The Daily Background

On Sunday’s edition of Meet the Press, host Tim Russert asked Powell about the situation in Iraq, specifically about whether or not the then-Secretary of State would have supported the decision to go to war knowing what he knows now.

Powell became possibly the first former Administration official to say that if he had known what he knows now, he would not have supported the war in Iraq. Members of the Bush Administration, though they frequently get questions like this, have said that they would either have attacked Iraq anyway, as President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney insist, or say that the question is an unfair hypothetical that can’t be answered.

“In light of the fact that we did not find the weapons of mass destruction, the President still describes the war as a war of choice–err necessity, rather than a war of choice,” Russert noted, perhaps with a Freudian slip. “Knowing what you know today, would you do the same thing over again?”

Powell answered that he did not even think the case for war could have been made if the Administration knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Watch the video:

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