Last week I came across the transcript of Colin Powell's testimony to the UN on February 5, 2003. All the quotes that follow are from that source; I added italics here and there and interspersed some questions Powell's statements bring to mind.

My second purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you what the United States knows about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, as well as Iraq's involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution 1441 and other earlier resolutions.

I might add at this point that we are providing all relevant information we can to the inspection teams for them to do their work.

[If we knew where the WMD was and gave all our info to the UN inspectors, why didn't they find it?]

What you will see is an accumulation of facts...

My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries.

[Say it often enough and it must be true, right?]

The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world. Let me now turn to those deadly weapons programs and describe why they are real and present dangers to the region and to the world.

And they have not accounted for many of the [biological] weapons filled with these agents such as there are 400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well documented.

[400 bombs filled with biological agents have vanished?]

There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction.

Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again -- against his neighbors and against his own people. And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized his field commanders to use them. He wouldn't be passing out the orders if he didn't have the weapons or the intent to use them.

[And yet he didn't.]

What I want you to know today is that Iraq has programs that are intended to produce ballistic missiles that fly over 1,000 kilometers. One program is pursuing a liquid fuel missile that would be able to fly more than 1,200 kilometers.

[Where are they?]

It's worth acknowledging (before a Bush apologist jumps on the obvious) that, of course, these quotes represent only a small fraction of Secretary Powell's testimony to the UN. Are they selective quotes? Well of course they are...because Powell apparently used the time-tested technique of sprinkling key false statements throughout a bed of generally true (although always vague) statements. What's striking about these quotes is the concrete and unambiguous wording: "we know", "these are not assertions, these are facts", "corroborated by many sources", and on and on. I want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt because I used to respect him, and I'd let it slide if one or two of his unambiguous statements hadn't panned out. But none of them? What am I supposed to think? What is any reasonable person supposed to think?