Firedoglake: Colin Powell, Still 1 for 6

My friend, the notable LA write Paul Cullum, sends me the following (edited slightly to embed links): Here's something that's always troubled me:

When Powell gave his presentation at the U.N., he presented the following evidence:

o A tape of two Republican Guard officers discussing how to hide mobil weapons labs.
o Satellite photos of chemical munitions bunkers, indicated by the removal of trucks and materiel in the weeks before IAEA inspections.
o Interviews with an Iraqi scientist attesting to mobil weapons labs on wheels and rails.
o No evidence that their VX nerve gas was ever destroyed.
o Aluminum tubes that were alleged to be parts of centrifuges to create fissionable material.
o A high-ranking Al Qaeda member who alleged a link between terrorists and Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi scientist was the notorious Curveball, a famed dissembler, alcoholic and con man. The Al Qaeda operative is this week identified as a current Guantanamo prisoner who officials knew was lying at the time. The aluminum tubes were substituted by Powell at the last minute to replace the Niger-yellowcake connection favored by the President in his State of the Union speech, a claim that was demonstrably false, and the tubes were later identified as rocket fuselages with no connection to uranium. The VX nerve gas was apparently destroyed, unless of course Saddam Hussein is still saving it for when he really needs it. And the movement of of trucks, etc. prior to weapons inspections, according to chief inspectors Blix and ElBaradei, could easily have occurred in the normal course of business, and in no way suggest the presence of chemical over more traditional weapons.