Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday accused critics of politicizing the US' failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and said it is getting on his nerves.
"Yeah, it does get on your nerves when you see people trying to use this for straightforward political purposes," Powell said in a television interview.
"But, you know, that's the nature of this town in an election season," he said about the controversy over prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons capability.
"But the president was absolutely right in what he did. And we were all standing behind him on this one," Powell told Fox Television's The Sean Hannity Show.
Claims that Iraq had stocks of chemical and biological weapons were the main reason Bush cited for taking America to war in Iraq, in which more than 500 US troops have died.
Bush is scrambling to limit the political fallout after the former chief US weapons hunter David Kay concluded that almost all the prewar intelligence about Iraq's suspected unconventional weapons was wrong.
Powell also defended President George W. Bush against what he called "scurrilous attacks" on Bush's military service.
The White House was on the defensive this week over Bush's record in the Texas Air National Guard, far from the battlefields of Vietnam, after Democrats accused him of going "AWOL."
It denied charges that Bush had shirked his military duties in the early 1970s, unlike Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran.
"It's very disturbing, and I wish this kind of attack wouldn't take place," said Powell, a retired US general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"Let's get on to the issues of the day and not reach back for these kinds of scurrilous attacks, especially against a commander-in-chief who is fighting wars right now in active theaters in Afghanistan and in Iraq and on the global war against terrorism."
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was