A reader points out to me this passage in Colin Powell’s Thursday press briefing which I’m embarrassed to say I hadn’t yet noticed. A momentary, but revealing departure from message …
I think the President in the State of the Union address had this sentence in there and it talked about efforts on the part of Iraq to obtain uranium from sources in Africa. There was sufficient evidence floating around at that time that such a statement was not totally outrageous or not to be believed or not to be appropriately used. It’s that once we used the statement and, after further analysis and looking at other estimates we had and other information that was coming in, it turned out that the basis upon which that statement was made didn’t hold up. And we said so. And we’ve acknowledged it and we’ve moved on. [emphasis added]
Holding people to momentary, extemporaneous phrasings is often unfair. But in this case I think Powell’s first characterization was probably closer to his true views. The uranium charges cleared the “not totally outrageous” bar, but not much more than that. Powell wanted to apply a higher standard. Now he’s holding the bag.
