John McCain: Colin Powell “Got Us Into Iraq”

Senator John McCain’s reaction to Colin Powell’s unsurprising endorsement of the President for re-election is, to say the least, extremely odd:

Fairfax, Va. — Senator John McCain blasted Colin Powell this morning in an interview with National Review Online.

Powell “got us into Iraq,” McCain said.

That fact, he asserted, lessens Powell’s purported appeal to undecided voters, especially those critical of the Iraq War.

“Colin Powell, interestingly enough, said that Obama got us out of Iraq,” McCain said, standing outside of an American Legion hall. “But it was Colin Powell, with his testimony before the U.N. Security Council, that got us into Iraq.”

Gee and here I thought it was the President at the time, George W. Bush, who Powell happened to work for at the time, who did that. Indeed, Powell was at the U.N. that day as the representative of the United States utilizing intelligence that had been provided by the CIA and other intelligence sources. McCain also seems to have forgotten that he supported the Iraq War and that his party’s nominee has criticized the President for not finding a way to get the Iraqis to agree to let us keep troops in country after December 31, 2011.

But you heard it from John McCain, folks. The Iraq War? That’s Colin Powell’s fault.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, Iraq War, US Politics, , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. mantis says:

    What a douchebag. McCain would triple invade Iraq if given the chance, and everyone knows it. He’s probably whining to some reporter right now how we should have never left.

  2. michael reynolds says:

    This is so depressing. To see a man I once admired a great deal continue to spiral ever further downward. It’s a sort of death almost.

  3. legion says:

    That’s astounding. I totally want to see two old men get into a fistfight now.

  4. C. Clavin says:

    Obviously he is trying his best to make his bimbo daughter look smart.

  5. Bleev K says:

    @C. Clavin:
    Sarah Palin?

  6. MBunge says:

    @michael reynolds: “To see a man I once admired a great deal continue to spiral ever further downward.”

    In his quest for the White House, McCain whored himself out to the very forces that savaged him in 200, only to see himself first supplanted by Palin and then defeated by Obama. That’s got to be one of the bitterest pills any politician has ever had to swallow and McCain’s never gotten over the aftertaste.

    Mike

  7. C. Clavin says:

    OK…OTB pool time…$1 per entry..
    At what time does Jan post a comment saying McCain is right?
    At what time does Tsar post a comment saying McCain is right?

  8. OzarkHillbilly says:

    shakes head sadly….

  9. Scott says:

    I clearly remember before the Iraq War when Colin Powell went before the UN. I remember telling my neighbor at the time my doubts about the whole situation. However, I did trust Colin Powell at the time. I also said that if he is snowing us I will never forgive. After 4000 dead, trillions wasted, nothing gained, I still will never forgive. Even though I am still a Republican, that anger still drives me to vote against these people that have reaped more destruction upon this country than any other group. McCain is in that group and even though Powell seems to have repented, I still will not forget nor forgive.

  10. anjin-san says:

    Does McCain need to have Lieberman whispering in his ear to keep the players straight?

  11. Rafer Janders says:

    And wait a minute, doesn’t McCain think it was a good thing we got into Iraq? He certainly seemed to think it was a good idea at the time.

  12. mattb says:

    Wow, that took a lot of gall on McCain’s part.

    Now, here’s a hard question — whose response to Powell’s endorsement has been doucier: McCain’s twisted logic (and forgetting his continued support for the Iraq war) or Sununu’s saying that this was a race based decision on the same day he argues that Obama is trying to win by racially dividing the nation?

  13. swbarnes2 says:

    @Scott:

    After 4000 dead,

    Umm, did you mean to write that? Surely you didn’t mean to say that thousands of dead Iraqis just don’t count.

  14. legion says:

    @C. Clavin: I’m more up for a pool on which Repub will be the first to actually drop the “N-word”… My money’s on Sunnunu – he’s got a history of mouthiness, and he’s one of the dumbest people in DC (and that’s a pretty high bar).

  15. Scott says:

    @swbarnes2: Yes, we can add the dead Iraqi soldiers and civilians to that list of tragedies. We can also added the tens (100s?) of thousands of the permanently wounded military and civilian burn victims, amputees, and mentally damaged.

  16. PD Shaw says:

    Sorry, don’t see this as odd at all. I don’t believe its an overstatement to say that but for Powell’s testimony before the U.N., the invasion of Iraq may not have happened. He was a uniquely popular and respected figure that unlike the rest of us, had access to the intelligence.

    And McCain isn’t blaming Powell for Iraq, he’s pointing out how ironic it is for Powell to endorse Obama for getting us out of a war he helped get us into.

  17. bk says:

    Well, since the guy that Powell is endorsing got us out of Iraq, and since the guy that he isn’t endorsing wants us to stay there, I guess that means that McCain is supporting Obama. That is, if McCain was a logical person.

  18. mantis says:

    @legion:

    I’m more up for a pool on which Repub will be the first to actually drop the “N-word”… My money’s on Sunnunu – he’s got a history of mouthiness, and he’s one of the dumbest people in DC (and that’s a pretty high bar).

    I think Sarah “Shuck and Jive” Palin might get there first.

  19. mantis says:

    @PD Shaw:

    And McCain isn’t blaming Powell for Iraq, he’s pointing out how ironic it is for Powell to endorse Obama for getting us out of a war he helped get us into.

    Just because he helped make the case for war doesn’t mean he wanted it to last forever, like McCain did.

  20. swbarnes2 says:

    @mantis:

    Just because he helped make the case for war doesn’t mean he wanted it to last forever, like McCain did.

    What’s the ratio of posts and replies here about how one conservative or another feels, or thinks, versus the number of posts about the effects of the policies that these conservatives support?

    9:1? Does anyone else think that’s awfully skewed?

    Really, start keeping count about people here talking about what Romney, or McCain, or Trump really thinks (Romney doesn’t really think that rape victims don’t get pregnant, Trump doesn’t believe birtherism, he just wants attention, Powell didn’t really want Iraq to unfold like it did), versus the counts of posts and replies talking about the effects of their words. (like, what is be the effect on women when their access to abortion is drastically curtailed, what is the effect on our country when when one of the two major parties of our country constantly claims that the a centrist black president is a lying Muslim Kenyan socialist who wants to destroy the country)

    Or can we at least be upfront and explicit about the fact that valuing the feelings and intentions and inmost thoughts of conservatives 10x more than the effects of their policies on people who aren’t straight white males is and always will be the order of the day on a conservative site?

  21. Hal 10000 says:

    Every time McCain opens his mouth, he sounds more and more deranged. He’s almost making me glad he lost in 2008.

  22. BigEd says:

    The first to drop the N-word in the new Romney presidency will be John Bolton. He never met an Moslem country he didn’t want to bomb.

  23. Tillman says:

    @PD Shaw:

    I don’t believe its an overstatement to say that but for Powell’s testimony before the U.N., the invasion of Iraq may not have happened.

    It is, since Powell did not convince the Security Council to approve the Iraq war. It was in spite of Powell’s efforts that the war started, not because of them.

    @swbarnes2: You’ve trawled through the entirety of OTB’s comment threads and arrived at that ratio then, yes? Pardon me, but that sounds like a colossal waste of time.

    People discuss the inner motivations of those committing such acts because that’s a moral standard by which to evaluate someone’s actions, and since it’s the standard most nebulous to outsiders it makes great fodder for debate. That conservatives do so for other conservatives on a conservative website shouldn’t be alarming, and shouldn’t be considered a point worth bringing up.

  24. M. Bouffant says:

    @legion:
    Sununu’s already being put under wraps. He cancelled an NPR appearance today.

  25. dmhlt says:

    Let us not forget that McCain himself was a Co-Sponsor of Senate Joint Resolution 46, titled “Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against Iraq”

    http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:SJ00046:@@@P

  26. Barry says:

    @michael reynolds: “This is so depressing. To see a man I once admired a great deal continue to spiral ever further downward. It’s a sort of death almost. ”

    The wh*reson never deserved anybody’s respect. It’s doubly so in this case because the man never saw a war that he didn’t want us in, and as pointed out would gladly invade Iran if given the chance.

  27. al-Ameda says:

    John McCain such a hack. Honestly, the Republican Party should file for Bankruptcy protection.

    The question is, are the American voters ready to put back into the White House, the same people who presided over the precipitous crash of the financial and housing markets in 2008? They are certainly dumb enough to do it.

  28. Andy says:

    @Barry: The man gave the ability to raise his arms above his head for his country show some respect