Late December 2002: White House Complains That Draft of Powell’s UN Speech is Lacking in Detail

Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin and Robert Walpole, the agency’s national intelligence officer for nuclear weapons, share an early draft of a rebuttal to Iraq’s December 7 declaration (see December 7, 2002) with National Security Council staffers. The White House intends to use the report as the basis for Colin Powell’s upcoming speech before the UN Security Council. But the NSC staffers find it lacking in detail, and the White House tells McLaughlin and Walpole to keep working on it. [Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 175]