January 26, 2003: Colin Powell Asserts Iraq Trying to Obtain Uranium and Equipment to Produce Nuclear Weapon

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in a speech before the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, asks, “Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?” [Washington Post, 8/8/2003] Author Craig Unger will later write, “In referring to the Niger deal (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001) and the aluminum tubes (see Between April 2001 and September 2002), Powell was actually betraying his own State Department analysts who had rejected these two key pieces of ‘evidence’ against Saddam” Hussein (see March 1, 2002, March 4, 2002, and January 12, 2003). [Unger, 2007, pp. 276]