(11:00 p.m.) February 4, 2003: CIA Officer Reviews Terrorism Section of Powell’s UN Speech

CIA terrorism specialist Phil Mudd visits Colin Powell’s hotel suite at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City to review the terrorism section of the speech Powell will make to the UN the next morning. Mudd looks over the changes, including a deleted section on connections between Iraq and al-Qaeda. After Mudd reads the section, he says, “Looks fine.” After leaving the hotel, he will inform CIA Director George Tenet that Powell’s team had trimmed the section on Iraq’s alleged ties to militant Islamic groups. [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 230; Unger, 2007, pp. 283-284]