I MADE THE MISTAKE of watching French news the night of Colin Powell’s presentation before the Security Council. The report on Powell’s speech on A2, which is the second most important French channel, wasn’t too bad. There was a sneering summary of Powell’s argument that there is al Qaeda activity in Baghdad. “As proof, Secretary Powell presented a photograph of a man,” the broadcast reported. Naturally, there was no mention of the dramatic footage of an Iraqi-owned but French-made Mirage jet spraying chemical weapons. But overall the tone was fair.
Then they brought on a single “expert” to analyze Powell’s presentation. This fellow, who looked to be about 25 and quite pleased with himself, was completely dismissive. The Powell presentation was a mere TV show, he sniffed. It’s impossible to trust any of the intelligence data Powell presented because the CIA is notorious for lying and manipulation. The presenter showed a photograph of a weapons plant, and then the same site after it had been sanitized and the soil scraped. The expert was unimpressed: The Americans could simply have lied about the dates when the pictures were taken. Maybe the clean site is actually the earlier picture, he said.
