biological weapon. Powell had called Iraq’s claims that it had no such weapons “a web of lies.” No WMD were ever found, however, and the speech was later derided as a low point in his career.
Word of his death Monday at age 84 dredged up feelings of anger in Iraq toward the former general and diplomat, one of several Bush administration officials whom they hold responsible for a disastrous U.S.-led invasion that led to decades of death, chaos and violence in Iraq.
His U.N. testimony was a key part of events that they say had a heavy cost for Iraqis and others in the Middle East.
“He lied, lied and lied,” said Maryam, a 51-year-old Iraqi writer and mother of two in northern Iraq who spoke on condition her last name not be used because one of her children is studying in the United States.
“He lied, and we are the ones who got stuck with never-ending wars,” she added.As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell oversaw the Persian Gulf war to oust the Iraqi army in 1991 after Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.
But Iraqis remember Powell more for his U.N. presentation justifying the invasion of their country more than a decade later by casting Saddam as a major global threat who possessed weapons of mass destruction, even displaying a vial of what he said could have been a biological weapon. Powell had called Iraq’s claims that it had no such weapons “a web of lies.” No WMD were ever found, however, and the speech was later derided as a low point in his career.
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