Check it out: it’s the original PowerPoint file that Colin Powell used for the 2003 UN meeting where he argued in favor of the invasion of Iraq.
As a historical document, it’s quite interesting. It’s remarkable how flimsy the evidence for war looks in retrospect. Remember the aluminum tubes? The “mobile weapons labs” that looked a lot like Winnebagos? The endless recordings of low-level Iraqi officials talking about hiding stuff? The satellite photos? It’s all here. It’s interesting how little emphasis was given to the human rights angle (only 1 out of 45 slides).
I hope that more “historical powerpoint” gets uploaded to SlideShare over time. These are important documents. And our tax dollars paid for their preperation, so they belong to us!
jonathanboutelle.com 
i have to say, even though i didn’t blog about it at the time (i wasn’t blogging yet), i never believed any of the testimony. i thought it was made up. i kept thinking how easy Colin would get ripped by a defense lawyer, if it was actually a serious proceeding. i first got interested in law when watching the clinton proceedings, but i quickly learned that credible evidence seems…credible. there’s a quality to it that is immediately apparent when it is presented and I just thought that everything Powell said would never have been allowed in a court of law – it’d be termed hearsay and speculation and myriad other objections.
Shoot – none of Powell’s ‘evidence’ would have ever been allowed to be entered as evidence in the first place – the judge probably would’ve jailed Powell for contempt for even _trying_ to submit that hokus pokus nonsense.
was Iraq even allowed to present evidence? a defense attorney, if you will?
and if u want to see something really odd, take a gander at this page:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html
looks like self-parody.