20 years ago, the U.S. warned of Iraq’s alleged ‘weapons of mass …
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax as he addresses the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 at the U.N. in New York. Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Then-U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax as he addresses the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 at the U.N. in New York.
This is part of a special series where NPR looks back at our coverage of major news stories in the past. Listen to the full audio story to hear excerpts from Colin Powell's U.N. speech and more of NPR's archival audio.
There wasn't just one moment that led to the Iraq War. But one speech, delivered 20 years ago at the United Nations, would come to define and undermine the conflict.
On Feb. 5, 2003, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell sat in front of members of the U.N. Security Council. He'd been a staunch critic of U.S. intervention against Iraq's authoritarian leader, Saddam Hussein.
But with the world watching, Powell made a case for war.
"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources solid sources," he said. "These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
Powell used information that intelligence officials assured him was credible. There were reconnaissance photos, elaborate maps and charts, and even taped phone conversations between senior members of Iraq's military.
"Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons," Powell said. "Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again against his neighbors, and against his own people."
Powell repeatedly used one phrase during his hour-long speech: "weapons of mass destruction." He said those words a total of 17 times. It was the phrase the Bush administration kept publicly using to help justify invading Iraq.
A month and a half after the U.N. speech, President Bush ordered air strikes over Baghdad. It marked the beginning of a military operation "to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger," Bush said in a televised address to the nation.
U.S. forces toppled Hussein's regime in a matter of weeks, and the search intensified for evidence of Iraq's so-called "weapons of mass destruction." But the weapons were nowhere to be found.
Americans started asking questions.
"It's kind of embarrassing they haven't found anything," said Allen Hunley, a Tennessee dentist who spoke to NPR in July 2003 while attending the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. "It's almost like they were salesmen and they had a thing to sell."
National security analyst Joseph Cirincione also criticized Powell's speech in comments to NPR. Particularly, Powell's assurances that there was solid evidence behind his claims of sophisticated and illicit Iraqi weapons programs.
"Now we know that that just wasn't true," said Cirincione, then the director for non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
California Rep. Jane Harman served as the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and voted in support of the 2002 measure OK'ing the use of military force against Iraq. Reports of a "very long and scary list of active weapons of mass destruction" influenced that decision, Harman told NPR.
"I believed what I was told," Harman said on All Things Considered in January 2004. "And I'm as surprised as you that it turns out that there are no stockpiles of weapons."
Journalists and members of Congress started digging into the rationale for war laid out in Powell's U.N. speech. They discovered faulty and exaggerated reports from an intelligence community under political pressure from top White House officials.
There were also claims Bush took advantage of Powell's reputation by dispatching him to the U.N.
"As Bush said to him at the time, 'Maybe they'll believe you. Maybe the audience will believe you,' " journalist and Powell biographer Karen DeYoung told NPR in 2006. "Because it was always clear in the Bush administration that Powell was more popular than anyone else."
To this day, the Iraq War is widely viewed as a foreign policy and humanitarian disaster. The conflict dragged on for almost nine years and claimed nearly 4,500 American lives. Over 185,000 Iraqi civilians were killed, according to Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. Some 2 million Iraqis had been displaced from their homes by the time U.S. forces pulled out in 2011.
Three years later, President Obama ordered troops back to Iraq to help combat the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS assuring Americans he would not commit to "another ground war." U.S. forces officially withdrew in December 2021 after almost seven years of fighting.
Powell later called his U.N. speech a "great intelligence failure" and a "blot" on his record, telling NBC News' Meet the Press in 2004 he trusted the information he'd gotten.
"But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and in some cases deliberately misleading," Powell said. "And for that, I am disappointed. And I regret it."
Continued here:
20 years ago, the U.S. warned of Iraq's alleged 'weapons of mass ...
- Stop Analogizing Iraq in 2003 to Iran in 2025 - RealClearDefense - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- PKK fighters pile up their weapons in arms amnesty in Northern Iraq - CNN - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Leveraging Irans Defeat to Strengthen U.S.-Iraq Security Relations - The Washington Institute - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- PKK militants in Iraq begin laying down arms as part of peace process with Turkey - MSN - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Explosive drone downed near Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq's Kirkuk province - The Jerusalem Post - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Kurdish PKK militants burn their weapons at symbolic ceremony in Iraq - Stockholm Center for Freedom - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Kurdish separatist fighters in Iraq begin laying down weapons as part of peace process with Turkey - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Kurdish separatist fighters in Iraq begin laying down weapons as part of peace process with Turkey - PinalCentral.com - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- PKK fighters in Iraq burn weapons in disarming ceremony - Yahoo - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Explosive drone downed near military base in northern Iraq - Latest news from Azerbaijan - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Kurdish Separatist Fighters in Iraq Begin Laying Down Weapons as Part of Peace Process with Turkey - The National Herald - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Kurdish separatist fighters in Iraq begin laying down weapons as part of peace process with Turkey - Corsicana Daily Sun - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Historic Moment as PKK Members Begin Disarming in Northern Iraq - tovima.com - July 12th, 2025 [July 12th, 2025]
- Trump announces tariffs on six more countries including Philippines and Iraq - The Indian Express - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Trump announces new tariffs including for Iraq, Brazil and the Philippines - Al Jazeera - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Twelve Turkish soldiers killed by gas exposure during cave search in Iraq - Reuters - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- PKK Disarmament to Take a Few Months in Iraq, Turkey Ruling Party Says - U.S. News & World Report - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- America and Israels plan to destroy Iraq, Syria and Iran set the entire Middle East on fire - Analyst News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Iraq: Protecting womens rights, reforming law - The Lutheran World Federation - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Harsanyi: Trump learned the lessons of Iraq - The Detroit News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- PKK disarmament to take a few months in Iraq, Turkey ruling party says - The Mighty 790 KFGO - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Trump hits Iraq with 30% tariffs as he releases 7 new letters - Global News - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Five Turkish soldiers killed by methane gas during northern Iraq cave search - France 24 - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Watch Trump Reveals New Batch of Tariffs From Iraq to Philippines - Bloomberg.com - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Trump slaps new tariffs on Sri Lanka, Iraq, 5 other countries with a warning: If you raise your - The Economic Times - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Iraq committed to ending Kurdistan salary deadlock - Shafaq News - - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Trump enforces new tariffs on Iraq, five other nations - Shafaq News - - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Iraq steers clear of Khor Abdullah crisis amid fears of Trumps reaction - The Arab Weekly - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Trump Slaps 30% Tariff On Iraq, Says Its Less Than What Is Needed - Stocktwits - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- From August 1, the United States will impose duties on imports from Algeria, Libya and Iraq. - - - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Kurdish PKK to hand over weapons in Iraq in peace process with Turkey - The Jerusalem Post - July 10th, 2025 [July 10th, 2025]
- Iraq Aims to Export Surplus Oil Products After Refinery Upgrades - Bloomberg - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Why Iran's Shah declined Iraq's Saddam Hussein's bid to kill Khomenei - The Jerusalem Post - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Iraq Lifts Oil Output by 80,000 bpd Across Three Key Fields - Crude Oil Prices Today | OilPrice.com - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Trump learned the lessons of Iraq - Temple Daily Telegram - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- UN Special Representative for Iraq and Head of UNAMI, Dr. Mohamed Al Hassan, visits Karbala Governorate [EN/AR] - ReliefWeb - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Turkey: Five soldiers killed by methane gas in Iraq cave search - The New Arab - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- I needed to leave Man United to grow: Zidane Iqbal on identity, Iraq and a new start in Utrecht - thenationalnews.com - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- Turkeys water policies leave Iraq parched and poised for unrest - The Arab Weekly - July 8th, 2025 [July 8th, 2025]
- The Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces is behind the drone attacks on Iraq - Yahoo - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Iraq, But Funny at Lookingglass Theatre | Weve Got Your Ticket - CBS News - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Turkey gives drought-stricken Iraq more water in boost to PM Sudani - AL-Monitor - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Is Kurdish Protection of Assyrians in North Iraq a Myth? - Assyrian International News Agency - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Eight OPEC+ alliance members including Iraq move toward output hike - Iraqi News - July 6th, 2025 [July 6th, 2025]
- Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq to hand over weapons in first step toward disarmament - AP News - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Reconstruction Firms Hear Plan for Rebuilding Southern Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Gates Vows to Focus on Iraq, Troop Welfare if Confirmed - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Corps' Command Change Marks Year Of Iraq Transition - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Iraqi Government Prepares to Take Control of Sons of Iraq Program - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Top NCOs Inform Soldiers in Iraq of Wartime Training Changes - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Operation New Town Molds Trust in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - On the Ground: Forces Build Cooperation, Security in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Sheik Meeting Leads to Information on al Qaeda in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - On the Ground: U.S. Forces Build Security at Sea, On Land in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Biden, Odierno Preside Over Naturalization Ceremony in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Face of Defense: Marine Amputee Who Returned to Iraq Earns Fellowship - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Face of Defense: Twins Serve Together in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Face of Defense: Deployed Soldier Keeps Wheels Turning in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Face of Defense: Canadian-Born Soldier Serves as Sniper in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- How regional shifts may shape the future of the Iraq-Syria relationship - Amwaj.media - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- News - Hagel: All Assessments Needed for Full Picture in Iraq - DVIDS - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Sadr Links Election Participation to Militia Disarmament in Iraq - kurdistan24.net - July 4th, 2025 [July 4th, 2025]
- Refusing the leash: How Iraq shut its skies to Tel Aviv and held the line with Washington - thecradle.co - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- In Iraq, restored tomb of biblical prophet Nahum quietly attracts Jewish pilgrimage - The Times of Israel - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Rockets fired at northern Iraq airport, one hits house; two lightly wounded - The Times of Israel - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- United Nations in Iraq condemns attack in IDP camp in Duhok [EN/AR/KU] - ReliefWeb - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Iran, Iraq hold critical talks following delivery of Araghchis letter on regional security - Tehran Times - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Turkey to Increase Tigris and Euphrates Water Flow to Iraq Starting Wednesday - kurdistan24.net - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Turkey approves increased water flow to aid Iraq amid growing crisis - rudaw.net - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Iraq pilgrimages proceed by land due to flight restrictions - Tehran Times - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- 'Oh, here we go': For Iraq veterans, bombing of Iran opens old wounds - San Antonio Express-News - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Woman in Najaf Dies of Hemorrhagic Fever as Iraq's CCHF Cases Continue to Rise - kurdistan24.net - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Israel illegally used Iraq's airspace to attack Iran - Mehr News Agency - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Has the UK really learned the lessons of Iraq? Don't count on it - The New Arab - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Turkey hands over Babylonian and Akkadian clay tablets to Iraq - The Jerusalem Post - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- 'Iraq, But Funny': A new satire tracing 5 generations of Assyrian women hits the stage - FOX 32 Chicago - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Iraq calls on Sudan to cease fighting - Iraqi News - July 2nd, 2025 [July 2nd, 2025]
- Redefining and Strengthening the U.S.-Iraq Relationship Through Energy and Security - The Washington Institute - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Iraq revives bid to resume oil exports through Turkey - Arabian Gulf Business Insight | AGBI - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]
- Syrian authorities uncover mass grave near Iraq border - Shafaq News - - June 29th, 2025 [June 29th, 2025]