Powell Denies He Was Out of Loop on Iraq [View All]

[maddezmom]

Powell Denies He Was Out of Loop on Iraq

Monday April 19, 2004 9:46 PM


By BARRY SCHWEID

AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Denying he was out of the loop or hesitant about taking on Saddam Hussein, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday he was committed to President Bush's war plan in the event diplomacy failed at the United Nations last year.

``I was as committed as anyone else to seeing an end to this regime, the destruction of this regime that put people in mass graves,'' Powell told The Associated Press in an interview.

Disputing an account by Bob Woodward in a new book, ``Plan of Attack,'' Powell said Bush and all his national security advisers had agreed in August 2002 to ask the U.N. Security Council to seek a peaceful resolution and to go to war if the effort failed.

Powell dismissed Woodward's suggestion that Bush already had made up his mind by Jan. 11 last year to go to war against Iraq and that Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, had been informed of the decision that day.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3995963,00.html