(15 key slides from the infamous 2003 UN presentation making the case for war with Iraq, with anotations. Click the pause button on lower left if slides change too fast for you.)
Ten years ago today (February 5, 2003) then Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered his infamous PowerPoint Presentation before a full session of the U.N., detailing "evidence" of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons development along with the development of advanced delivery systems.
(GlobalSecurity has the entire 45 slide presentation, plus videos, here.)
With a bit of Googling, I was able to find out just what became of each site/item depicted in these slides. Not a single item shown that day turned out to be true. While reviewing these slides, keep in mind that the United States went to war, and over 4,000 American troops (not to mention and untold number of Iraqi civilians) died based on the claims made in these slides.
(Author's Note: I suppose I have to tell insane Right-Wingers that this post should IN NO WAY be misconstrued as a "defense" of Saddam Hussein. The dictator of Iraq was a monster and earned his place in hell, but the world is FULL of evil dictators and the U.S. cannot be responsible for deposing all of them. Likewise, thousands of U.S. and coalition troops gave their lives fighting a war based on the "evidence" presented in this slideshow, and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians died. In fact, arguably, more Iraqis died in our 8-year war than under the 24-year reign of Saddam Hussein.)
(Additional videos below the fold.)
Over the past decade, I've collected numerous videos detailing just how comically false so many of the claims made that day turned out to be (most are quite old, so forgive the quality):
[oldembed src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3_pwdnL6Em4" width="420" height="315" resize="1" fid="21"]
(Two days before Pres. Bush stated in an interview that "we found... the mobile labs" he claimed were in Iraq, the DIA had already reported them as "the biggest sand toilets in the world.")
Four months AFTER the invasion of Iraq, the Bush White House admitted that the claims of Iraq having a nuclear program were bogus:
[oldembed src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZqGsAKBy0CA" width="420" height="315" resize="1" fid="21"]
Three years later, an investigation by the Republican-controlled Senate finds there never was a Saddam/alQaeda link either:
[oldembed src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GDz6e7CdmbA" width="420" height="315" resize="1" fid="21"]
Just under 4,500 U.S. troops, 300+ coalition troops, and over 110,000 confirmed Iraqi civilians were killed (with some estimates topping 1million) in a war based on this misinformation. To this day, not a single Bush Administration official has been prosecuted for their role in drumming up this case for war (not to mention the crimes that followed. See : Abu Ghraib.)
