Powell's Doublespeak: "Baghdad Back Flip"

http://slate.msn.com/id/2078437/

Baghdad Back Flip
Colin Powell's cynical reversal.
By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, February 11, 2003, at 1:28 PM PT 

If you want to know why people don't trust what the United States says
about Iraq, get a load of what Secretary of State Colin Powell said this
morning.

On Oct. 7, 2001, Arab TV superstation Al Jazeera aired a video in which
Osama Bin Laden suggested that he was fighting for Iraq and Palestine.
"One million Iraqi children have thus far died in Iraq although they did
not do anything wrong," Bin Laden protested. "Israeli tanks and tracked
vehicles also enter to wreak havoc in Palestine … and we hear no voices
raised."

When Powell testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
later that month, he dismissed Bin Laden's claims. "We cannot let Usama
bin Laden pretend that he is doing it in the name of helping the Iraqi
people or the Palestinian people," said Powell. "He doesn't care one
whit about them. He has never given a dollar toward them. He has never
spoken out for them."
 
That was then; this is now. Tuesday morning, Powell testified before the
Senate Budget Committee. He warned that Al Jazeera would soon air a new
Bin Laden statement in which "once again he speaks to the people of Iraq
and talks about their struggle and how he is in partnership with Iraq.
This nexus between terrorists and states that are developing weapons of
mass destruction can no longer be looked away from and ignored."

You can write the next paragraph yourself. Sixteen months ago, Powell
wanted to isolate Bin Laden from other Muslims, so he said Bin Laden was
lying about being involved in Iraq. Now Powell wants to justify war
against Iraq, so he says Bin Laden is telling the truth. Same claim,
same media outlet, same speaker, same U.S. official assessing the claim,
same congressional venue, different U.S. agenda, different result.

The punch line?  Bin Laden was talking about hypocrisy.